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Ryan V Nov 2014
The moment I saw her I forgot all that I knew,
The sky was green and the grass was blue.
I have been searching for this girl all my life long,
With kaleidoscope eyes as from that old Beatles song.
A girl who would join me in wandering no matter the cost,
Wandering without purpose never to be lost.
Except in her beauty her smile and grin,
Those beautiful eyes desperately dragging me in.
They are as blue and as deep as the Caribbean Sea,
They then seem a light brown as a fresh brewed coffee.
Or are they a shade of dark green,
Glistening with not tears but a playful gleam.
As I look closer they take on a color without a name,
After seeing those eyes I'll never quite be the same.
Many cultures claim the eyes as the door to the soul,
And I found this is true as I saw not just her eyes but her whole.
In those pools of serenity I saw her true heart,
I saw the angel within and then was called to depart.
The harder I fought to stay by her side,
The faster and stronger became the ride.
My heart was broken and my mind befuddled,
As I felt myself being pulled through a long and dark tunnel.  
I awoke with a start and sat up in my bed,
I let out a cry and buried my head.
She has to be real and not just in my mind,
But in the real world she has proved hard to find.
I walk through each day vigilant and aware,
Trying to find the girl with the kaleidoscope stare.
2.6k · Oct 2014
Shine On
Ryan V Oct 2014
I can’t and wouldn’t want to undo the things I’ve done,
Good, bad and indifferent all I can say is I’ve had fun.
What matters is not the future and nor is it the past,
What matters is the here and now because life goes by too fast.
Don’t dwell on all of your actions they cannot help or hurt you now,
But there is one certain thing which I do ask you to vow.
When you are going through hell you keep moving along,
For no matter what happens to you things will never end up wrong.
For there is always balance in this world and it will do you well,
To remember this fact when you want to curl up in your shell.
So never be afraid and keep on shining bright,
For no matter how dark things get you always hold the light.
Wrote this for a collection I made for a friend's birthday. A helpful reminder that only you can make you happy and you can shine on through even the darkest of nights!
2.4k · Jun 2018
Sleeping Beauty
Ryan V Jun 2018
Do you ever feel as though you’ve fallen asleep for days at a time? Where you methodically move through life without any feeling but that forlorn sense of purposelessness you get while grasping for the details of the dream that made you throw your naked body out of bed freezing cold and dripping sweat that tastes like an awful lot like tears? Where it feels like you really should be able to coil further into yourself than your ******* knees will bend just so you could be away for a while? But then a breeze shifts and with it carries the smell of the sea or the sun shines through leaves leaving trees casting shadows over the sidewalk and wakes you stop in your tracks and look up and remember the sky is blue and that time when you were young and your parents let you think you got away with it? You start to sing as you sit in commuter traffic to drown out car horns and you forget that you’re bad at it? Between songs grinning because there’s one last bag of rice in the kitchen for one more meal before you go to bed and hope you're still awake when you get up again?
1.8k · Oct 2014
Madness is MAD
Ryan V Oct 2014
I cannot help this feeling the feeling of feeling mad,
Although it is everything I’ve cracked up to be and really isn’t bad.
I have no time for childish things like normalcy and sanity,
For being normal and part of the herd is a type of vanity.
I prefer being crazy and wild because I am also free,
Of all those silly shackles of the sane crippling creativity.
The best of us are mad and we are all mad here,
Because all of us who are mad act only in love not fear.
So you see I love being a little crazier than I should,
For if I held onto sanity I wouldn’t be the best I could.
So when you’re feeling crazy and think you are alone,
Just remember sanity is overrated and pick up this silly poem.
This is for all those people out there who, like me, sometimes feel you are quite literally insane in the best kind of way!
