Cold sweat, choking, I'm paralyzed,
kneees drawn up to my chin in
the corner of a crowded, smoke-filled room.
Feeling every eye on me.
Hearing them talking, whispering,
laughing at me, feeling sorry for me,
but is it truly their eyes I'm feeling,
is it really them talking?
So anxious.
So frustrated by my anxiety.
So embarassed at my anxiety.
So angry at my fear.
So depressed that all I can do is get angry.
Can't stop fighting with myself or
find a way to pull out of this.
Association and dissocation
first and second person
aren't black and white
there's a gray where they fade
into one another
one to the extreme
becomes the other,
to the extreme
and then you come back again,
full circle.
To live up close, in the cycle
is to ride the spinning, suffering wheel
to compound your illusions
to fight your denied face,
to breed it all like rabbits into
a stew of confusions
through mirrors of projection, transference,
like perceptual karma
-- it leaves me cold, all I've become,
all I could've been,
in the extreme I follow the rabbits
right down the hole, and --
to stand back is to enter the gap,
to look down on the world from a height,
to achieve the third person, to see
all that he is, all that he could be,
to come back and bring
that perspective with you
to be all you can become
is Nirvana.
Got to
find my way
out of this lie
back to the state of
just I, just I,
looking down,
from the outside in,
with nothing
with which to
identify.
I know I shouldn't care what they think
I know I shouldn't be concerned at all,
but knowing doesn't make a difference.
Awareness is only the first step and to stay there
is to be repeatedly stung by your own self-reflection.
Can't stop these breeding perceptions, thoughts and feelings
compounding on what I initially percieve, think and feel.
Consciousness is like a technology, awareness is like a tool,
a lot like a knife, it can be ysed to self-mutilate or to heal.
Here I am, chain-smoking cigarettes,
knees drawn up to my chin,
I've gone totally numb again.
Shallow breathing, dry mouth,
biting my bruised and chapped lips,
picking, biting, the skin around my fingers.
My face is like a statue, my eyes, unblinking,
my throat gets thinner, palms damp, warm, slimey,
eyes, where do I put my eyes? Look up, look around --
no, stare down at the ground, zone out.
Feeling so weird, feeling the spotlight,
feeling like I don't belong and so certain
it's so blatantly obvious to everyone.
The world around me is so vivid, so surreal,
like looking through a cloud, so unreal, I'm not here.
If life is but a dream, I wonder, why do I let myself
let it degenerate into a suffocating nightmare?
I don't want to be just like everyone, I don't want to fit in,
I just want to be comfortable and free of this, damn it,
I just want to find the strength to be myself again, but I can't relax, someone turned up the volume on my sensory static
and I can't change thr channel on this
self-depreciating talk-show in my head,
I can't find my way back to a
confident and upbeat soundtrack.
Can't break free, get in the front seat,
grab the wheel and steer, so I must find a way,
I've got to find a secret back door out of here.
Find my way
out of this lie
back to the state of
just I, just I,
looking down,
from the outside in,
with nothing
with which to
identify.
Aggrivated at my low self-esteem.
Annoyed by my aggrivation.
For a moment, it's like none of this is real.
Concerns melt away, almost laughing at myself.
I'm not really me, and this isn't really real.
I'm in the back of a movie theater, alone,
watching this pathetic creature in the corner.
I'm on the edge of the dream, discovering
what I thought of as an irreversable situation
to be nothing more than a concoction of my brain,
feeling the release from the nightmare, comfort
in the fact that none of it really matters --
a strange kind of duex ex machina --
but too lazy to open my real eyes just yet, enjoying
the perspective of the third person, detached
from everything, belonging to nothing.
Just I, just I,
looking down,
from the outside in,
with nothing
with which to
identify.
Could I find a way
to bring it back to that nightmare
so that pathetic creature in the corner
can step from awareness to control,
from enlightenment to realization?
Bring the insight of the gap back
to fill the gap, to turn the black and white
to a beautiful, all-encompassing gray.
So that pathetic creature in the corner
can wake up and play like a child gleaming
in the game of life, find a smile
in that dreamspace, imbue it with meaning
to heal and not wound with the knife.
