The city’s a mammal breathing in the dark,
A vast, pulsing, throbbing, sweating,
Bleeding, shitting, pissing, fucking,
Screaming, crying, laughing, dying beast
That doesn’t care about me or anyone,
That just is, and does, and will be.
We’re specks of dirt on its metal skin,
Drops of blood in its concrete veins.

You people, I see your traces every night:
You’re the ones who throw out half-eaten pizza,
Leftover Chinese, expired milk, moldy cheese.
You’re the ones who discard broken toys,
Torn clothes, worn-out shoes, cracked phones.
You’re the ones who dump dirty tissues,
Used condoms, bloody tampons, piss-stained sheets.
You’re the ones who leave photos of smiling faces,
Drawings of rainbows, love letters, suicide notes.

The truck’s another beast, made of metal and oil,
With a hungry mouth, a crushing throat,
And a roaring, smoking ass.
It roams the city at night, devouring its shit,
Turning it into mush, then spitting it out
Onto a stinking mountain of waste,
Where birds and rats and maggots feed.

I’m a beast too, a parasite on the beast,
A machine of flesh and blood and bone and nerve
That runs on garbage and music and memories,
That breaks down and heals and breaks down again.
My heart beats like the engines of a spaceship
Launching itself into space.

This guy I work with sold me his old shitbox
For a couple hundred bucks, said it runs fine.
Engine coughs, starter groans, heater’s a joke.
This piece of junk should’ve been scrapped.

I like to cruise through the veins
Of this mammalian machine
That runs on trash and pain.
The pizza joints, the strip clubs,
The ruins where junkies shoot up,
The alleys where whores sell their flesh.

The streets are covered in shit
Left by dogs and pigeons and drunks.
All the kids are scared and angry.
The adults are just old kids with jobs.

I used to think I was different.
I thought I had a purpose, a meaning.
But I’m just another piece of trash
Thrown out into the world
To fester and decay.
I try to keep my head down.
I try to make it through the day
Without killing someone or myself.

I stand beneath the rust-stained shower
And scrub other people’s filth from myself.
Then I grab my guitar and sit on the dirty bed.
Lit by a bare bulb, I sing for you again:
For the girl with fire hair and milk eyes,
Who was blind but could see.

I sing the songs I wrote,
The ones that no one hears.
I think of the friends I lost,
I think of the love I killed.

I’m gonna get up.
Gonna get up, goddamnit.
Gonna get up, goddamnit,
And go to work.

I stink like a dead rat.
My back aches, my arms are bruised.
My hands are scarred and dirty.
I take my filthy work clothes off.

When I write songs, I’m a teenager again.
Our hideout is waiting up in the hills.
I just buried my best friend.
Your milk eyes pierce straight through me,
Waiting for me to confess.
I never saw you again.

I’m gonna get up.
Gonna get up, goddamnit.
Gonna get up, goddamnit,
And go to work.

This new kid thought I came with the truck.
When I pull the gloves off,
My hands are two white corpses.
They don’t belong to me anymore.

I work all night, then crawl back here.
I play music, eat, drink, sleep all day.
I’m trying to reduce the waking hours
During which you can visit me.

I’m gonna get up.
Gonna get up, goddamnit.
Gonna get up, goddamnit,
And go to work.

I dream of nothing,
Or maybe of everything.
I don’t know.
I don’t care.
I just sleep,
And wake up again,
To do it all over
Every goddamned day.

The truck’s a hellbeast with a steel mouth
That swallows all the crap you toss.
The beast’s guts groan and growl.
It spews black smoke from its ass.
A machine that moves, eats, and shits,
What else could it be but alive?

I asked the driver, “You need help?”
He threw me a pair of gloves and said, “Go for it.”

I look like death, but I’m young, strong enough.
I can lift heavy, leaking bags,
And I’m not scared of shit, piss, or puke.
The loader has a bad knee,
And the driver’s a sick old drunk.
They need a body to keep the route going,
And I’m the only one dumb enough
To try.

We sped through the city, two hours before dawn,
Stopping in alleys and behind stores.
I rode in the truck’s warm cab,
Listening to the driver and the loader talk
About money they needed, bitches they’d had,
And all the reasons they hated their jobs.

When we reached the landfill, I stood by
As the sun rose over a mountain of filth.
The loader pulled a lever, the truck’s back lifted,
And a flood of trash poured out:
A stinking wave of ruin, rot, and rust.
It looked like a giant metal beast
Puking its guts onto a steaming shitpile,
Then roaring with its hydraulic arms.

I’m a runner, a lifter, a feeder, a cleaner.
My guitar rides behind the seat.
I jump in and out of the truck’s jaws,
And drag the trash into its throat.
It makes me sweat, stink, and bleed.
The crew calls me “new kid,” “dumbass,”
But they don’t give a fuck about me,
And I don’t give a fuck back.

There’s nothing like the smell
Of trash in the morning:
Fruit gone soft, meat gone green,
Diapers full of shit.

I’ve slept in worse places than a truck.
Touched worse things than trash.
Been hurt by worse things than a compactor.
I don’t complain. I don’t talk back.
I just keep working, keep feeding the beast,
And it keeps me alive.