1.5k · Jul 2015
Weave and Strum
Ryan V Jul 2015
You sit behind a glorious loom
Weaving and tugging the threads
Not of silk or cloth
But of the fabric of reality
You manipulate them
Steadily weaving my dreams
Into a blanket of memories
To keep us warm at night
As you are plucking the strings
Not of guitar or harp
But those of my heart
Strumming a tune known to all
That sweet melody
That sacred hymn
The song within.
1.2k · Oct 2014
The Tides of Time
Ryan V Oct 2014
The tides of time are timid, slow and still
The people lack desire, passion and will
The people are in boxes and all think quite the same
The fates of people are decided through a twisted game
The people all are happy with the way things seem,
After all, their struggle is living the American Dream

Although the dream is pleasant and it may feel right
The people begin to stir, as if on a cold, dark night
The mind may stir if only to shiver from the breeze,
It keeps a person stirring, unable to sleep with ease
With the subtlety of the breeze the thought will shift,
As the people awaken they’ll be free to find their gift

The tides of time have begun to churn
The people are waking and begin to learn
They start to think free and stretch their mind
They are searching for answers of their own kind.
They work not for themselves, but strive to help the whole
A world of people living together, each playing their own role
Each person working together despite gender, traits or race
Just people helping people to make the world a better place

The gusts of change are roaring, tearing through the plains
The people wake up and are furious to find themselves in chains
They yell and shout in anger for their captors to set them free
They almost give up hope until they realize they hold the key
They break their chains and free their minds to wander and explore
Each person setting out to discover what they love down to the core
1.1k · Dec 2014
A Perilous Journey
Ryan V Dec 2014
Each of us is on a journey
For each the journey is different
Filled with unimaginable suffering
Pain the likes of which you will never experience
For the burdens upon the traveler
Wear them down mind, body and soul
Although do not despair
For the fate of man is not
So simply painful
Along this journey
You will find treasures
The likes of which
Are beyond the mere imagination of men
I speak not of precious stones
Nor of fantastical wealth
Made of currency or jewel
But of precious memories
And fantastical dreams
Made reality by your will
The hero of this journey
Is endowed with a great gift
That of being given the opportunity
To prove just how possible
Impossible can be
This epic,
However,
Must be undertaken alone
Each monumental action,
Each life-changing idea,
Each imperative decision
Must be decided by you
You alone
Are burdened by bearing responsibility
For the fate of the journey
Though you will travel with others
We all have our own path
They may cross or even join for a time
But ultimately every path is its own
No two the same
And although each journey
May differ
They all have the same outcome--
They end.
1.1k · Apr 2017
Hate
Ryan V Apr 2017
You cared for nothing degrading each unknown gracious soul a nameless acquaintance as a victim in the wake of your lifelong search for self-affirmation leading to naught. How I hope you slink into the suicidal tidal waves of darkness you deserve. How I find myself hoping to get the chance of one final gluttonous glance seeing the shock sewn into your timeless mask staring out of the casket as just another casualty of conceded conceit and craving. How I relish in the feeling of the the grass of your grave growing from your physical spoils springing between my tickled toes raising my vengeful vitality up my spine until it erupts upward as unbound laughter at the man you thought you might have been. Aye, Good riddance to the dead and may you rot in your own insipid stench like the **** stained lining of your soul.
A little hate poetry never hurt nobody. Better let out with pen than with fist.
981 · Feb 2015
The Human Race
Ryan V Feb 2015
We are naturally wary of different
Our anticipatory
Participation in fear
Blinds us from the signs
That classification
Of the population
Fuels separation
In our great nation
And the degradation
Of our education
Through miscommunication
Due to deprivation
Of alleviation
As far as the segregation
Taking its formation
In our imagination?
These bounds we set
To set us apart
Take hold in heart
Because we impart
The notion of racism
Through our pride
Proud to be black
Proud to be white
Proud to be
Whatever it is that is me.
I’m sure it is right
Though I did not choose
No I wasn’t trusted with choice
I wasn’t given an option
No opinion to voice
I came as I am
I came as man
With no color in mind
Nor hate in heart
A patch of untrodden
Still smoothed soft snowflakes
Unscathed by the treads
Of worn down soles.
