Archive for the ‘denial’ Category

wish away the past

November 26, 2022

Telling your life story
Leaving out the facts
Time travels sideways
Turkeys go quack

Nothing that happens
Is ever your fault
Look inside a mirror
See who you're not

Crazy as a hound dog
With a pigeon up its ass
Fantasize a future
Wish away the past

Nothing that happens
Is ever your fault
Look inside a mirror
See who you're not

Blood on all your garments
Dripping from your hand
But you never stop saying
You're an innocent man

Nothing that happens
Is ever your fault
Look inside a mirror
See who you're not

By Richard W. Bray

Fragrant Thinking

November 6, 2022





My doctor said "Your thinking stinks
You're sick inside from all them drinks
You need to fix what's in your head
Or else you're gonna wind up dead"

Fragrant thinking
Keeping people sane
Try to stay happy
But don't deny the pain

Fragrant thinking
You're gonna make mistakes
Don't emphasize the negative
And give yourself a break

Fragrant thinking
Focus on yourself
Don't waste your time obsessing 
About everybody else

Fragrant thinking 
Serenity Prayer
Change the things you can
Who said life was fair? 

Now I filter everything
All the stuff I say and think
Eliminating all the shit
That don't serve me no benefit

by Richard W. Bray 

If You Don’t Tell Yourself the Truth, You’ll Go Crazy

October 27, 2022





I read a lot of books
About psychology and stuff
Crammin knowledge in my head
I’ll never get enough

Tried to figure out
Why some people fall apart
Wondered if the problem’s 
In the head or in the heart

The answer is so simple
And amazy
If you don’t tell yourself the truth
You’ll go crazy

Deception is a poison 
It destroys and complicates
Honesty alleviates
It cures and it regenerates

Living all those lies
Is gonna rot your loving soul
Heal your wounded heart
And let yourself be whole

The answer is so simple
And amazy
If you don’t tell yourself the truth
You’ll go crazy

When you don’t wanna know what you know

October 6, 2022

"To see what's right in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle."
–George Orwell

When you don't wanna know
What you know

It takes a massive toll
It'll singe your living soul

When you don't wanna know
What you know

The fables that you tell
The fiction that you sell

When you don't wanna know
What you know

What people say and do
What's right in front of you

When you don't wanna know
What you know

His face is full of doom
He smells like cheap perfume

When you don't wanna know
What you know

When you don't wanna know
What you know

When you don't wanna know
What you know

by Richard W. Bray


The thing that’s always there

January 24, 2022





The thing that's always there
In the alcoves of your mind
The thing that makes you lie
The thing that makes you blind

The thing you never mention
When you try and talk sense
Gossip, movies, politics
And current events

The thing that's deep below
And always at the surface
The ghost in the attic
The phantom in the furnace

Try and stay busy
Avoid, disrupt, deny
Wash your brain with booze
It never leaves your side

by Richard W. Bray

From Wichita to Omaha

January 16, 2022

map to nowhere
You can build yourself a mansion
On a big ole pile of sand
You can fabricate a future
In never never land
You can look inside a mirror
And see a fantasy 
You can dream away your future 
On what's never gonna be

Can't get from Wichita to Omaha
If you're stuck in Timbuktu
The things you did are on the way
To things you're gonna do
You can make believe you're someone else
And dream a happy dream
But being who you wanna be
Starts with coming clean

You can wake up every morning
And tell yourself a lie
You can repeat it and repeat it
Until the day you die
You can keep on treading water
And never wonder why
Or you can grab life by the collar
And look it in the eye

Can't get from Wichita to Omaha
If you're stuck in Timbuktu
The things you did are on the way
To things you're gonna do
You can make believe you're someone else
And dream a happy dream
But being who you wanna be
Starts with coming clean

by Richard W. Bray

a man-hating woman and a woman-hating man

September 8, 2021
a man-hating woman
and a woman-hating man
raised a couple kids
in a pool of quicksand

daughter got away
and overcome the sad
angry little mama's boy
blames everything on dad

a man-hating woman 
and a woman-hating man

smells and yells and warning bells
forty years of rage
and they never even knew
they built their own cage

by Richard W. Bray

Neurosis is My Superpower

December 1, 2018

Have you tried
Covering your ears
Closing both your eyes
Ignoring life for years
Repeating soothing lies?

Neurosis is my superpower
So long as I don’t leave the tower

Have you tried
Talk, talk, talking
About everyone you know?
Make it super shocking
And never stop the show

Neurosis is my superpower
Spreading bullshit sweet and sour

Have you tried
Rewiring all the neurons
Dashing through your head?
Tell yourself you’re pure in
The things you did and said

Neurosis is my superpower
Eating lies and shitting flowers

By Richard W. Bray

someone to blame

November 11, 2018

Your life is full of pain
Things you can’t explain
You find someone to blame
So every problem is the same

You’re a little bit neurotic
And your ego’s really weak
You’re a scared little lamb
And a fixating geek

Thinking hurts your head
Everything turns red
You focus your frustration
On a person or a nation

You’re a little bit neurotic
And your ego’s really weak
You’re a scared little lamb
And a fixating geek

Will quiet desperation
Explode in devastation?
Will you drive yourself insane
Hiding from the pain?

You’re a little bit neurotic
And your ego’s really weak
You’re a scared little lamb
And a fixating geek

by Richard W. Bray

hang dang dibble

November 3, 2018

I could be a little bitch
But I’d rather be a man
Ain’t gonna let no woman
Tell me who I am

Don’t know hang dang dibble
And I don’t really care
How she’s looking tonight
Or the way she cuts her hair

I’m gonna have another beer
I’m gonna play it where it lays
Till it all disappears
In a honey-colored haze

Don’t know hang dang dibble
And I don’t really care
If she found another lover
To take her everywhere

Don’t matter that she loved me
Like nobody ever did
Won’t get hung up on a feeling
Like a stupid little kid

Don’t know hang dang dibble
And I don’t really care
Living in the past
Won’t never get you anywhere

By Richard W. Bray