I need to get out of this place.
I need to get out of this town,
because the Internet tells me I’m breaking down,
and I can’t find the light at the end of the tunnel.
Not when I’m surrounded by these people
looking at life through funnels,
with their myopic vision
and their narrow minds.
The blind believe me when I tell them I’m fine.
Well that’s okay—
they only ask because they want to appear kind.
They’re too selfish to be curious
as to who or how we are.
They’re too busy gloating about their new car.

My head is in the clouds,
my heart is beating loud,
my blood is pulsing under my skin
and nothing I enter can ever win.
They ask me:
What is my goal?
What is my ambition for when I grow old?
But I don’t know.
I don’t know where I want to go.
People tell me I can achieve so much
but really what’s the rush?
Why must I live in the past
thinking only of the future?
When I really think of it
I have nothing to live for.
Human kind would survive,
they call me an advanced mind,
but really I’m a curse,
and you can’t get much worse.

No, you can’t get worse than me.
I’m the rebel in monotony.
I’m the artist trying to get by in society.
They christen me a freak.
I don’t fight it,
I’m too weak
and besides it’s too true.
I think too much of the next thing to do.
All I really want is to hop into a car,
drive until I run out of gas,
watching this ridiculous town pass
as I look through the glass.

I want this world to be gone,
I want this life to be done,
because this game is no longer any fun
and besides I’m losing my patience.
Mankind is so incredibly dense
and so without a conscience,
and it’s something I can no longer stand.
They say it’s all part of God’s plan.
God’s plan is why their child dies,
it’s why they suffer,
it’s why they took a life
with their very own hands.
It’s all so very obtuse.
I would never use such an excuse.
My life is mine, not God’s.
Every choice is mine
so I choose to keep up this façade.
This façade that I’m happy,
this façade that I’m fine,
this façade that I color inside the lines.
It’s so you don’t know I’m dying inside.
It’s so you don’t know I’m breaking down.
It’s so you don’t know I hate this town
and this life
and the future they lay before me.
It’s so you never know
I’m not who you tell me to be,
and I never will.
I’ll never be the doctor,
the scientist,
the politician,
or the brain.
I’m not even looking for any kind of fame.

Can’t I just grow up to be me?
Instead of the robot you tell me I should be?
Never the accountant
punching numbers,
the teacher
waiting for the summer,
the politician
spitting lies,
the doctor
telling patients when to die,
the scientist
working in a lab,
the therapist
listening to people blab
and driving people mad.
Well that’s not for me.
I’ve always been one for creativity.
I’m so sick of this world I want to create my own,
I can’t just be another drone.

I need to get out of this place.
I need to look at a different face.
I need to be where there is no space
and claustrophobia sets in,
a place where they’re not watching your every sin.
A place where it’s loud
and I blend into the crowd.
A place where I can be free,
a place away from reality,
a place where I can see ahead of me.

I want this town to burn,
to put its ashes in an urn
and throw it into a stream.
This life, these people, this world drives me crazy
and I want to scream.
They keep me here against my will.
I escape from this prison through my windowsill.
Climb down the tree and stalk the night,
seeing the world bathed in moonlight.
They say it gives perspective,
but when you hate it with all your heart
how much perspective can it give?

The prison of my room is not my concern
as I watch the paper cut-outs burn,
no, it’s the prison of my own mind.
As far as I know it’s the worst kind.
Worse than life behind bars,
worse than listening to the speeding cars,
worse than living your life in a tiny town,
is the feeling of knowing you’re breaking down.
I look at the people around me,
they’re all two-d.
So simple, so shallow, so flat,
If they weren’t careful they’d fall through every crack
in the floorboards we walk on,
everyone’s a damn moron.

Jaws off their hinges
so they can purge after their binges.
So concerned with how their seen
it’s a habit they teach you as a teen
to prepare you for life
and it’s so terribly rife.
Before they teach your right from wrong,
you need to be part of the throng
so you can think like them.
So you can know if you’re one of the people they condemn.
To be accepted, what will you endure?
Will you become another nark on counterculture?
Teasing the poets and the artists and the ones who really try?
The ones who want to accomplish something before they die?

I want out of this house,
with its “quiet as a mouse.”
I want out of this life,
with its “pain and strife.”
I wanted out of my brain,
but that prize already came.
I don’t like it like I thought I would,
I don’t think the way they tell me I should.
The worst part is I thought I could.
Maybe that’s what hurts the most—
the fact I still can’t get away from those who boast.
Boast of their money,
their job,
their things,
and their ability,
which is completely imaginary.