No limits exist
To whom
They were never shown
Never taught
Through words or by deed
Never separated
Through race or creed
Disparity through diversification
Norms forming cult cultures
Secluded islands of identifiers
Imprisoned in our tradition
Caught up in the familial familiarity
Of being a drop in a raincloud
Growing heavier each summer day
Until the burden bursts
Out in thunderous roar.
And yet the race will remain
Runners at their mark
Pushing to get ahead of the pack
Forgetting there is no finish-line
Since it was never a race at all.
Race only exists in the minds of man.
893 · Dec 2014
For You
Ryan V Dec 2014
For you,
I would pour a glass of morning dew
And if you grew cold,
I’d make a shawl of liquid gold
Each stitch a ray of sunshine
Oh, the things I’d do to make you mine.
You move my mind to create
You are a ripple in my fate
867 · Nov 2014
As High As I
Ryan V Nov 2014
When you are as high as I, you can only sit and think
When you are as high as I, you learn to take life slow
When you are as high as I, the length of a day becomes a blink
When you are as high as I, you learn how to take a blow
When you are as high as I, you manage to sleep through every class
When you are as high as I, you can’t shut your mind off at night
When you are as high as I, you find it is hard for you to move your ***
When you are as high as I, you learn it’s best to keep things light
When you are as high as I, you find it easier at night to smoke yourself to sleep
When you are as high as I, you learn to step out and explore
When you are as high as I, you don’t toe the water you go ahead and leap
When you are as high as I, you swear you’ve seen it all before
When you are as high as I, you learn the beauty of a star strewn sky
When you are as high as I, you understand that the music’s always right on cue
When you are as high as I, you learn how it feels to say “Goodbye”
When you are as high as I, you really want to not care how people look at you
When you are as high as I, you want to travel and live life day by day
When you are as high as I, you hunger to make a change
When you are as high as I, you begin to think a whole new kind of way
When you are as high as I, your aspirations are just in range
When you are as high as I, you also come to terms with the dark
When you are as high as I, you are surprised to see so many settle
When you are as high as I, you are determined to leave your mark
When you are as high as I, you can feel the heat beneath the kettle
When you are as high as I, you develop a service attitude
When you are as high as I, it can be so easy to just be lazy
When you are as high as I, you see joy in expressing gratitude
When you are as high as I, you start to feel like you’re crazy
When you are as high as I, you'll find it can be hard for others to understand
When you are as high as I, the length of a day becomes a blink
When you are as high as I, you learn the importance and uselessness of a plan
When you are as high as I, you can only sit and think
When you are as high as I, you feel as if the world is inside your mind
When you are as high as I, you sit awake at night in a bathrobe drinking tea
When you are as high as I, you find you want to share with all mankind
When you are as high as I, well welcome to the club come on out and join me.
851 · Feb 2015
Love is Lethal
Ryan V Feb 2015
Love is a powerful force
And comes in many shades and hues
It is a beast gnawing away at our heart
A beggar seeking shelter in our soul
A stitch in our side nagging us
Taking attention away
From the tasks at hand
Love brings woe as well as wealth
It is a fire sparked within the heart
Not started by flint or match
But by the embers of our soul
Catching with the wind and spreading to another
Though the flames provide us with warmth
And give us the sensation that makes life go on,
The flame uncontrolled can burn
It sears not the flesh with its heat
But that sense of self found only within man
Passion is poison
Love is lethal
Most importantly
Love drives a person to live
Yet will accompany us to the grave
Serving as the undertaker
850 · Feb 2015
A Prison Within
Ryan V Feb 2015
I’m locked up and it’s hard to bust out
Confined to this prison plagued by doubt
Living each day full of memory and regret
My crime? Giving myself too willingly yet
The bail holds no price it is not so simply paid
No this shackle is one that seems never to fade
Years may go by but the feeling I will retain
Waiting to resurface in my gut, heart and brain
Alas my soul is tainted as a scar stains the skin
The memory of the pain remains always within
Don’t worry, all will be well
For though I forever will hold proof of my pain
And carry that scar I yet still stand to gain
By letting it serve as a reminder to self
Of what I’ve withstood, the internal hell
Caused by opening arms and welcoming all
Never turning away, answering to each call
And expecting from others the same respect
Believing myself more than an object to neglect
So you see this prison I find myself in is my mind
Good friends being the key it can be hard to find
But find them I will by trial, error and test
Those remaining at my side being the best
802 · Sep 2015
Mono Y Man
Ryan V Sep 2015
Tears fall free of guise
As pain rolls ‘long the numb
Spine of men once brave,
Sparks in me thought
Of time spent in arms open
And heart kept in lock and chain.
