holding it down

what it takes to feign fear, literally
my downcast eyes on track to roll and rot away
but i'll keep my searching glance in a heart-shaped box

rationalizing my error so you can explain away my terror
my only option right now is to freeze
no more fawning, i'm asking you please

black yarn, baba yaga, give it up for god-the-father
talbots shopper, diner hopper, dishing up a lowball offer
for all what i can't become when i've never been coming back home

keeping my claws in a scattershod room
because i know my sanity's leaving me soon
leaving me silent and solo, sans tools

my walk to the house, in the attic, with no panic
what befalls us to fate and defies us description
i can't panic because i'm holding it down, holding it down

put-away my fear in the cabinet marked for doomsday
leave it all down here with the hellions and the brooms
and i'll sit prostrate in the armchair of eclection

flashing, panning, eyes to eyes
all what shows i have been, will be,
propfolated (promulgated) into every direction at once

every compass rose uncolored
every felt-walled grimace and unturned stone
every useless word i speak, when i go, let me go

because i'm not in a position of doing, of
thinking and choosing and thrusting
my back upset and upstuck to the wall

but i can't hold it down, anymore
it's getting away from me and i think
i'm sick of thinking and never knowing
always griping and never showing
what i'm good for, what am i good for
good for nothing and gripped with fear
of the unknown i gossip and gratify
how nice it would be to know, oh no
always knowing and never going anywhere
for my efforts, i focus, i feint and i find
no purpose, no purpose, on purpose, we drown
drowning in the tasks that for any other
for any other, i'd do it, but i can't do it for
myself, for the concept of a shelf, riveted health

we put ourselves on
pedestal eyes
watching
arbitrators
pedestalize
it's nonsense, right? it's
never mind

it's make no never mind, it's give up and settle
it's never complain and train yourself to be better
or don't ever get worse, if you can't never be better
but this work isn't working, for me, don't you see
for myself, for i see what has gone a-far fetching
something to return, if i ever return to
turn me inside out and find an urn to shove me into
so you can put me on the shelf, and so
i can't see the shelf - can't see the podium, can't
get well, can't get well or get myself gone to hell
can't get me out of here so i slide away my fear
but it's for a reason, pretty reason
everything happens for a pretty season
and spring is the pettiest of all the petty reasons
to jump and find change, if you can make it