The light is dimming:
Every year, hour, minute
Slowly passes in silence
In distances, lost and forgotten

The light is dying:
Slowly fading in memories
Revisited countless times
By lonely, wrinkled hearts

The light snuffs out:
Tears of regret staining young hearts
Seeking forgiveness for time lost
Words unspoken, love neglected

Agitation, despair and its winged variations, you name it
all repressed but still rise to test me

What is my recourse?
I tread lightly on this Escheresque concourse
It’s repeated often, I know
but the pen and keys are my most cathartic release
they’re magma to emerging flames
they’re sedatives for demons and angels alike
that reside on corners of this clavicle

How many steps could you take through my lens, my concave mirror?
Have you felt what I felt?
The brimming, cerebral cauldron bursting, putting volcanic geysers to shame
the questions outnumbering seconds spent since Earth’s nativity
the emotions ripping a rift through which rationality deep dives
it becomes Phelps in unknown depths
your body becomes both a Vatican and a Colosseum,
place of worship and place of war
and you walk the tightropes your vocal chords have morphed into
careful to seem like another replica, don’t wanna upset the blades they all balance on
don’t wanna scare the rest hollow, no,
best to follow and best to follow the regimen:

coffee beans and spice of delusion in the hazelnut syrup,
sip slow
follow the same cycle because change is a cocoon and cocoons ache like the past
keep on pretending to love the workplace
love the norms held over you
puppet strings bring warmth after all
in this solitary world cold as winter missile silos
and just as destructive

So I ask again, have you felt what I felt?

Do the few days in utopia offset the majority on rodent wheels?
Have you risen so high, to satellite peaks, to the best you’ve ever been
only to have the worst waiting on the coin’s parallel?

We flip like saltwater fins and backstroke till a back is left broke
I’m learning to discard hope but breathe in the alternative
I believe in better days, I will carve them from local stone
and build a home upon their surfaces
I now know paradise is a set of blueprints
happiness is no state of mind, it’s a direction to me
you may not notice when you arrive
but you keep going

and that’s the beauty of it
you let it be the wind
It’ll find you on your journey

Tell me again,
have you felt what I felt?

We are all mothers
As we care for one another while going about business as usual
Our greatness in the guidance of the women whose scalloped hands stirrup our feet in the rooms and halls and roads of our lives
Who we notice only when we focus our eyes on our own faces, on our own working hands, on our own burdened hearts.

Anger

The simplest
And most complicated
Of emotions

His anger is celebrated
A mirage of strength
Power
Control

Her anger is ridiculed
A loss of control
Inconvenient
Emotion without reason

Neither view is complete
Or completely wrong
For all of us

We feel righteous in our anger
Full
And complete

But anger can be an illusion
Of power
Control

Sometimes it pops
                                   Like a bubble
                                                          ­     A balloon of hot air

And we are left feeling empty
Drained
Sometimes full of regret
And shame

Even when it is justified
And full
                  of substance

It can only be an important step in a journey
But never a home
                                    worth living in

Use anger as a tool
A sign
“Injustice may live here”
Worthy of further exploration

But even in its most righteous form

Anger alone cannot solve problems
It can fuel action
Incite support
                               In the moment of outrage

But avoid the quicksand
Of rage untempered by reflection
That way leads to despair
Inaction
Silence

Beware anger as a shield
Against feeling

Pain
Guilt
Regret
Fear

These emotions are necessary steps
To continue any journey
To grow

Feel your anger
Seek to understand it
Then look beyond

Find strength
And power
In feeling
In seeking
                    shared vulnerability
                                                   ­          empathy
                                                        ­                        and joy

Hey guys!
Remember not to **** or **** anyone.
I know modern life is hard
with, like, credit cards and stuff
but just because you can do
something unutterably terrible
doesn’t mean you should
Ok?

And yeah, we don’t have a monopoly
on being shitbergs
In the general pissy sea of life
but statistically, with numbers and stuff,
we ****

So, y’know, try not to.
See how that feels.

I can barely catch my breath,
there’s a sea of swirling madness
bodies bursting with endless
tragic tears of sadness
and all the sobbing leaves me
heaving and breathless.

Wishing I’d see death less
and more days of happiness
for all the world’s children,
but I can always hear them
crying, begging, for heroes
who will save them.

Little girl amidst the wreckage
loves her people,
lives in fear of the evil
acts of other nations
as bombs burst her foundation,
and she is left feeling
lifetimes of devastation.

Years of boots on throats,
of truths I wrote
of true experiences
only slightly altered
by my lack of living in it.

but I can see the way they live it.
Fear, and sorrow, pain planted upon
the soft soil of childhood.

I can breathe but I
don’t think I should,
don’t think people are good
as other human beings suffocate
I don’t want to take their place,
but I would exchange pained
lungs and ease the air of despair
from their chest to mine
to give them time to repair
their hurting hearts
as they breathe in fresh oxygen.

I'm lonely
but only
temporarily
using these
words sparingly
as I search
this dark area
for some sign
of hope.

Weeping with pre-grief
because I see
uncertain future possibilities
as inevitable tragedies.

My brothers and sisters
seem strange and deranged,
lost in cycles of hate and pain
that drain the vein
of what’s humane.
  
So, I want to rewrite
the wiring inside
that has them dying
like others do
with withering emotions
that cause violence to brew
the kind that silences
the few who
would speak truth
about this mess.

It's really humiliating
To be shaking a cup
24 hours a day
And people just look
At you like you're
Some sort of ***

I go to fill out applications
They look at me and
I'm not looking presentable
And then they
"Well, we'll call you
Leave a number"
But how can I leave a number
When I don't have a phone

It's just a struggle

I've had people
walk past me and
Say "get a job you ***"
And I said "wait a minute"
"I'm not a ***,
I'm a human"

And, it's hard

After the end of the day
When people go home
I just feel so bad
That I can't be
Going home too

You should find you and nobody else but you.
Nobody can understand what you've been through and why you did what you did.
Because at the end of the day, you only have yourself.
You can only understand, you.