What do you do when there’s no one around? 
No outside validation
Only your own reflection
Watching you instead 
Would you bang your forehead 
Against the height of the bar 
             You set for yourself? 

If I am so blessed 
With one precious life to live
How can I be so easily tricked
                 Delivering that life
                 No questions asked
Into the hands of new age executioners 
Clipboards in place of an ax
Lab coats and name tags instead of a mask

The lay of the land is ugly
         When the sound of the rain isn’t enough to hold me
Enraptured for an afternoon 

Drip drip like a melody 
Too slow against the race of my mind
          Out of breath I quickly 
Arrive in first place at the next thing 
Not hearing the song of the rain