Staring at the Mirror (Winter on 18th st)

To all the beautiful girls I’ve loved and lost
To all the songs I’ve left locked up inside my heart
To all the time I’ve wasted staring blankly at the mirror
With nothing say and nobody to hear it

Eyes to the ceiling before the alarms rung
My arm the only thing asleep snooze bar none
6:30 in the AM a cold and empty bed
Knowing my clock is fast so it’s really just 6:10
My ahead abuzz with the same song from the previous day
A din of clashing of chords can’t seem to get out of my own way
My mind once able to process the beautiful struggle
Now knotted in so many places swollen scarred and bubbled
Drug addled and scrambled one too many scandals
Plus a whole inheritance to carry handle and battle
Dawn sky on the verge of tears not a cloud around
Valor lost like luggage only cowardice abounds
Bereft of even a touch of will to pull back simple sheets
Knowing the day holds more in store than he can manage to meet
Confined to the same house for 10 plus year so long ago
The ghosts are stronger than the living the world covered in snow

To all the beautiful girls I’ve loved and lost
To all the songs I’ve left locked up inside my heart
To all the time I’ve wasted staring blankly at the mirror
With nothing say and nobody to hear it

Eyes to the mirror before the days begun
Dazed and running in a rerun sleep deprived and numb
Steeped in shower steam the stream of water still unbroken
The tap blistering hot the tub drains distilled emotion
Towel rubs the mirror in a circle that reveals
Just enough of half my face only halfway face my fears
Cabinet meant for medicine poison in what it represents
Frames a state of mind that could probably use a sedative
This piece of solid glass with polished silver at its back
Must tire of me staring as if it was looking back
I used to sing a carol practiced through the looking glass
See images of wonderland caps and Cheshire cats
Now it locks my gaze distorting perception and opticals
How difficult for far-sighted eyes to focus on follicles
A single strand is plucked a bass tone that’s macabre
This note drones overwhelming every obligated cause

To all the beautiful girls I’ve loved and lost
To all the songs I’ve left locked up inside my heart
To all the time I’ve wasted staring blankly at the mirror
With nothing say and nobody to hear it

Eyes to the window where translucent blinds are hung
Useless as the music wrote for sons with no tongue
Who’ve never sung a lick let alone followed a dream
Have as much trouble swallowing as hollering a scream
I try to grow a beard to cover up the child
But end up tearing it out and acidic vile pile
Mighty hard to crack a smile ever harder to shard glass
For inside this mirror’s confines my troubles infinite last
And when I see my reflection I feel fear frail and despondent
Talk aloud knowing there’s no one there for responding
The hours that I’ve wasted trapped inside my insecurities
Scratching at my skin furiously nervously
For that is all symbolic as is the marijuana
The tendencies towards bendering rendered an alcoholic
The song of self was once melodic if never harmonic
All the women all the singing all the living
Have I lost it?