Society has forced me to change in the blink of an eye,
To say "goodbye" to the old and "hello" to
the new.
Society has forced me to shave my scrubby face and wear a suit
and tie,
To trade in my black attire for the splendid shades of red,
white, and blue.
Society has molded me into an unbendable shape,
Stitched my eyes shut and forced me to live my life through a
republican's point of view.
Society has thrown me on a bed of rusty nails and left me as a
defenseless victim of rape,
If I dare to even whisper "abortion", they'll cage
my contaminated corpse in a sadistic zoo.
Society has forced me to throw in the toxic towel and wave a
white flag,
To forfeit my freedom and fail to mention anything to be
considered taboo.
Society has made me a slave to the machine and wrapped around
my finger dangles a sale's tag,
For merely minimum wage, I'll make your deepest dreams and
desires become true.
Society has brainwashed me, resulting in my tragic
transformation to
Restraining me in shackles so I hop around for their evil
entertainment like a confused kangaroo.
Society has deprived me of communication to the outside world,
unplugging my computer and disconnecting my phone,
Planting a chip in the back of my mind so I forget everything
that I once knew.
Society has purloined my possessions and placed me in a
political prison,
Shipping me to
Society has placed a rain cloud over my head whenever the sun has
risen,
Knowing that I want to escape this country, they sent me to
Society has taken this hippie and forced him to clean up his
apathetic act,
To chop off his long, unkempt hair and start using gel and
shampoo.
Society has forced me to change my entire appearance without
even caring how I would react,
To viscously rip out my lip ring and conceal my anarchy
tattoo.
Society has managed to defile my dreams and pollute my lungs,
Impelling me to pack my bags and move to
Society has taken this little rebel and forced him to keep a
still tongue,
This contaminated country is nothing more than a corrupted
cauldron serving its citizens a splendid serving of cyanide stew.
Society has successfully shoved unlimited lies down my throat,
Making me believe that true is false, and false is true.
Society has told me that I have the right to remain silent,
but I also have the right to vote,
And I elect that we erase
...Society controls our daily lives, yet we still manage to
believe that this country is free,
Society should not mold us; we are the ones that should mold
society...
…Lights out…
Take merely a few microscopic moments to rest your weary arid
eyes for once, and open up your inattentive ears and mechanical mind
…Clap on…Clap off…
For we’ve become too lazy to complete such simple tasks
ourselves, like flip a switch, or clean the bloodstains off the knife, or take
the blame
…Lights out…
Your electricity bill has probably skyrocketed as tall as a
skyscraper prior to tragedy time anyways
Having the
tainted television, corrupted computer, malicious microwave, and diabolical
dishwasher all on and running simultaneously to the beat of your own mechanized
muscles and oil-infested heart
…Lights out…
What kind of lessons are we teaching our youth?
How are our children supposed to develop simple motor skills
when face to face human interaction and communication has become obsolete?
What will our babies’ first spoken words be?
Slowly, yet so surely, mechanical has been replacing muscle
Oil has been replacing blood
But a robot will NOT play catch with your son and take him to
Little League practice
A mannequin
will NEVER accompany your daughter to her senior prom, or be the bearer of her
children
…Lights out…
But don’t point the finger so quickly
(Unless you’re currently inhabiting in a house of mirrors)
For you are the ones who would rather
Go to the car wash and have Pablo and Jose slave over your
sedan for spare change
Than simply turn on the hose and spray your automobile
yourselves...
Use the self check out at the local grocery store rather than
interact with a high school drop out, pregnant cashier…
Rather drive through the drive thru than order inside…
Questions such as, “Paper or plastic?” and “Would you like
fries with that?” will become extinct like the dodo bird in the blink of an eye
…Clap on…Clap off…
You are the ones who leave your bathroom sink running like a
waterfall of white water rapids while brushing your teeth
While starving and thirsty children in Zimbabwe and Zaire
would kill for just one sip from your toilet bowl
Never mind the people in Africa…
Your own neighbor would sell his pauper’s soul for just the
crumbs of your croissant
But you do not consider him to be your neighbor, because he
does not own a house near your home
In fact…he doesn’t reside at an address at all
He merely lives under the flickering street lamp at the corner
of Gray Street and the edge of Autumn
Playing his out of tune guitar and begging for food or shelter
on Christmas Eve
But you simply beep your horn and swear at him as the water
from the puddle you drove over soaks his shoes and frostbitten skin
Because he is selfish in your eyes
And why should you help someone that you don’t even know?
