Glory, Money and Applause

i am a fake.
i copy what's around me.
i take in what i hear and throw it up butchered into what i believe to be my own thoughts.
as i listen to a song, i take a line or an idea to twist into my own verse.
i am a sponge.

i want to believe i'm a creative force undiscovered in the literay world.
a diamond waiting to be cut and polished to shine;
then put out for display with a huge markup.
my value assessed.
my artistic prowess confirmed.
but i just reiterate what i myself am unable to create.

i want the glory.
i want the money.
i want the critical beatings and the audience applause.
yet i will never see anything but lawsuits, court rooms, and heads shaking in disappointment.

i made up every word.
true or not, i heard it in my thoughts.
i grabbed it and wrestled it onto paper.
i pat myself on the back for my accomplishment.
but then i read somewhere that what i have has already been done.

i'm in deep into my mental disorder.
i saw him go from poor me to hearts dancing in his eyes.
love sweet love offers me a rest from the daily frustrations of my own life.
but he tells me he's not real.
another figment of my imagination floats away.

i am a fake.
i will never be published, but i will be heard someday.
maybe all this will end up in the dumpster when i die.
after i'm gone there's no guarentee these words will live on.
i am a sponge.

Mental

i've got this idea spinning around inside my head.
i see the world differently, but you never believe me.
i hear what's not there and i think thoughts that promote fear.
weird is a second skin that fits me like a glove.

i pick up my shattered ego and
get my glue out to put me back together again.
i tell you i'm mental;
insanity and my personality are one,
but you insist i'm wrong.
when you're mental it comes down to time.

i've got your face running in a loop.
my tracks are laid the wrong way.
i run through the dialogue.
i want to be sure he'll stay.
but it's never perfect and the up's always have a down.
flip a coin to see which me you get tonight.

i pick up my fragile soul,
hold it close to warm it up.
i told you i'm mental;
you think it's a silly kind of crazy,
but it's uglier then you think.
when you're mental it comes down to time.

i run out of time when you've had enough
and make a run for the door.
they all leave me, only the when changes,
time is the enemy when you're mental like me.

Crumbs

crumbs on my sweater make me laugh.
age hasn't made me any neater.
i'm clumsy and weak.
you'd never believe all of my stories.
the times i have just fallen over
or the black eye i got from a carton of ice cream.

i'm packing up my emotional baggage
it's going on vacation.
somewhere nice, so it can relax.
it's been burned out for a long time.
i'm gonna miss it, but not the bitterness that went with it.

crumbs on the desk make me smile.
i'm always making a mess.
i'm content and fat.
you'd never guess i'm germ-a-phobic.
the way i avoid public restrooms
and won't eat at a buffet.

i'm discarding my mental defects.
they're going to retire.
somewhere far away from here,
so they can't come back to haunt me.
i'm not gonna worry about them anymore.

crumbs all over the place.
it's just who i am.
so much more then how i eat.
i need to give myself a break.
i need to leave crumbs,
so i can always find my way back.

When I was 14

When I was 14 they locked my mother away in a hospital's padded room.
Where they wouldn't let her come home.
I would visit her with my Dad totally embarrassed,
a little but sad and a little bit mad.
I can't recall how long she stayed.
It seemed like forever but it could've been a couple of days.

I'd sit in the long lonely hallway and think why i'd been so bad
that they too her away. I'm sorry but shd had to stay. She went crazy.
Everybody goes crazy. Everybody loses touch with reality. She saw ducks
in tin hats and pirates dropping down out of the ceiling.
Who hasn't when you take way too much medicine?
We all lose our minds. I'm sure someday I'm gonna lose mine.

When I was 10 she got sick and the doctors prescribed cure alls
that ended up killing her 13 years later.
My whole life changed the day she was taken away to God.
I knew then she could never come back to me.
I know hospitals well, their smell, antiseptic death.
I was in so many, so often, for too many years in a row.
The scars run deep as my paranoia that I'm on the same road.
And it's just a matter of time before they take me away too.

Time is playing tricks on me. As I get older I remember the silliest
things. How her eyes were like glass. How she looked in her hospital gown.
Sometimes I dream it all over like the day hasn't passed. And I'm back
in that moment, sitting in that long lonely hallway and that crazy old
man is trying to escape again. The girl who fried her brain on PCP calls me
Mary. And Mom has to stay. She has to stay until the medicine doesn't make
her crazy anymore. Yes, I worry one day it'll be my daughter sitting in that
long lonely hallway waiting for me but I have to stay.