Shreds of men I used to be
Torn by gust of love
Spread to and fro.
As glass panes crack,
The clock of death
Tolls the bell of life.
Start at the end
Look back then bend
To will of sweet song sung, sing.
Lost at sea but not all gone
Still in wait at end of day
At bed’s side
And in mind’s ear, eye, mouth, nose.
776 · Nov 2015
Through The Looking Glass
Ryan V Nov 2015
I am an introspective extravert inexplicably exerting determination and ******* of normativity in my delivery. I am a Neo-narcissist, a true self-arsonist surrounded by crumbling spires of self-respect, yet I refuse to neglect my superior intellect, but my ego exemplifies my worst and testifies to my selfish intents and purposes and even worse is, my flaws. And now all I can do is pause and reflect upon what made up, makes up the mind of man in me and whether or not we are all slowing, and lazily going crazy or just me.
753 · Dec 2014
A Slow Suicide
Ryan V Dec 2014
Life is a duality
For Death will always accompany
Don’t try to run from the inevitable
Running from death is running from life
People who spend their lives fleeing the end
Reach that feared destination and look back
Finding that a life spent running prevents
People from slowing down and enjoying the view
We are working our way there slowly
Smoking, drinking, tripping, tweaking
Laughing, crying, joking, lying
Dancing, singing, taking, giving
*******, screaming, fighting, leaving
All just brings us closer to the end
Don’t watch the clock
For time keeps ticking away
Second by second, tick by tock
And although in your mind it has been an eternity
That clock will betray your perception
And show you the passage and slipping of time
That brings you back to the reality of others
Don’t surround yourself with people
Who don’t fan your flame
Rather choose your company
As carefully as you choose your clothes
Something that complements you
Something that fits
Something that keeps you warm
Something to make you feel beautiful
Live each day as if it is your last
For each and every day
Is the last chance you’ll ever get
To live such a day
And so each day IS your last
As far as you know
Don’t gather possessions
Gather your thoughts
Put pen to paper, paint to canvas
Turn thoughts from mind to matter
Weave each and every dream
With stitching of the fabric of reality
Most importantly remember
That no matter what you do
No matter how far you go
No matter what you provide
It will never…never be enough
Yet take from the knowledge of such
The illogical, incomprehensible, unexplainable fact
That no matter what you do
No matter how far you go
No matter what you provide
It will always… always be enough
As you try to run and you try to hide
Take look at all that you made and all that you wrote
For we’re all committing slow suicide
And what’s left in wake of your life serves as the note
750 · Oct 2014
The Free Spirit
Ryan V Oct 2014
She isn’t one who will play by the rules,
She wears what she feels and not what is cool.
She escapes from the box and does what she please,
She works for her heart and not to appease.
She can’t be kept up, she needs to be free.

She will let you know what’s on her mind,
It is never old news it is one-of-a-kind.
She won’t hold her tongue or watch her tone,
But will always be herself and not just a clone.
She can’t be contained, she needs to be free.

You can watch if you want or even stare,
She’ll keep being herself and not even care.