Your money must go towards better, more important things
Like the new Play Station 3 that costs 600 bucks for your 6
year old son
Or that glistening Tiffany’s princess cut diamond ring that
costs 7000 dollars for your 17 year old daughter
(For she refuses to wear cubic-zirconium or anything inferior
than what she truly deserves)
You can spend your life savings away for things that people
don’t need
But can’t manage to give up a penny for things that people
cannot live without
You can splurge each Benjamin in your bank to buy all of the
toys and treasures in the world
But you can’t take your unwanted neighbor to the Golden Arches
to order a single item off of the dollar menu
Or you can’t even toss your leftovers out the window at him
You fail to bother to even ask him, “Do YOU want fries with
that?”
…Lights out…
We live in a society that would rather
Watch the movie than read the book
That would rather use an elevator instead the stairs
That would prefer to be stuck in traffic beeping their horn
than take the route less traveled by
...9 to 5.....9 to 5....
We sin under a sky that makes us believe the moon actually
possesses it own light
That it never steals the glow from the sun at night
They tell us as they point the guns to our heads that
everything is going to be alright
We worship in a world that would rather swallow a pill than
swallow its own saliva
That would rather sell its soul to Satan for eternity than go
to Church for just one hour a week
God’s house can’t even afford the electricity bill anymore.
…Light’s out…
We live in a world of mass production
Where weapons of mass destruction
Cause tragedy to our country’s continuous construction
We live in a land where we crash our crappy cars on the
crowded streets and simply tow them to the junk yard
And then at the next sunrise we arise and purchase a brand new
BMW or Hummer
Automobiles are replaceable
Machines are replaceable
Robots are replaceable
Humans are not
People are special
People are unique
People need attention
And stimulation
So go out and play catch with your son
Take him to his next baseball game
Cheer him on even if he strikes out swinging
Take pictures of your daughter all dolled up in her prom dress
Hold her hand as she gives birth to your precious
grandchildren
Turn off the computer
Turn off the TV
Shut off the sink
Get up off your ass and actually flick the on/off switch with
a frightened finger residing on a trembling hand
Get up on your feet and parade with me
For today…we’ll give that homeless man a five course holiday
meal
We’ll read the book first before watching the movie
We’ll liberate a million peace doves in the opaque Iraqi
skyline as the final bombs fall to their fatality
We’ll extinguish the flame of the sun and set fire to the man
on the moon
Tragedy and turmoil will terminate tomorrow…salvation will
surely come so soon
Wave “farewell” to yesterday as we liberate that brave black
balloon
…Clap on…Clap off…
...March on…March off...
…Lights out…
We both
smell of sex even though we’ve slept on separate sheets for several dozen
sunsets
We both
watch the wicked waves wash our wishes away, just off the coast of different
oceans
We both
run in frantic figure eights, flopping like fish out of water…gasping…for our
last breaths, just to come full circle with only silent shadows by our unstable
sides
We both taste the truth tiptoeing off the tips of our
tongues, yet it seems as if only lies are able to somehow spill out
We both hear the lone wolf’s contagious cry in the
distance off the periphery of a peak...I just cant tell if it’s from the Rocky
or Appalachian Mountains
We both touch the train tracks that separate our souls as
we walk on this tragic tightrope…but I know she’ll never meet me halfway
She-
Poses for the camera and feigns a subtle smile while
simulating how to suitably showcase pseudo sentiments and sensations
She walks the red carpet like a robot
Except there are no wires
She still shows some slight and auspicious signs that she
was once a human being
Like the tear that fell from her eye that frigid night in
mid December
When she boarded that train to the Pacific and told me
"Donnie, my darling…I don’t think I’m ever going to
see the Atlantic Ocean again"
All the agents and assholes out West have now transformed
and molded her into what she promised she would never become
A contaminated, comatose clone continuously crashing cars
in her cranium
She even dyed her hair platinum blonde…and died a little
inside too
Hollywood has taken her hostage
And made her a premature prisoner of her own prima donna perfection
But what she does not know
Is that for her, there is a feasible way out
It’s called Arizona
It’s called Nevada
It’s called Oregon
