To Sleep While Standing

Ensnared by the binds of consuming maturity
Insatiable demons of greed tearing from me all that's familiar
All that's sacred, all that's good
My being bent to the point
Where I no longer see that my world
Is a world of fools

The pained contortion of my face
Bears witness to the sickening irony
To gaze upon the image
Captured for eternity by machine
Would whisk away
The illness that abounds

Would wrap me within a gentle cloak
Of visions
Of the warmth and smells of that night

Countless sighs ago
Countless cries ago
Seemingly lives ago
It seems we wash our hands a bit more these days

Take me back to my home
That will forever be the past
I cringe at the grim reality
It conjures up a violence within me
Best left unseen
It seems to tear blood from my eyes
As the tears have run dry
To sleep; to dream
To come as close to that eve
As I'll ever fucking be again
As I would trade infinity
To be that naïve boy again
Justified I simply submit
And now my time-enduring words
Sound like the rantings of a madman