She doesn’t need music if she wants to dance,
Don’t bother trying to stop her cause there isn’t a chance.
She won’t be controlled, she needs to be free.

If you try to hold her still she will turn and run,
Off into the distance to find her own fun.
She will find her own way when push comes to shove,
The only thing she roots herself in is love.
She won’t succumb to your pressure, she needs to be free.

Her only true home resides in her soul,
With the other spirit which makes her whole.
While they are together life could never be dim,
For he is part of her as she is part of him.
This is the way it is supposed to be, after all she was born to be free.
731 · Apr 2015
Driver
Ryan V Apr 2015
Life is less fun sober
Less or more over
The legal limit
That double digit
Makes me so legit
Right...?
Slamming back a brew
Just me and my crew
So drunk my mind flew...
But so did you.
Gone.
What's gone wrong?
730 · Oct 2014
Tree of Life
Ryan V Oct 2014
The seeds of time are planted and soon they shall grow,
Taking hold in the soil containing something we should know.
The peaceful drops of rain upon the seed shall pour,
And lend strength to the seed soaking to its core.
The Tree of Life is thus born granting heart and soul,
To each and every life that makes this world a whole.
The Tree of life is blooming with leaves and buds of joy,
Providing the sweet fruit of the Earth to every girl and boy.
The juices make us strong and help us to connect,
For all life is the same no matter what their intellect.
The leaves are all the people and all other creatures too,
The trunk is the foundation and supports all that we do.
Each branch a different path or journey that guides and shows us all,
That although we may be bright in spring we look even better in the fall.
For we ride through every season and gather light from up above,
While what really fuels the Tree of Life is its roots of Love.
717 · Oct 2015
Untitled
Ryan V Oct 2015
Just another hiccup I can’t make this **** up trying to put into word what is lost and not heard but should I express or just strive to impress all of the rest add more ******* to feed to the herd? Open your eyes and sit up don’t roll over to a dream instead make it reality, but how can we? Not through repetition of normalcy this illusion of humanity cast in confusion always using the people you and me. What’s the use in caring or giving when you get told you’ll be forgiven though they won’t, they want justice but refuse to even fully trust us. How can I keep fuel in my tank while the promiseland is just another paper pass it back and forth overhand until you finally land back in another box day by day wondering what will be on your dinner plate. Constantly voluntarily refusing to be fully using your energy. And yet you get tossed another fish after bending over doing flips at someone else’s pleasure just to add another penny to his treasure. Just reading sign after sign pointing away from the curtain towards the wizard another fire **** ****** blizzard. The backwards prince of thieves, robbing hood, is celebrating this, the very day in which, he saw the death of his father King Liberty, now he’s ruling so why should we even bother to keep running his maze when we know it’s a circular ****** consumer treadmill looks still can will do **** the esteem of darling little Josephine. **** and *** craps fast cash the American dream tall coffee milk or cream? On to the next one the next day the next month just repeating and constantly overeating not exercising my body or freedom. Should I keep going even knowing their stunting my growing always under weight of image seriously what the **** is this? Anorexic or overweight? If you’re right I’m wrong? You win I lose? Why don’t we just choose what we want instead of being shoved from behind and pushed into the spotlight of somebody else’s show? that’s not right? At the end of the day we miss the bus home to have time to think about calling that shrink then your eyes catch a rack for hire and you buy her she’s back…darling little Josephine. Dark room silenced tears under covers thrashing, mind on nothing else but lasting one more ****** before she walks away with my wallet and wife house and kids next stop liquor store popping lids feeling numb just waiting wishing sleep could come. Spin cycle keeps on churning. Loudly and quietly yearning for that promise from so long ago did they always know it’d come to this? Washers done almost out of change and time to rearrange the furniture in the living room that I really don’t even use. Shuffle to the kitchen to open the empty fridge then sit there and stare at it. 12 o clock on a Tuesday time for the doctor’s order another pill to pop you really can’t afford. Clothes out the dryer wrinkled like my skin and faded like the man within. And now for the part I can never write because I just can’t end it right because its all gone wrong.