Hell, it’s even called Mexico
But her heart hibernates in Hollywood now
And the spotlight always shines on her
And the spectacular stage is now her claustrophobic cage
And all the hormone happy teenage drama queens mold
themselves into an identical copy of her figure and form
And all the world is a theater…and all it’s citizens
merely help act out this traumatic treachery
Someone once told me that it never snows in Saskatchewan
And it’s never hot in Hawaii
And it never rains in Washington
But I could see the storm clouds suffocating Seattle even
from the Atlantic Ocean
I could smell the sex on her mattress from seventeen
states away
I could taste the truth on the tip of her tongue as she
sucks the celebrity status out of her director’s million dollar dick
I could hear the lone wolf’s cry high in the Rocky
Mountains
I could touch the train tracks while the light at the end
of my tunnel inches closer and closer
I see her on the screen and scream
I see her holding hands with Harrison Ford
While her other hand holds an Oscar
I decide that this needs to come to end
That she needs to open up her eyes
And realize what the Golden State has done to her
I need to save her from herself
I start to pack my bags with nothing but band-aids and
second chances
And in 4 minutes and 47 seconds I will march out of my one
room apartment
and I will parade all 2,883 miles from New Haven,
Connecticut to the City of Angels
Without hitchhiking, without stopping to take a
shit…hell, without even blinking or breathing
Satan’s extravagant city soon will be in my sight
But before I can even cross the invisible line
She’s right there waving and greeting the west coast
wasteland
Like she’s the freaking queen bee of this horrible hive
I pull her off her plastic pedestal and plead for her to
please come home
But she pleads with the police to please take me
away
I came all the way here with a purpose
But now that purpose seems to have slipped my mind
Perhaps I’ve become a California clone too myself
Perhaps it wasn’t her fault after all
Perhaps it was the Pacific
I grab her by the hand
I hold and kiss her in a way even Ron Jeremy would have
applauded and approved of
But I don’t have the heart to look her in the eye and
tell her
That she’s the worst thing to happen to the world since
the invention of the word "love"
That she’s become more dirty and disgusting than downtown
Detroit
That our relationship is a bigger mistake than America’s
invasion of Iraq
That the chances of me and her overcoming the obstacles
are less likely than Chicago Cubs winning the World Series
That she is more overrated and glorified than God
I finally lift my head and stare at the stranger
A distasteful, counterfeit version of my former soul mate
I almost vomit over the sight of her fake tan and acrylic
nails and hooker heels and ten tons of makeup
I breathe again for the first time since Bridgeport
And blink again for the first time since Brooklyn
And speak again for the first time since Santa Fe
And as an ounce of oil drips from her eye
I ask
"Is this really you?
Is this what you truly want to do?"
Her tears
Turned to ice
Her heart
Turned to stone
Her diamond ring
Turned to coal
My blood
Bled black gold
I can not continue this sadistic charade for even another
second
So I wave farewell to forever
And say goodbye to the goddess of the Golden Globes
Because this is not where I belong
This is not where people belong
This is a whole different world here
The air tastes different
The people act different
The rules are different
And I must escape before I get sucked into the Beverly
Hill’s Black Hole
Before the red carpet turns into a tongue and swallows me
whole
Before Hollywood has a hurricane and the only remaining
letters on the huge sign are "H-O-L-Y"
Before California separates from the rest of America just
like the scientists said it would
Before the mannequins start to move
Before the clones start to cry
I step on her star on the walk of fame and I sprint
toward salvation at the state line
And when I get there, I don’t even look back
And I hope she doesn’t assume that I’m ever going to come
back
Because the only time I will ever see California again
Is on an enormous silver screen late…late at night
Maybe she’ll make a cameo appearance in one of my dreams
But the only thing I have left to say to the wicked witch
of the West is:
"I hope that the Hollywood sign doesn’t fall from
its mountain and crush your corpse you while you’re crushing another actor’s
heart"
…So I hang my head low and stare at the train tacks as I
walk back to the Atlantic alone
Forcing myself to accept the fact that my former ally is
now merely another Beverly Hills Barbie Doll, another Malibu Mannequin...a
corrupted California clone…