There's an underlying group
Trying to do what's not right
They're pretty ****** good
At hiding in plain sight

I was never sure if she was
locked away in a tower somewhere

Or if she was the dungeon master
and I was the one on the rack

Cord our arms with steel
Bolster our hearts with fire
Fill our minds with light
Drag the veil from our eyes

We have endurance and strength to fight
We have mercy and we have passion
May we learn the wisdom to choose what's right
May our eyes weigh, measure, and ration

Call it hope, poem, spell, or prayer
May it be a boon for those that care
To rise and challenge, to stand against
Control by precedent and ******* by consequence

Forgiving doesn't always take away the pain
As if washed away by some mythical rain
Generously applied truth is the only salve
Duel-edged and sharp enough to cut us in half
Pain-reaction, recoil, trauma response
Defensive action, budding trust is lost
This is normal human behavior
PTSD drains, Hope is savior
Catalyst for anxious dread
Water in the desert when nearly dead
Grateful hands lift life to lip
Thankful for the sandiest sip
Kindness inspires compassion and understanding starts
Enlightening dark corners in sun and healing the heart

Her star is her spirit
Her heart is my light
Weather, far, or near it
Illuminates my night

The cost of a soul is never cheap
A heart broken whole sleeps ever-deep
Healings toll is inclined to be steep
Heaven toils, devils reap

Pick yourself a poison
Goin' down town's lucked out
Cry yourself a river
Stroke it back you've swum out
Bust in the driver's window
Metal that pedal you're spun out
Tip back a fat jar-a
Moonshine 'til you're plum out
Hear the siren? Fire drill!
Get your holler on 'n jump out
Let your hair burn
Rip a roarin' scream as you run out
Stop, drop, rock 'n roll
Stomp that beat drum it out
Why waste time
Dyin' in the heat when the sun is out?

I would rather have lived in a trailer with you,

Than to have lived the rockstar life without you.

I have only my soul as sextant,
Life serves as map and almanac,
Destiny plotted by wave and wind,
Without your star to guide me back.

I want world peace and hoverboards too
But those ain't happening anytime soon either
So much for childhood dreams, I suppose

Although to be fair, we do have watches that can make video calls.
So I guess that's 1/1000 or so.
Yay the future! 😕

Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Everything must go!
No offer unreasonable! No price too low!

What's that you say? You say you're just not buying it?
You don't like its looks and you're just not trying it?

That is cheap and this is ******,
What is this, plastic? How gaudy!
Everything you have to offer is beneath me,
Is this the legacy you thought to bequeath me?

My apologies, I do not possess the prowess to hold your interest,
I hope you'll forgive my hubris & this foolish idea that I should be honest,
In fumbling, stumbling, pedestrian prose & ****-poor rhymes like those.
I suffer from multiple isms you see, I must've been having a schism, truly.

It's not my custom to put a tag on things so dear,
Nor, had I a choice, would I place the price so near,
To nothing that I shiver at the cold cost, this chilling fear,
That even if I were free I'd be too much to bear.

When one's life has hit rock bottom
At the ripe old age of nineteen
When the apple of life has gone rotten
And hopeful plans wither to faded dreams

When one's confidence is shot
And one's hope has slowly waned
When one's faith in love is all but lost
And one's self-esteem's been drained

When one's spent their life to overcome
The pain of losing their one true one
When one's reached out to touch only ice
To be judged and rejected once, twice, thrice

When one's messages are deleted unread
And pictures cannot fill the hole in one's heart
When the only chance to hear your voice is in one's head
One begins the onerous process of falling apart

When healing has begun and the dull throb doesn't beat one jaded
When the sunlight breaks the clouds for the first time in dark ages
When the black hole ***** a little less and the stars aren't so faded
One will still be here waiting to hear an answer sought by fools and sages

TL:DR

They were taught faith

under the guise of Stockholm Syndrome

Your gender roles
don't go very well
with my anxiety jam

For someone like me
being told you're getting
exactly what you've always wanted
is like being told that you have
24 hours to live.

Because nothing I've ever wanted
really, actually, down-deep wanted
has ever worked out.

The more important something was,
the more ****** up the eventual outcome.

This self-fulfilling prophecy has been
more reliable than any family
member, friend, or lover has ever been.

It's never let me down.

She would stand in the path of an avalanche and yell, "Stop!"
Frack me if she wouldn't actually expect the avalanche to respect her.
She'd be thinking about how to teach the avalanche manners,
Safe inside her brand-new igloo.

It's not the giving, it's the spirit

But being giving, the spirit gives

So it is the giving of the spirit

You flow through my poetry

like the blood from the movie Alien

You were never supposed to be a guest star.

✨

I love reading.  My favorites are fantasy novels.

When I was in middle school and first starting to grasp the idea that one could read for fun --gross right?-- I read an awesome series called The Dragonriders of Pern, by Anne McCaffrey.

Man, what an amazing series for a young reader (soon to be aspiring writer, thank you Anne McCaffrey) to cut their teeth on.
It is intelligently and imaginatively written, adventurous, suspenseful, emotional, and like duh, it's got people riding dragons!

Well anyway, in the very first book one of the main characters is being attacked by an extremely large beast called a watch weyr, a genetic cousin of dragons bred for guarding castles.

At the very last instant, as the beast is pouncing upon our hero, the watch weyr realizes its intended target is actually one of the very people it was bred to protect.

In a desperate attempt to fling itself aside and spare the life of our hero, the watch weyr snaps its own spine, killing itself.