681 · Nov 2016
American Nightmare
Ryan V Nov 2016
I address this grievance to the flag of the divided state of America, and to the to the republic for which it stands, one electorate under law, inherently divided, with liberty and justice for sale. Supply and demand is the law of the land. America. Land of low fat low carb gluten free gluttony. Home of the diet double espresso. Nation of a decrepit prescription of a common condition of a callous repetition of rhetoric. We can't Compromise the promise of compatibility for a culture of coercion through coined commerce currently claiming a currency of craving. A public sporadically radical showing signs of torrential existential turmoil and torment
581 · Nov 2015
Left or Right
Ryan V Nov 2015
Forging in mind’s eye the assumption of reliable consumption of reality. Where the nativity of creativity begins condensation while receiving condemnation en masse. A shitstorm rages now, a widowmaker of incomprehensible complications to the causality of casualties of class. Discouraging color, forcing the implication of domestication of thought, wearing casual ties and carrying a briefcase, all for hope of a brief taste of success in excess. Do not assume that I can be reduced to my résumé.
Ryan V Apr 2016
Off to the Races
On your mark, get set
No.
We are naturally wary of different
Our anticipatory
Participation in fear
Blinds us from the signs
That classification
Of the population
Fuels separation
In our great nation
And the degradation
Of our education
Through miscommunication
Due to deprivation
Of alleviation
As far as the segregation
Taking its formation
In our imagination.
These bounds we set
To set us apart
Take hold in heart
Because we impart
The notion of racism
Through our pride
Proud to be black
Proud to be white
Proud to be
Whatever it is that is me.
I’m sure it is right
Though I did not choose
No I wasn’t trusted with choice
I wasn’t given an option
No opinion to voice
I came as I am
I came as man
With no color in mind
Nor hate in heart.
No limits exist
To whom
They were never shown
Never taught
Through words or by deed
Never separated
Through race or creed
Disparity through diversification
Norms forming cult cultures
Secluded islands of identifiers
Imprisoned in our tradition
Caught up in the familial familiarity
Of being a drop in a raincloud
Growing heavier each summer day
Until the burden bursts
Out in thunderous roar.
And yet the race will remain
Runners at their mark
Pushing to get ahead of the pack
Forgetting there is no finish-line
Since it was never a race at all.
Observations of race by a concerned human
543 · Jul 2016
Spiraling
Ryan V Jul 2016
I was put on this merry go round. I did not coose to take this ride. Now we are spinning. Faster. The World is spinning and I am still. The kids push harder and the world whizzes over my shoulder. Shouts of joy and laughter. A boy is crying and clinging the bars. Faster. Spinning spinnning out of sight. The boy cries louder. I want to get off, but the world is dizzier and dizzier the louder he cries. Spinning. Life is twisting. I want to get off. I didn't ask for the ride. I desperately want to let go of the bars and jump into that swirl of the world. I want solid ground. I will jump. My focus fades as quick as the flashes of the world around me. Spinning. Now I'm dizzy. So dizzy and the spinning is... I want to get off. I am going to jump. I brace myself but the boy is crying. So much crying. Why won't they STOP? And I just want to jump off the spinning circle but he just keeps crying and they are laughing. I want to get off but I can't stop crying. The world is spinning and I can't even move.
experimental expression piece
525 · Oct 2015
Nothing
Ryan V Oct 2015
He can see the stars in my eyes
When I look up at him with a sore jaw.
I am his sweet supple bruised eye baby.
I am nothing
But a beat up book
Rarely pulled from the shelf
Above where his mama hid the liquor.
I am a no good sick *****
That he needs to go down.
I am nothing
But his only girl
When he’s still thirsty after a swim
Getting what a silk shirt short skirt ***** should.
