Sister Sunday

I woke up this morning and I felt like shit

and I knew it was you I knew you did it

Sister Sunday ain't no good to me no more

she treats me as tho I am washed ashore

on the nightmare memories of a Saturday night

and there's nothing at all nothing seems quite right

As the rain falls upon the windowsill

I'm feeling as tho I'm in living hell

sleep's not so kind as to entertain me all day

and I feel like I'm falling I'm slipping away

Sister Sunday drowns me in an ocean of lost dreams

and it's not as it is, isn't like it seems

I feel blue, I feel dreary, windy and grey

frozen by the touch of this Sister Sunday

With the Christians in church see the town is asleep

and all over bells toll in the churches to keep

those not in church aware of this day

but I know her well, she is Sister Sunday

Sister Sunday has a cold grasp on me

she breathes down my neck and demands me to see

what I used to want, what life used to hold

but now she has left me thoughtless and cold

Don't come near me again, turn away, turn away

My nightmare, my weakness, my Sister Sunday

- Dec. 19, 1983, A.D.

I Need a Little Support

I need someone to have some faith in me.  Sure, it may look like I'm

doing great by myself, but just a little more faith would take me a

lot further.

How can I be a poet, and a drummer, a speaker, always a radical,

a teacher and a millionaire, if no one believes in me?

How am I supposed to believe in myself?

Hey, wake up!

Tell me I can do it.

I need a little support in this world.

Otherwise, I'll never be what I can be:

Myself.

- Dec. 19, 1983, A.D.

Nothing to See Here (Thoughts After a Visit to the School Counselor)

It's all bullshit

didn't help me any,

and it depressed me more

it made me think again about suicide

if people would just leave me alone,

I think I'd be all right

but the attention makes it worse

don't give me this shit -

tell me what to do with my life -

it's not as bad as I make it sound

I get dramatic, sometimes!

Ignore me, please!

I don't want this attention!

I know you care, but I know what I need

let me drown myself in my troubles a while

let me breathe

Don't give me your truth!

I'll live by my own, thanks

don't get "concerned", to cheer me up

then tell me I'm a fuck-up

then give that look of sympathy

or earnestness

or some other shit

You'd think the whole world stopped

just to watch me suffer

move on!  move on!

my agony is just a drop in the ocean of the world's pain

me?  I'm crying for the world

And if one more person tells me

that I can't do what I want unless I fucking conform,

it'll be the final step off the ladder for me

You wonder why I'm down

when you're the cause

I get inspired - so inspired!

but someone always brings me down

Thank you, one and all!

you've stirred so much resentment and hatred in me

that now I have to prove to you I can do it my way

You little shits thought you had me

but you had me wrong

I'm not alone

I'm not dying

I just keep forgetting that I'M the one

who's supposed to be defeating YOU,

not the other way around

You almost had me taken

but I've come back just in time

time to look towards the future

and leave the fucking conformists behind.

- Dec. 19, 1983, A.D.

We Went Cold

Somewhere inside of him, he went cold

then something inside of me went cold in turn

so much for the Xmas present

so much for the ambiguous lifestyle

so much for the self-hatred

insecurity

and extra appendage

so much...

and all for what?

and all as a cause of what?

lost in a timeless dilemma,

it's done over and over again

it takes a particular type of strength

which I wasn't willing to produce

I need myself

I need my friends

but I don't need this

so I didn't take it

causes -

there are so many causes

why I was cold

why I drew back

why I let him see it and waited for him 

to say it

maybe he's jealous of my relationship with Emerson

or maybe...

or maybe...

there's no answer

there aren't even questions

so why search so hard into emotions?

it's all laid out before our eyes

if I wanted, I could build the bridge back up

but in all honesty, I don't want to

it's winter, now

time to be with myself

time to hibernate, 

alone, with pure thoughts

life is a struggle, but living is easy

and it's time to move on...

- Dec. 2, 1983, A.D.

Happy Sweet Sixteenth

it's my suicide

all of it

I'm resented for truth

I can't deny,

(whatever I said)

(She's sitting next to me, now)

my fate is sitting next to me

the one I love more than the world

and if she wants to fuck me up

or if she wants to let me fuck her up,

I suppose I'll let her

her pain is mine

(But what's it all worth?)

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say or do

but she's with me

I don't know what she's trying to say or do

(But she's with me)

How much?

How much is she with me?

Or with and against at the same time?

(I look into her eyes - what do I see?)

It's all the same

I guess...

- Nov. 19,1983, A.D.

Behind the Garage (My Spooky Autumn)

I bang my head against the wall,

throw myself from room to room,

scream in the darkness of my life

and grasp for the light

which becomes dimmer as I gaze upon it

It flies away from me, faster than light's speed

and becomes a star

one among millions in a gloomy November sky

Suddenly, I see that my life is parallel to that star

as the lives of my friends are oblique

I look down, and there we are

behind the garage

smoking a clove and holding each other

like we've never been held before

radiating with love

reaching out for assurance

flowing in and flowing out,

but always coming back to the reality of our lives

The pain

that we've given each other

that we've created ourselves

When I look up, my friends are gone

the sky is a dark haze

I am alone with my cigarette and my thoughts

But they are no comfort to me

I scream out, but no one comes running

I cry

but no one is there to wipe tears,

or rid me of frustration

I'm cold -

when did it grow so cold inside me?

Why is there so much pain?

The wind whispers past me

softly, hoping I won't notice it has no answers

There is too much light in the world and not enough enlightenment!

Inside, I am struck with mental arrows

and torn apart,

piece by bloody piece,

devoured by my own frustration and unrest

I lie down on the grass and put out the cigarette

ignore the tears, falling

as though there were a leak in my life

Where is the star that parallels me?

Up there, somewhere, in the haze

I can't see it, but I need it, now

to know it's there

and my life has a purpose

Eventually, I pull myself up,

walk back towards the lifeless house,

up the creaky stairs

and back to my nothing half-thoughts

that keep me from school work

My mind is still behind the garage with the others,

and in the stars -

but I tap off the ashes and live on...

- Nov. 16, 1983, A.D.

The Road

As I walk down the road on this cool Autumn day, I feel like I 

shouldn't be walking alone. And yet there's only one person who 

can take this empty place beside me. But times, like the leaves of 

the season, turning colors and fluttering as tho predestined to the 

ground, do change.

It's a worn path I walk; I know every bump and curve; and it 

can distinguish my soft tread from any of the millions of others 

whose souls have touched this concrete. I do not walk alone.

And the missing person, the one who should be here, never 

leaves my side. She is always with me. If I ever had a hurt or a 

fear in my life, she is my comfort. If I ever needed someone to 

confide in, she is around. I am tragically lost without her, and yet 

I'm never without her. We walk in each other's footsteps, crisscross 

each other's paths, and step synchronized to the same beat of life.  

Now, each footstep I take carries a memory of times past.

But we're still walking the road together. The birds reassure 

me of it. She talks to me thru the crackling of the dry, brown leaves 

under my feet. And she speaks to me thru the whispering wind.

Has it all been said before? by other romantics and poets?  

But it can be said a million times and still be true, can't it?  If it 

comes from the heart? It has so devastated and so moved me that 

I must express. Love is not easily forgotten; friendship not easily 

abandoned; wounds not easily healed. So as I walk down the road 

on this cool Autumn day, she is on my mind. She is here, yet gone 

all the same. My mind races back to the times we once had.  This is 

how I keep her with me. And today, we are as one.

(Nov. 1983)