SURVIVAL
When I look in a mirror
I accept what I see.
But beyond the reflection
Begins another journey.
The wolf
And the bear-
Two creatures
With life I share
The wolf is pragmatic
But can be flawed.
The bear however,
Will always stand tall.
Wolf is a mother-
The best protector,
But if needs be
You had best flee.
Bear will come,
Rip the sky from the sun.
And turn raindrops into flames
While dancing as you run.
I was born a lone wolf,
But life beat me down.
So then I found Bear
And felt invincible again.
For Wolf the objective
Is not to find home.
But to prepare herself
For being alone.
And if things get too much,
Feelings, emotions and the such.
Bear will be there,
And you had better beware.
Wolf is not always happy
With the prey killed by Bear.
But she instinctively knows
Nothing in life is ever fair.
Bear killed a friend
Wolf should by nature not have had.
It brought chaos to the jungle
And was less happy than sad.
A thing so dear
It would only cause fear
In the kingdom it thrived,
So Bear decided it had to die.
Everything is relative-
Look at this cute, little wolf
And the big, bad bear.
Wolf could not make you listen,
But Bear made you stare.
(Gerry Aldridge ©2017)
Feb 19, 2017
Feb 19, 2017 at 11:28 AM UTC
They didn't listen when I said I was tired
I said that being different was hard
Because my jeans don't fit right
My actual genes weren't right
And so I came out in comparison to everything
Already didn't have a father to teach me
The skies will cry if he ever tries to reach me
Not knowing who to trust was something girls my age don't worry about
They're far too happy living oblivious
And I question myself off of this-
How do they possibly not know
That they are all the same person?
Same gloss on smooth Pink lips
Smiling a shark smile that they do like kindness
And they name the rainbow by shades of eyeshadow- as if there wasn't enough color
Girls like that are happy with the same person for a week
And yet I cannot be happy with myself for a day
Then they switch partners because "Don't worry he's sooo cute!"
I wonder if they are happier naive
And how hard it will be for them when they realize how the skies are actually smokey black
And they've been looking up through perfect eyelashes- but beauty doesn't last
It must be nice always being average
With a cover girl to cover you sitting next to you
And manicured nails to scratch your way through life
Feb 17, 2017
Feb 17, 2017 at 9:36 AM UTC
On tv it looks so copper clean
Ringing in naked dreams
Living out those picket fence schemes
To get the American bling
Morality is black and white
There are no heroic black knights
The good guys are just
And they just wear white hats
But life is painful
Like a cancer vampire
******* your life force
Pale skin quivering
Dark bags under your eyes
No hair there because of the chemo
Despair and denial on ivy drips
And reality tv made us ill equipped
To handle it
Sometime I wish the tears would stop
That the empathy would vanish from me
That I couldn’t see what I see
See what this reality has made of me
History is white sheets
Red arm bands, fat ********
Uninformed Loud mouths
A canvass that drips wet with my outrage
I sip the last drops of my stimulants
Drop the anti-depressants in the toilet
Forget my docility
Embrace more than half of my hostility
I don’t think much will change
Despite how hard I clamor
Despite the sparkles and the glamour
How I use the language to entertain and inform
This is therapy
In the form of Poetry
Feb 16, 2017
Feb 16, 2017 at 7:32 PM UTC
A drink of *****
A shot that can only go up
Blood that spills on the bathroom floor
A throat that can’t feel anymore
A heart that stopped beating
A person who stopped breathing
The knife, the only one to make her feel again
A life that ended the day it started
It can only be described as death;
Took her body without a care saying, “Darling, your looks can **** and now you’re dead.”
With closed eyes, she can see...
She just wanted to feel human again
Feb 16, 2017
Feb 16, 2017 at 7:02 PM UTC
Let us bend our minds
toward simpler times
and hail the coming
of an unexpected apocalypse
Limping toward the infinite
scattering thank yous
and blessings
like popcorn to the wind
a foolish man
am I
This life was supposed to be
different
a changing of the guard
But the guard stayed on
same old starched suits
same old
old
So how did I become
so young?
I woke just yesterday
to a sunrise stretched
like God's fresh linen
across the eastern sky
No idea how I got here
Every memory is dipped
from the well of time
and I draw that bucket well
and carefully
I taste the water
as a sacrament
The tick tock of time
is a goad
and a constant reminder
that we must never forget
and never should fret
So drink deeply
and know the sacred
in every moment in time
and every moment
long gone from time.
It is a gift that you are given.
Jan 30, 2017
Jan 30, 2017 at 12:37 PM UTC
Maybe it's the poet in me
that believes
that after all these years,
and miles,
and songs,
that you might untangle yourself from her arms,
tug on the string I tied to our fingers before you left,
and find your way back
to me.
Your heart
is pulling you across the ocean,
to ports with open arms waiting for you;
and I'm left here wondering
why it wasn't enough
that I would have tore out my rib cage
and made it into a boat
for you to sail yourself there in.
I would wait here,
at this port
that is both where you have been
and where you still are,
until I turned to stone.
It's the poet in me
that can't let you go.
Jan 23, 2017
Jan 23, 2017 at 9:53 PM UTC
Refined, I'm sweating gasoline
Set myself ablaze
Just to light the cigarette of my dreams
My natural state has changed
But hasn't stopped getting in my way
Takes a drink to strike an ember
Stagnant black glowing amber
Cooking my assumptions with timidity
Chaotic pieces tempered into
Wavering unpredictability
Directionless enmity
Enemies at wind
Cooled to harden
Forced to torch again
Jan 23, 2017
Jan 23, 2017 at 9:50 PM UTC