The Past Hunts You

if I had the guts to open up my arm
and reverse-engineer the blood in my veins
I would strain out the gold and the god and the love
and separate them each
put one in a little jar here, and stopper the other up in a bottle
put the last one in a little cloth sack, and stash it under my bed
then I'd take a map and erase all the names of the places
and fill them in with the names of all my friends and loved ones I forgot or left behind so long ago
I could get on my bike and know where to find every one of them

Young Person's Poem

I'm gonna crank the volume knob as far as I can make it go
see which blows out first, my eardrums or the speakers
and then forget what they said, about how I have to obey
I'll chase the feeling of deciding my own future

"You will work you will work you will do nothing but work"
but I swear I will make a difference, and work for myself
because I'm young yet and can chase whatever feeling I want
and fill in all the blanks with my own answers

Riding through the night with soon to be friends of mine
we play the music too loud, or none at all
just love and don't kill and smile when they spit in your face
that's the best future, that's our own future