I am his naughty flirty ***** closet *****
But I’m such a good girl.
I am nothing
But his baby
Mama, said it is my body, my choice
But there is no choice
As my body is his temple,
The holiest of holes of his hoes.
I am nothing
But the warm waters weaving
Down his supple, swollen, stillborn stomach
Creating puddles of passion on stained reflections
Shimmering sights of his self-slain **** staring from the tile floor
I am nothing.
Wrote this for class.
507 · Oct 2014
Song of Wisdom
Ryan V Oct 2014
You sing a song of wisdom but only whispers do come through,
To the ears of all the people too busy to listen to you.
They may stop and listen but only few can hear the tune,
Its more beautiful than galaxies or the blooms of June.
For it is an idea without a body and it can't be seen with sight,
One can only hear and feel it the feeling that sheds light.
It can change the souls of many and free those who are in disguise,
It spreads harmony amongst people of every color shape and size.
But alas they are too busy working towards their goals with zeal,
If its happiness you seek you'll fail for its not something you gain but feel.
They are too busy for childish horseplay or having unproductive fun,
But they underestimate the power of dancing barefoot in the Sun.
479 · Oct 2014
All I Can Be
Ryan V Oct 2014
“Boy, when you have grown into a man
You’ll need to be all that you can.
You need to work real hard and try your best
To get good grades and pass the test.
It is important that you should go to school,
So you can learn our ways and not be a fool.
After school you’ll go to college to get a degree
And this all will decide what you will be.”

“Sir that plan sounds great to get ahead,
But that’s a plan that will work me dead.
I want to be among others and never “above”
I want to learn about what it is that I love.
I’ll never settle for anything less than my dream
For a settled life loses its light and its gleam.
I’ll find my passion, my spark, and my flame
That drives me forward to something that’s better than fame.
It’s not fortune or glamour on which my life depends,
But living a happy life with family and friends.
So when you ask what I really want to be
The answer is my best…I want to be me.”
458 · Feb 2016
Civilian Casualties
Ryan V Feb 2016
Your badass big brother is scaring and scarring you worse than ever.
He is not pressing his swollen fist to your familiar face,
But pounding the pavement in a ****** knuckled black out rage.
Reliving those war born, flesh torn gunshot mortaring days
And though his breast is bare and skin unscathed his heart is purple.
Refusing to share with you the cause of his eternal internal strife
And what has caused the **** on the soul of this wounded warrior.
Unable to comprehend the horrors too vividly vile for a brother’s ears.
Then you realize that your brother has gone far away for a while,
But you don’t really know if that gap toothed kid with goofy smile
Will ever come home from the bombing brutality of manipulative men
Since the battlefield is not a place, but a past that remains present.
450 · Oct 2014
A Looking Glass World
Ryan V Oct 2014
I gaze at the sky and look at a tree,
I look at the world only to see me.
No matter which way I turn my gaze
The world takes on the mood of my days.
The world is a mirror and all that I see
Is just one or another reflection of me.
Every sight to be seen takes on its own guise,
Which takes form beyond our two eyes.
It is true that we see the world how we feel,
So even if they’re different they both are still real.
People are mirrors, yes you and me,
And when two mirrors align it goes to infinity.
444 · Oct 2014
The Other Side
Ryan V Oct 2014
We have a fascination with the other side.
It will always elude us, always hide.
It is there waiting for us never quite in sight,
All of our work, effort and plight
Goes to seeking what we will never find
But we found all along inside of our mind.

On the other side the grass is much greener,
It’s more pleasant, and the air is even cleaner.
Perhaps it even holds the fountain of youth,
But alas, none of these are the truth.

You climb all the way to the top of the wall,
And you find what lies ahead is better than all.
You peer over the wall and into the mirror,
And at last the true answer is clearer.
We always had what we thought we desire,
What drives all our love, passion and fire.