People who defend their intelligence aren’t smart.
People who go to galleries don’t appreciate art.
They’re just trying to prove themselves.
They create a surface image,
and because it’s there nobody delves
farther underneath to see who they really are.
But they don’t really care,
they just want a life to mar.
They just want to prove themselves better,
prove that the rain doesn’t make them wetter.

I can’t stand people and I can’t stand society.
It’s all the same pointless and shallow worries.
How do I look in this dress?
Stalk and film the life of the unlucky actress.
That poor girl was just the victim of rape.
Let’s get this moment on tape,
and we’ll show it to the world.
We’ll pretend it’s the truth being unfurled.
Really it’s just ratings, scandal,
oh, yeah, and we’re sorry about the girl.
We got her a basket of fruit.
If it’s any consolation she’s really cute.

Let’s photograph the every day events,
try to make them “news.”
You thought this was journalism?
That’s just a ruse.
It makes people think we know what it is we’re doing.
It stops all the people from suing.
It’s really the business of look what he’s wearing,
and oh dear, did you hear that actress swearing?
Trying to pretend no one ever does this or that.
It’s the business of calling one hundred pounds fat
and acting as though drinking Starbucks coffee
is an event the world will never again see.
And hey, look, the end of another celebrity relationship.
It was ill-fated anyway
from the beginning doomed to die.
Don’t worry—
we taped the break up and plan to show it live.

People are so concerned with others knowing their issues
that they’ve become masters
at posting their problems in one-hundred-forty characters.
It’s like sinking so low;
it’s like watching your dignity go.
I hope I haven’t done that.
It’s a craving I try to combat.
I try not to boast of my breakdown,
I try not to tell people I feel like I’m starting to drown.
It makes them “feel sorry for me.”
I don’t want their pretend pity.
Even if it’s real.
I can find my own way through this ordeal.
I guess I could be called a hypocrite,
because I do this very thing despite the fact I say this.
When something happens
I say I’m sorry,
even if it’s not my fault.
It’s just something that’s a default.
I want to help when I can,
but I approach others’ assistance with a fisted hand,
ready to go on the attack,
telling them to step back
because this could get ugly.
They never listen
but I don’t want them to see.
I don’t want them to see
what goes on inside me.
It brings back more of that ridiculous pity,
which only angers me
and brings back the issue of hypocrisy
because I always act like bad things had something to do with me,
spouting off the “I’m sorry”s.
Sometimes I say it so much I think it’s lost all meaning,
but I can always somehow know how they’re feeling
and the empathy
increases the impact of the apology.
But I can’t take a compliment
people tell me I’m great at something
and I make a sarcastic comment
because I don’t know what to say;
I just want to run away.

I hate it when tears roll down faces
in public places
because I know you want to be alone
but everyone gathers ’round
to see the show,
to wipe tears off your cheekbone
and tell you it’ll be okay.
But they don’t know what’s gotten you that way.
If they don’t know the cause
how can they help the effect?
It’s a bit of an important thing to simply neglect.
And so I try to know why things happen,
but I’m a freak
and ask tables I bump into for their pardon,
so nobody ever trusts my opinion
or values what I’m saying.
Things that are simple to me,
to them it’s trigonometry.
It’s like I’m speaking Greek.
But I like that about me,
despite the fact I seem to be the one out of ten.
There always must be one opinion
different than the other nine,
and usually that’s mine.
It’s not something I mind.
I’ve grown used to being the outlier,
sometimes it’s just a bit of a bother.

It’s not my life that bothers me,
it’s how others spit out hypocrisy.
There say there’s something wrong with me.
Well I strongly disagree.
It’s the problems with other people, with society.
They say I’m going to hell
because I couldn’t care less about religion.
They say I’m crazy
because I scream about raisins.
They say I need sun
because my face is forever paling.
They say I’m smart
because my grades are never failing.
They pretend to understand me,
but I’m more complex than I appear.
There’s a reason I tend to be sarcastic or austere.

They still see me as a little kid
and remember the cute things I did.
Things I said when I was four
I don’t mean anymore.
They think I should be happy and smiling—
all the time.
They think that I’m fine
but I’m not.
It’s like they’re looking at my life as a snapshot.
It’s outdated.
I’m starting to like things I hated,
and vice versa.
I’ve managed to recover from old traumas
and develop new ones.
I’m more mature.
People for some reason call me demure.
My self-esteem is low.
But they claim I know everything there is to know.
It’s disconcerting at some points.
It’s like my brain disjoints
and it’s very upsetting
to not believe the praise you’re getting.
No one is smarter than me?
I humbly disagree.
We seem to think
very differently.
But more importantly:

I need to get out of this place.
I need people to stop acting
like I should be wearing a crown.
Because I don’t believe it,
but I do believe the Internet
when it tells me I’m breaking down.