I wrote a poem, just for you,
Wrought out of pain and tears.
You took the pain, and wrote one too;
It multiplied our fears.

I wrote a poem, filled with joy,
And gave you that as well.
You wrote one too, and helped destroy
Our paranoia's spell.

The Same Table

We are all sitting
At the same table.
Some of us have more food,
                               more guns,
                               more oil,
                               more everything.
Some of us will laugh more,
                     will cry more,
                     will sigh more,
                     will feel more.
Some of us will die young,
                      will die old,
                      will die willingly,
                      will never live properly at all.
Some of us wear red,
                     wear blue,
                     wear black,
                     wear all the colours of the rainbow,
Some of us have light skin,
                     have dark skin,
                     have smooth skin
                     have scars criss-crossing our bodies,
But none of us
Sit high enough
          To look down
     On anyone.

I find myself, sometimes, drifting off
Into vast seas of imagination,
Until somebody lets out a cough,
And destroys all of my creation.

I wonder if the same thing applies,
In terms of our reality;
If we're just the dreams, and hopes, and lies,
Of some cosmic entity.

And if we found out that that's true,
Would it really change a thing?
If what's true for me is not for you,
Is there nothing I can bring

To your fake life, and also mine,
That serves a higher purpose?
Perhaps our meaning's still divine,
Although it may seem worthless.

Imagine you are in a play,
Whose audience numbers one,
And you helped brighten up their day,
And shaped what they'd become.

Would it really seem like nothing?
Is that really not enough?
To know the joy that you could bring,
In a life that's often tough?

So I don't care if they're true or not;
All the memories we share.
I'm happy now with what I've got;
The capacity to care.

This poetry site used to mean
Quite a lot to me,
But recently all that I've seen
Is not what used to be.

Perhaps this site is dying,
Like the fragment of my soul,
Which has given up with trying
To love this unpoetic hole.

"Five–O-two, Bad gateway"
Is mostly what I read,
And the same **** poems every day
Appearing on my feed.

This used to be a lovely place
To connect and to explore,
But now I accept it's lost it's grace,
And this site's done for, for sure.

I hope in time they'll fix it,
And this site will be restored,
But, 'till then, I will not risk it;
So I'll leave on my own accord.

If I could miss you any more I would,
But –truth is– that I also missed myself,
Far more than any other possibly could,
And I needed time to focus on my health.

If you could see inside my mind,
You'd understand why I could not have stayed,
To watch you fawn, and worry, and be kind,
And stay to watch my mind degrade.

Sometimes an absence may be for the best;
A step too far is far worse than a step delayed,
If that was wrong I feared to put it to the test;
A friendship missed is better than a friend betrayed.