I’m a garbage man, a trash collector,
A scavenger of the city’s waste.
I ride on the back step, clinging to the rails,
Feeling the wind and the rain on my face,
Seeing the streets before they wake,
Smelling the world in its rawest state.
I don’t care what you call me,
As long as you pay me.
I don’t care what you think of me,
As long as you leave me alone.

A coworker got me a lead on a filthy room,
And told me what bars to hit at night.
The room’s walls are peeling, the toilet’s clogged,
But the door locks from the inside.

I’m a tough guy in an ugly neighborhood.
The worst thing that could happen already has.
What more can the world do to me
Than what I’ve already done to myself.

I see people in their homes,
Asleep or awake, happy or sad.
I see dogs and cats,
Rats and birds,
That live on the margins of the world.
They don’t judge me, they don’t fear me.
They just do what they gotta do
To survive.

Skin pale as a corpse,
Sharp teeth, long claws.
I sleep in a coffin
Full of dirt and bones.

The thick air stinks of mold and piss.
I hear coughing and groaning of unknown forms.
These dark rooms are where the dead dwell,
And the living go to die.
I wander through town at night
‘Cause I don’t belong to the day.

I dreamed of you again, Claire,
As a bug crawled in my ear.
You were wearing a white dress,
And your hair was on fire.
I have traveled far from home,
But the burning never ends.

I was once a warrior, had a name.
Those days are dead and gone.
Right here, I’m nothing,
A nameless grave
Whose company are the insects
That crawl and buzz in the dark.

Things I shouldn’t have done,
That I did anyway.
No matter where I go,
I carry death inside me.

Oh, life was not meant
To be lived alone.

Dripping sweat, swatting flies.
I got drunk on stale bread.
I stumble out to a field,
And vomit in the sun.

In this town I found a diner
With a red sign that glows “Open.”
I sit in a red booth in the corner.
Place’s busy, but I’m all alone.

The walls and floor are white tile.
The lights are too bright, the fans too loud.
The ceiling is a false sky
With fake, fluffy clouds.

I don’t want anything from anybody.
Can I get a burger and fries,
And a large soda,
And maybe a milkshake.

Some pancakes with bacon and eggs,
And a glass of orange juice.
Maybe a muffin for dessert.
And a second milkshake.

When I was a kid,
I wanted to be a hero,
I wanted to perform great deeds.
Now I just wanna eat.

The pale and shining moon
Looks like a moldy jizz stain.
Somewhere out there in the dark,
A lonely star is dying,
Shedding light and shedding tears
For all the lives it has outlived.

Thought of bringing the knife.
Grabbed my guitar instead.

There’s no reason you gotta die
For some shithole town like this.
There must be something better
On the other side of those peaks.

I said I’d stay until the end.
This is the end.

I heard a story about this one dinosaur,
About how one day he woke up and said,
“Goddamn, I’m done, I’ve had enough.”
So then, without warning, he packed up his stuff,
Sneaked away before his mother woke up,
And disappeared into the night.
Didn’t need to leave a note.
It’s a known fact that, once every century or so,
Humans and dinos head off together
To wage war on some faraway world.

God came into town with his wares.
He told me, “William, my boy, you’ve grown so much!
Would you like to trade with me?”
“What do you got, you bearded leech?”

“Well, I collect strange things, you know?
An empty bottle of gin,
A dinosaur horn,
A red-haired wig,
A dried clump of blood.
Why don’t you have a look?”

“I’m not buying your junk,
So shove off, you old fart!”
“Are you sure, boy?”
“Get away from me.
You’re a sick, twisted fuck
Who keeps pissing on my dreams.”

It was a time before humans.
No one had electricity.
Suddenly a thunderbolt pierced the sky,
And God appeared before the dinosaurs.
He kicked their scaly balls and laughed.
He could do whatever he wanted to his pets.

Get away from me.
You’re a sick, twisted fuck
Who keeps pissing on my dreams.

I’ve lived in a dark cave,
Eaten the hearts of monsters,
Lost all my dearest friends.
And today the Devil himself
Sat on the edge of the sidewalk.
He stank like a million rotten penises,
A forest of phalluses covered in slime.
I looked down at him and said, “Fuck you,”
Then pissed straight into his mouth.

On my eighth birthday, I made a wish:
“If you are there, oh distant God,
Give me a dinosaur friend.”

What strange fucking beings we are:
Walking piles of meat and bone,
Heading down life’s roads
With hands covered in blood.

On my private island, I’m king and queen.
I live in a cave, alone and unseen.
I have no money, no friends, no sex.
Only my guitar, a knife, and regrets.

I’ll never see Claire again.
Her sweet red hair, her milk-white eyes.
I wonder if she thinks of me
Just as often as I think of her.
I wonder if she’s still alive,
Or if she’s also dead.

I hope she’s happy.
I hope she found love.
I hope she never has to see
The beast that I’ve become.

I can’t blame her for leaving.
I would have done the same.
In her place, I would’ve stabbed my best friend,
And buried him in a cold grave.
The truth is, you can’t love anyone
When you hate yourself.

Somewhere deep inside a mountain
In a hermit hemisphere
Where the sun never shines,
I will live out my days
Trying to find a reason
Why I am still alive.