Now, this is no dog, it's a descendant of dragons, intelligent, sentient, and centuries-old.  That killed itself to avoid hurting someone it didn't even know.  Without a second thought.

Sometimes, not always or even most of the time, mind you, but sometimes...

I wish I had never read that book.

Several times in my life I have had the strange sensation that I might just fall up into the sky at any given moment.  Like gravity would, for some reason, simply stop affecting me.

It happened once when I was seven, laying on my back in the summer grass, cloud-watching.

It happened again, when I was seventeen, while I was staring at the stars reflected in the water.

And once just now
when I thought about
you loving me.

I want to wrap myself around you,

My entire self, my spirit, all my life,

I want to cradle you in the arms of my galaxy,

Serene in the timeless embrace of our fusion,

The rest of the universe spinning around us,

Starlight fireworks dancing to the beat of our heart.

Your Honor,







The persecution rests.

You passed me
And I thought

Wow, she is beau-
Oops, that's not cool

-You're on a diet, but
-You can look at the menu

Yeah, but
I love what's on my plate.

You are the reason I fell in love with the light.

You are the reason I sought a way out of the darkness.

You are the reason I stayed.

You might have been second in line,

But you were never second place.

You're much stronger than any antidepressant I've ever been prescribed.

Worst mistake I ever made,

Was thinking it would be more painful to stay friends.

Whipcracks, needles, and scorpion stings,
These are a few of my least favorite things.
Why do we devolve to insult and injury,
I don't want that, I need your arms around me.

What is this thing buzzing around my ears?
I twist and turn but I don't see what it is!
I hop and swat and growl in frustration,
At this imperceivable persistent pest, this irritation!
It hums in my ear just when I'm drifting to sleep,
Whispering of longing three-thousand miles deep,
It reminds me of days in the sun, laughter, festivals, and fairs,
Music and movies, incense in the air...of days when you were there.
If I manage to rest it's even worse, I'll dream you're scared and lost,
That you're in danger or hurt, my search finding only blankets tossed.
Deceptive day lets me think I'm okay, then sun gives way to rain,
Stifling heat or razor-sharp chill, only strife matters, every breath is pain.
A black hole in my heart, an elephant on my chest, a grim guard dog,
Every face in every crowd might be yours, I seek a drop of water in fog.
I check up once every few years on the book of faces,
You look happy and well, so at least my fears are satiated.
Long and short, every moment is happy and sad, relaxed and stressed,
Darkness and light at once, I guess that's life when one is depressed.

I am not an Atari running Logo.

I will wear a turtle costume for you.

I will Go-To-Line-22, and I will STOP for you.

I will even Go-To-End, for you.

But if you're not there, for me, you'll eventually find that turtle costume unresponsive.

I thought that because she was the love of my life
I would be the love of hers

I fell in love forever,
She made love for fun,
For me, it was the future,
To her, we had a good run.

like a star
our love died
before we ever
saw its light

I got this idea I would write you a poem,
One you could read sitting safely at home,
Or keep with you out and about while you roam.

A poem about all of the memories I held sacred,
Laughing, singing, kissing, and cuddling in bed,
One to remind you our time wasn't wasted.

So I laced up my heart and I shrugged on my soul,
I popped open my noggin and I went for a stroll,
Right down Memory Lane and left at the Rabbit Hole.

I kept on goin' 'til I hit a velvet rope with posts of brass,
But I musta gotten too close to the bulletproof glass,
Cause a big grumpy guard threw me out on my ***

I realized, still rolling, it's all one massive museum,
Motionless memories mummified so I can keep 'em,
Lined up and locked away, as if someone would steal 'em.

Arduously ordered, organized for instant access,
A mental palace fit to make even Sherlock jealous,
That Dewey Decimal dude don't got nothin' on this.

The slide shows replay every minute on the minute,
Time-compressed and Tetrised-in so each moment fits,
Bio-digitally encoded on neurode and inked onto skin.

Tear-rusty gears grind waterlogged cogs in reverse,
This melancholy machine made to reflect you in verse,
Is a planetarium perpetually projecting my universe.

You can't steal a Queen

Unless she's playing games

We were in love, successful, and happy,
We had a graphic novel series and a hit CD.

We did everything together, I stood tall beside her,
Then some insecure scientist turned on their LARGE particle collider.

Right was down, and down was blue, and blue was east,
Now she's married to another man, and I got no teeth.

My voice was soothing to her as a wound is calmed by festering,
I called daily, then weekly, then bi-monthly, she called it pestering.

So my cats are watching Dexter right now...
Yeah, you heard that right.
Two of them are kinda being alpha-y to each other,
They won't hang out in here at the same time,
So I leave a show on in the other room for the odd cat out.
Right now they're watching Dexter.
So I was just thinking,
Maybe that's not such a good idea,
Cats are already a bit murderous,
Maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas...

I am drawn to this

Shimmering in my sight

Shinning with promise

Pool of aqueous light

Cupped hands reach out

Weary wanderer with relief awash

Dry disappointment fills my mouth

Wait- Sand!? This- This is a mirage?

Waiting will get you a life of servitude to a master who doesn't know you even exist.

That being said...I still hope. If you love them, you hope.  That's life.

You lose hope sometimes, you wonder why you still hold onto it sometimes.

There's no reason to hope, other than that she's important to me.

It just doesn't matter if it hurts, it's going to hurt no matter what.

You don't have to have expectations to just...hope.

I miss your hand in my hand
I want your hand on my shoulder
I need your hand on my...anything