What is the value of a life
Of a husband or a wife 
Of a daughter or a son.

Do these labels give value to one,
More so over the other?

Is a wife less valuable than a mother,
A father more valuable than a son?

Does value rise or fall
as one becomes another?

Surely every life can't be worth the same!
Can it?

 I wonder.
Is a peasants life,
of less value than a kings!

Or does Status, Creed, Race, or Color,
truly, not mean a **** thing?

It is true that I would place my
wife, my son, and my brothers
life over that of another.

But that value is given to them only by me.
No life is worth more
than any other in reality.

Yet until we can open
our hearts and minds to see.

The true value of life will never be!

There are two people —
       the Lover and the Beloved.

       The Beloved is rare,
    a soul that loves without demand.

      The Lover? They take it all.

    They use the Beloved endlessly,
   then toss them aside like nothing.

    Wasted. Forgotten. Replaced.

“No Man Is An Island”
but that was before smart phones
To text and to tweet
technology’s drones

With ear buds in place
these Stepford’s march on
Virtually connecting
— to what’s already gone

(University of Pennsylvania: June, 2025)

I flowed into the dark blue ocean of symbols.
Just yesterday,
I walked with heavy footsteps,
well-grounded.

But once again,
an irresistible force lifted me.
I wanted to see what was above.

Then I came back,
changed,
less happy,
a part of me scattered
in that an alternative universe.

Now, worlds overlapping appear,
The sun is shining with different light.
Words change their meaning.
The fog thickens so,
I can no longer see fissures
under my feet.

Step by step, carefully,
I try to pass through
a dimension of forgotten dreaming.

I don’t want to be stuck
inside an illusion for too long.
Looking at my heart still glowing,
devoured by some voices,
bite by bite, crumb by crumb.

They come in need,
then dissolve like ghosts.

How can one love,
under the heavy weight of knowing—
with Lapis Lazuli pressed
against my chest?

I don’t want to vanish
into sticky spider webs
into formal language  
that is too cold,
too detached.

Two forces fight inside me
To see the truth, even if it hurts,
or to close my eyes,
and idealize brutal reality.

Looking in the distorted mirror,
observing love quivering on the verge.
And thus, the Earth becomes the theater.

The cynical facades ******
with pretended freedom,
taking every hour,
every month,
every year,

into

PROGRESSIVE
DE…HUMANIZATION