To be all I can become.
kneees drawn up to my chin in
the corner of a crowded, smoke-filled room.
Feeling every eye on me.
Hearing them talking, whispering,
laughing at me, feeling sorry for me,
but is it truly their eyes I'm feeling,
is it really them talking?
So anxious.
So frustrated by my anxiety.
So embarassed at my anxiety.
So angry at my fear.
So depressed that all I can do is get angry.
Can't stop fighting with myself or
find a way to pull out of this.
Association and dissocation
first and second person
aren't black and white
there's a gray where they fade
into one another
one to the extreme
becomes the other,
to the extreme
and then you come back again,
full circle.
To live up close, in the cycle
is to ride the spinning, suffering wheel
to compound your illusions
to fight your denied face,
to breed it all like rabbits into
a stew of confusions
through mirrors of projection, transference,
like perceptual karma
-- it leaves me cold, all I've become,
all I could've been,
in the extreme I follow the rabbits
right down the hole, and --
to stand back is to enter the gap,
to look down on the world from a height,
to achieve the third person, to see
all that he is, all that he could be,
to come back and bring
that perspective with you
to be all you can become
is Nirvana.
Got to
find my way
out of this lie
back to the state of
just I, just I,
looking down,
from the outside in,
with nothing
with which to
identify.
I know I shouldn't care what they think
I know I shouldn't be concerned at all,
but knowing doesn't make a difference.
Awareness is only the first step and to stay there
is to be repeatedly stung by your own self-reflection.
Can't stop these breeding perceptions, thoughts and feelings
compounding on what I initially percieve, think and feel.
Consciousness is like a technology, awareness is like a tool,
a lot like a knife, it can be ysed to self-mutilate or to heal.
Here I am, chain-smoking cigarettes,
knees drawn up to my chin,
I've gone totally numb again.
Shallow breathing, dry mouth,
biting my bruised and chapped lips,
picking, biting, the skin around my fingers.
My face is like a statue, my eyes, unblinking,
my throat gets thinner, palms damp, warm, slimey,
eyes, where do I put my eyes? Look up, look around --
no, stare down at the ground, zone out.
Feeling so weird, feeling the spotlight,
feeling like I don't belong and so certain
it's so blatantly obvious to everyone.
The world around me is so vivid, so surreal,
like looking through a cloud, so unreal, I'm not here.
If life is but a dream, I wonder, why do I let myself
let it degenerate into a suffocating nightmare?
I don't want to be just like everyone, I don't want to fit in,
I just want to be comfortable and free of this, damn it,
I just want to find the strength to be myself again, but I can't relax, someone turned up the volume on my sensory static
and I can't change thr channel on this
self-depreciating talk-show in my head,
I can't find my way back to a
confident and upbeat soundtrack.
Can't break free, get in the front seat,
grab the wheel and steer, so I must find a way,
I've got to find a secret back door out of here.
Find my way
out of this lie
back to the state of
just I, just I,
looking down,
from the outside in,
with nothing
with which to
identify.
Aggrivated at my low self-esteem.
Annoyed by my aggrivation.
For a moment, it's like none of this is real.
Concerns melt away, almost laughing at myself.
I'm not really me, and this isn't really real.
I'm in the back of a movie theater, alone,
watching this pathetic creature in the corner.
I'm on the edge of the dream, discovering
what I thought of as an irreversable situation
to be nothing more than a concoction of my brain,
feeling the release from the nightmare, comfort
in the fact that none of it really matters --
a strange kind of duex ex machina --
but too lazy to open my real eyes just yet, enjoying
the perspective of the third person, detached
from everything, belonging to nothing.
Just I, just I,
looking down,
from the outside in,
with nothing
with which to
identify.
Could I find a way
to bring it back to that nightmare
so that pathetic creature in the corner
can step from awareness to control,
from enlightenment to realization?
Bring the insight of the gap back
to fill the gap, to turn the black and white
to a beautiful, all-encompassing gray.
So that pathetic creature in the corner
can wake up and play like a child gleaming
in the game of life, find a smile
in that dreamspace, imbue it with meaning
to heal and not wound with the knife.
To be all I can become.
