The sweet ain’t as sweet without the bitter, baby.

All my troubles were so far away

But now they seek to captivate

I left them locked in another town

Held down so tight they couldn’t leave the ground

But my absence could only last so long

Now I must undo what I did wrong

Wash the blood from my face

And fight again before I lose my taste

For life, for love, for passion and pain

To stand against the same old game

And when I make my first step again

On golden heels, on a broken land

I’ll try to remember all that I loved

The colours, the sounds and the heavens above

Those walls for giants won’t keep me in

They won’t stop me from leaving

Those voices that wrap themselves around

Will not touch my ears to make a sound

And everything I’ve held onto

Will hold me back from hurting you

And nothing will keep me there

Adrift among the barren air

But nothing will make sense until

I crawl back up that merciless hill

On my mangled hands and knees

My walls will melt and I’ll seize to be

A spectator in this menagerie

A voiceless facilitator of catastrophe

The Planetary Man

True to form I can write anything BUT the thing I definitely need to be writing.. So I was partaking in some miiiild procrastination on Twitter when I read this Tweet from @themexican :

I thought it was sort of adorable. Or maybe I’m just dying to do anything other than what I should be doing, but either way I wrote something about it that hopefully isn’t complete crap. I’m in a sketchy state of sleep-deprived/extreme stress though so I actually have no idea, I’m running on empty.

Hmm, it’s kind of a little bleak!?! I guess that’s what 3/4 hours sleep a night for 2 weeks and staying up until 7am repeatedly banging your head against a table will do to you. I should probably mention that I’m trying to write my dissertation not abusing myself with brain-bashings and insomnia just for the hell of it…

The Planetary Man

On my train
Was the planetary man
His eyes used to roam
Across my pebble-dash hands
I would flick through pages
But see no words
Only fantasies
My mind had tailored
He knows the world
As it changes shape
He knows no boundaries
Of which to break
The planetary man
Who sat across from me
Was an open book
I had to read
Everyday at six p.m
I left my daydream
In the carriage again
I shuffled down the same old road
With thoughts of him
My throat had swallowed
I choked on words
I had yet to say
They ridiculed
My broken airwaves
Every tunnel drew my eye
And ricocheted his reply
We did this dance everyday
Exposed desires of travelling foreplay
But then I found myself alone
His empty seat felt so unknown
I miss him, but I don’t know his name
Now I wander those same old roads in vain
Thinking about how to reverse time
To see him reading Husserl wide-eyed
I would’ve looked at him
The way I always did
But this time not in shadows
That held us captive
The words that I kept
Would’ve had their way
With the planetary man
I could’ve loved someday.

Battling the Blind

If I’ve lost my mind forever then who’s knocking on my door?
Who’s banging on my window? Who’s pacing on the floor?
If my mind is truly broken then who turned off all the lights?
Was it those who took my soul back? Did they steal it in the night?
If I’ve really gone insane then why does everything make sense?
Now I make my own decisions, now I’ve left that crooked fence.
Did you hear my whistle blowing? Did you come to save my soul?
Can I count on you to take me from this dark and desolate hole?
Will you be here in the morning, with a guiding light?
Can you answer all my questions? Can you help me in this fight?
Will I be lost forever? Will I ever find my way?
If no’s the only answer then you make no mistake,
That I will end this all forever, I will call the final shot
I’ll have my finger on the trigger, I’ll be the face you all forgot.
–
People can surprise you and I can see your broken lips
I can feel the tension in your heart and your stone-cold fingertips
Your dead face looks into the lonely, dark abyss
I know because I’ve been there, it’s a place that I don’t miss
Can you look beyond the emptiness that surrounds you everyday?
Can you save your soul forever or will you let it slip away?
I can’t give you any answers, though they’re etched into my skin
I can’t be the one who saves you from the mess that you are in
You say it’s all or nothing, there’s no trusted in between
Just constant fluctuations that tear us at the seams
Can you look beyond your worries and try to rectify
All the pain, the sorrow, the tragedy, that you feel is in your life?
Can you be the kind of person who holds their head up high?
Who faces every trouble with a light behind their eyes?
Your mind is checking out with no chance to renew
You either save your soul forever or admit you chose to lose
I won’t be the one to save you from this slow and blue demise
I’ve been here before already, I won’t sacrifice more time
Trying to fix something that’s broken that won’t admit it’s faults
Trying to end this all forever, trying to bring it to a halt
I will not spend my life on yours when you will not help yourself
You can rot inside that broken mind collecting dust upon a shelf.

© Ceri Fraser – NinetyNineBPM – 2010