There are no Apaches
With flaming arrows and piebald ponies
There are no writhing jungles round here
There are no lost temples
Hiding untold treasures

There are no damsels to be rescued
By a knight on a white charger
There are no pirates on the high seas
No skull and crossbones flying
Above a deck bristling and glistening
With cutlasses and flintlocks ready
And hook hands and black eye-patches
In the sunlight of the Spanish Maine

There are no interplanetary wars
With hand-held laser guns
And weird creatures from strange worlds
They just do not exist
I learned this when
I was very very young
And I really wanted to be a pirate

                                    By Phil Roberts

Sleep.
Easy to spell.
Easy to write.
Easy to say.
But hard for the insomniac.

Sleep deprivation.
Hard to spell when hallucinating.
Hard to write with eyes closing.  
Hard to say while decomposing—a rare case, it’s true.
But easy for the insomniac.

Why is it so difficult to:

    Stop for the night,
    Leave entertainment behind,
    Ease body in bed,
    Elude conscious thought, and
    Peacefully rest
    ?

Do I remember too much about
The strangers I meet?
There was the skinny seven year old at the
Park in Detroit, who I learned liked autumn
And colorful leaves, pumpkins and Halloween,
Scarecrows and working in the garden.
There was the Japanese lady at the
Hotel breakfast in DC, calmly eating a donut,
Staring off into space, gracefully lost in her own
Thoughts and feelings.
There was the happy man at the
Veteran’s home, who talked gratefully to me
About his experiences, desperate to
Share his story.
There was the single mother on
The park bench, allowing me, a total stranger,
To watch her children while she took
A much needed nap.
There was the black man at the
Movie theater, who offered me his
Extra bag of popcorn and made sure I knew
When the jump scares were.
Do I remember too much about
The strangers I meet?
I don’t think so.
Appreciate humanity,
Because you never know when it might be gone.
Each one of these people were beautiful,
In their own way, and they weren’t even
Trying to be.
They were just living their lives,
And I was fortunate enough to be a part of them
For a short time.
You know why they were beautiful?
Because they just were.

The problem is that you always end up wanting more, right?
You can never be fulfilled with what you have.
Time either eats away at your regards
for certain things, or instead packs on layers of
desire, need, and growing relentlessness
in obtaining whatever it is you so desire.
It's quite sad, really,
how I might look at you from a distance
and feel shock, alarm, sadness, and pity
for being so engulfed in things that
will fade away, things that won't
work out, things that aren't worthy of
relinquishing in the light of your attention,
things that are consuming
bit by bit, the good, unique aspects
of you as a person.
You are waist deep, clawing into the abyss,
your eyes shining with desire, for something,
whatever it is, to become "more,"
to expand and transform into something that would
fulfill the extent of your feelings,
so you say.
How did you get so caught up
in it? How could you do that to yourself?
In a better place and time,
you exist for everyone and everything good,
not just for yourself.
You are kind, warm-hearted, open to those
who are laughing and crying,
to those falling and rising, to those coming
onto the shore, or washing away with the tides
into a beautiful, tragic sunset.
You exist to look directly into my soul
and talk to me
like you could talk to no other.
Because I'm not someone who needs help
with not giving into
worldly desires that will drain me of my
essence and life.
I try hard not to lose who I am,
and you won't ever see me harming
anybody or anything.
At the end of the day, we would
walk side by side on the shore
of a foamy, dark blue ocean carrying on its waves
lost dreams and souls out into the horizon,
and we would both agree that it has
been a good time, and that we have
established some sort of peace within ourselves,
that we no longer need to turn to
worldly desires and moments riding on
the seconds of a clock, in being able to
feel something calm and transparent.
We would both be liberated
from this world when we die.
That's all that I ever wanted when
I look at you.
You see... that's all that I ever wanted.

As the years pass, a part of its mind wonders what will
become of it.
A bystander forced to be a part of life's hectic,
unfair, and demanding ways.
A thing with no wits to fight out drawn, incriminating,
and unnecessary battles.
A speck of quiet darkness in the false, bright shine
of a store bought sun.
An organism desperately trying to blend into a crowd
where it  d o e s   n o t   b e l o n g.
(And never will.)
A piece of emotion attached to a living being, forcing it to
give a care about things that never last in its soul.
Too many feelings gone ignored,
Too many words left unsaid,
Too many expressions left misinterpreted,
Too many moments passing by in sunken tears.
Too many hands held out,
asking for things the organism does not know
how to give.
Too many demands made for
a piece of light that is being extinguished with time
and a mind drowning in pity and sorrow.
It is dazed and alone in a crowd of people
(no one to call to)
and watched under mistrusting eyes
at a place it is forced to call home.
It will gaze at a screen and bathe in falseness
for hours, just to scrape away the consciousness
of misery on its skin.
But every now and then, it must write incriminating
truths about a mind spiraling out of the light
to keep sane.  
(better to write than to harm others)
It has trouble smiling now, as its face melts and distorts
into crumpled pathetic excuses of expressions.
It stutters and leaves gaping black empty spaces, trying
to conjure up words that would seem  n o r m a l.
It would like to at any moment, break into a run
and feel its feet pound the cracked, gray pavement of the sidewalk
because anything would be better than having to
feel its mind breaking instead.
It would like to, at least once,
be able to dance without a flipping care over the
insecurities of its bent and oddly shaped body
and hands.
It would like to, at least once,
write without having its words prodded and graded and stripped down
and misinterpreted of their actual bare meanings.
It would like to, at least once,
live and smile and laugh and love
(yes, it quite loves to  l o v e)
without being judged or ordered about, without being
compared or displayed or placed on the limits of
people's ignorance and relentlessness in being at the best
at being the worst.
It would like to, at least once,
swim the waters of the vast ocean's life with the grace
and smoothness of a mermaid,
rather than struggle to keep its drowning head held above
dark, oily waters of bitterness and tears.
It would like to, at least once,
be kind enough to fly among sunset stained clouds in a peach horizon
and twinkle among the evening diamond stars,
rather than be ugly enough to no longer even be considered human,
taking on the form of a mere, existing  I T.