you're only alone
when you club yourself with the
employees
the tgif-ers
the rule abiders
the girls groupchat from college

you're only abnormal
when you compare yourself to the
smalltalkers
the engineers
the doctors
the selfie people

you had this wrong the whole time

the miscreants
the artists
lone visionaries who pay
for their brilliant ideas in tears
before bed each night
one more day gone by
undiscovered

this is
the secret majority
making no noise

the arthropods of the world
running the talent show
after the curtains draw close

go.

there's a small setback
my backpack is weighing me down
let me stop by an inn
and dance on my heels

this fever won't keep me for long
the innkeeper is a kind woman
she tells me she's my mother
and feeds me warm rice

I wait for the days my love feels
as natural to me as my writing does
no second thoughts
no need to edit
only momentary pauses
when I feel watchful eyes on me
when I'm performing for the invisible
men and women in my room

The ****** is in sight
and it's blinding like the sun
let's leave on foot
before nightfall

I want to find your bed
right next to mine tonight
no oceans
in between
just one time
I'd let you roll over
into my world
and never leave.

Bureaucratic. Timocratic.
Stratocracy is not something
I was ever interested in. Is that
why I enlisted? Put these notions
to the test, challenge my philosophy,
And perhaps even change my worldview
which I had assumed was in opposition to this.
The institution, a cult of the state before which
I am canine.
The use of drill
to temper a group
in dynamism, to meld the pack
in subordination, to suppress reactions
and perhaps even tame critical thinking.
We are dogs of the state
and I should not be able to question so well.
My philosophical training may prove
troublesome.

It is oft' discipline without clear intention,
Values that lack coherent articulation,
The inheritance of a moral order
which is antiquated at best
or at worst entirely ill-suited
to the modern world.

If this is the soil from which
the crop of leaders are chosen
it's no surprise what's to follow.

What truly strikes me is the humor,
Which sometimes is incomprehensibly forced,
but as they say: hurry up and wait.

You caught me with your eyes,
Catching glances like butterflies.
I was yours that very first night,
Even though we went home as strangers
And you had someone else to hold you tight.
In my dreams there lurked a danger,
Of your perfect smile, whetting my appetite.
By chance, you were thrown into my life
And I finally had the courage to take what it is I find,
Like your heart reaching out towards mine,
When our hands tangled with time.
And boy, did time do a number
Made us colder when we slumber
Made you search over and under
For a new one to call lover.
Cover me with lies, and let me go to sleep blind
I think I only cry when I realize you can’t be mine
So hold me close to your lips, so they brush in a kiss
When you whisper to me, everything I’ll come to miss
Like the fading bliss, when you leave me in the mist
At home I’ll sit, waiting to feel your comfortable skin.
I love you more than anything I’ve known,
Your face is a home and you’re rooted into my bones
I long to hold you until we’re blanketed in mold,
Forever in your arms, even when I am alone.

-SLuR