Cherry Sparked Dreams

Smoke filled rooms seem to be scattered across my past
Lodging themselves into every couch cushion
And tangible representation of self
I drink it in like some great elixir
A personal fight against information

With one hand the world offers comfort
With the other an empty place to dwell
In nothingness
And I snatch at the invisible
Because I'm convinced
There's something waiting there
Behind the smoke screen

And I'm forced to move to
Self imposed sessions of sanity
Because the ground beneath me
Moves faster than I do
And I've been caught up more than once
Knocking myself down
Foot meets calf, face meets floor

But I find it comforting
That the cool ground beneath me
No matter how fast it may be spinning
Is there to catch me when I fall
Over and over again
And it pauses long enough for me to stand
Before stumbling off
On the next great adventure
With my unsteady mortal legs

The sky is crowded with chemicals
That rain down on my head
Conspicuously enough
And coat my body with another worry
Invisible films of authority
Spread across my character
With surgical surety
Filling in all the cracks
Until I'm trapped in an invisible world
Of obsession
Running from all the same monsters
But lacking all the up to date information
Because its like living in a zip-lock bag
And the outside world is just a smear
On thick plastic walls
Closing in around me with each passing breath
Good thing I brought a lighter
To burn my way out of here

Be prepared, Grandpa always said
And so I shall be
By constantly casting myself against myself
In a never ending crash course in evolution
Adaptation is life
Adversity breeds chaos
And that's where I want to be
In the middle of insanity
That bounces off the walls literally
And where the shadow of an individual
Grows with his heart
I want to dine on ideas
And drink to a revolution of the mind
And spill my guts all over the floor
And make such a mess there's no point in cleaning up

Then I recall an apparent defect
A misfiring synapse
The connection from thought to action
Mind to body
Is broken
The pathway might as well be nonexistent
And two lost halves stumble around in the dark
Like Alzheimer's patients
Trying to remember what it was they were walking towards
The cruel disconnect
Of an almost situation

Until repetition becomes comforting
Blanketing you in the warm glow of solitude
There's no such thing as someone who talks back
To someone who offers no words
And no such thing as a broken heart
If it was never given away
Because no one can steal
What I keep clutched in my chest

And the world moves on
Oblivious to my discontent
My surety, my conviction
That the world is my enemy!
My imaginary audience sits in the corner of every room
Taunting me with their black eyes of judgment
The watchers of this narrative
I call my life
Like its all a story
Because my perception
Is that this is all an illusion
That real is pretend, that pretend is real

Dizzying digital algorithms smash through firewalls
In search of things I wouldn't even think to tell people
And find their treasure in the unguarded files
That litter the computer screen
Like a minefield of backwards booby traps
All blowing up in your face
And I'm supposed to trust these people?

My paranoia resides on the pages that will give me away
Sitting there in open space
Like a deer ignorant of his impending doom
Calmly basking in the warm sunshine
Then it's hunting season
And its all snatched away in the blink of an eye
The path to infinity is just a trigger pull away
And while a bullet to the forehead might not be my chosen way to go
What would it matter,
Wouldn't I be dead anyway?
Or living somewhere out there among the stars
Thrown back into the dust
From whence we all came
Battling our way down to the earth
Like some cosmic game
Conquering frozen tundra and volcanic ash
We rose from the depths of the ocean
To crawl upon the land
And made it all the way back to the moon
But the grass is always greener on the other side

So insignificant we need a significant implication
Of all that we cannot control
In death lies truth
Because knowledge is power
And we all just want to breed with the universe
Create something new where nothing was before
Erect a monument to show our praise
Of all the shiny things we own
Reflecting all the dreams
Out of reach
Hidden in the stars
We followed them across the globe
Rounded back
To find a lot of the same
Still walking the streets

Disgust breeds its own special sickness
That lies in the bowels
Waiting until a completely inappropriate time
To make its presence known
Vomiting forth more tidbits than you knew you could handle
Smearing them across the walls
Until the whole place stinks of bile
And the whole room ran from the moon
Like a werewolf had been created
In the dank depths of unfortunate circumstances
Bit by bit it was pieced back together
Into loose versions of reality
Not strong enough to stand up
For their own existence
That came crashing down around them
Littering the landscape
With mocking shards of glass

Tripped up all over again
Fumbling for my keys
On a cool, dark patio
Overlooking the construction of a parking lot
Bulldozers ate the scenery in violent lurches
Belching forth plumes of cancer filled smoke
As if to intimidate all the other trees into submission
Sounds of ecstasy pounded through the walls
Initiating a less than desirable sequence of events
And I skipped from coffee shop to living room
Sprawled out on top of scratchy tan fabric
With a paintbrush in hand
And eating dinner on a dark patio
With only cigarettes to light our faces
It made for a good star gazing atmosphere

And then digital became influential
The march to freedom is based in free
And we chipped in and bought out
Pled it out and fled
Marched from Pittsburgh to Arab
And found a quiet spot on the mountain top
I sat down, you stood up
And here we are again
In smoke filled rooms
Contemplating the next move
And ripping the atlas in two

Dharma bums for life
We'll reunite
On sandy beaches
Somewhere out West
And stroll through the city
In search of something more in step
With an overreaching philosophy
That permeates every thought
Regardless of its place on the list
I'm gathering my seven propositions
And setting up a payment plan
To renew my faith
In humanity
So that I can traverse over the desert
And find myself again surrounded
By all those that find comfort
In smoke filled rooms