It is what drives you beyond the end of your rope,
All along the other side was just hope.
The poem that got me started on writing poetry. My very first poem outside of school assignments.
434 · Dec 2015
I Am the Night
Ryan V Dec 2015
I am the Night.
I am a faint breeze sifting through the solemn sound of silence.
I am the creeping clutch of the depths of your dreams dragging your eyelids closed,
The greatest feats and familiar fears encountered in an entrancement of your fantasy
I am the flecks of white flayed upon the dark canvas to highlight a lone silhouette,
The fades and shades of blues and hues of purple slowly entangling in a twilight tragedy.
I am the symphony composed by crickets and cicadas tuned right to the moonlight,
The crescendo of chimes under a crescent casting light through cloudy blinds.
I am shared whispers under a beach blanket spoken to the rhythm of the tide,
The ebb and flow of an equivalent current stroking the sea-soaked shore.
I am the dew dripped damp grass curling beneath bare feet of midnight lovers,
The cold, forgotten feeling of slivers of leaves weaving their way between tickled toes.
I am the moon attempting reflection of a greater beauty back upon the world,
A mere semblance of the sublime sunken Sun sentenced to never bask in her own radiance.
I am the creation born of the breathtaking Sun kissing the very end of the world,
A longing caress of her rays upon the horizon grasping my cool fingers as the world falls away.
424 · Oct 2015
A Dick Tied
Ryan V Oct 2015
I’m nothing but a **** tied to my vices
I’ve always been cataclysmic and narcissistic
Trying to silence my mind shut up and listen
To your melody calling and dragging away
The skitter skatter mind of man in me
I NEED WANT WON’T CAN’T STOP!
Hark! The Fallen Angel in me resides
Recalling the child that once was is not never will be again
Taken by the illusive beauty of realms unseen
Covering the trap I’m now ensnared by
The LOVE CRAVE LUST MUST STOP
You’re the strength in my veins to get through each day
Yet also the itch of a tick on the small of my back.
You show me the serenity of stratified sunset skies
Then clip my wings to keep me from flying away.
I LOVE CRAVE LUST MUST STOP
Like an undertaker digging the ditch,
For the former resident of this toil torn body.
I’ve hit the bottom yet keep sinking deeper,
Into a tomb so low I can no longer see the top.
I NEED WANT WON’T CAN’T STOP
Because I’m nothing but a **** tied to my vices.
409 · Feb 2017
Treading Tides
Ryan V Feb 2017
Life isn't meant
To be spent
Treading  brackish water,
Never knowing
Whether to swim to sea
Or go upstream
The fresh waterways
Of the nostalgia days
Streaming home or
The salty waves
Of the horizon gazing
Back at me pulling away.
Is the undertow grasping
While I remain gasping
For just one breath
Better than knocking knees
Against rock shallow depth,
Mindlessly floating at ease
With the current it seems,
Still gently row row rowing
Navigating against growing,
A life only wishing for dreams.
389 · Nov 2015
Apotheosis
Ryan V Nov 2015
Every scar, scratch, mark and line
All stems from the great divine
The waters gushing rushing down in falls
The reds stained brown on canyon walls
The softly squirming streams of blue
The bashful laughter of lucky few
The strings of light tied to intense heat
The nimble hands and most crafty feet
The valleys scraped in mountain side
The lost art the Earth doth hide
All bear semblance to that divinity
Thine holy source of identity
Alas the vast, beautiful world we see
Erupts from sacred center in “me”
356 · Dec 2015
More than a Feeling
Ryan V Dec 2015
You are a river running through my thighs and tearing through my thoughts
Swirling with uncontrollable currents swelling your banks in a gush of flooded waters.
My shaft like an icicle in March as it drips trickling drops of water subtly shrinking in size
A milky potent sludge streams from swollen sweaty lips between legs as a gasp slips.
A gentle poignant poke in the place I least expect probes my interest in filling time slots.
Thoughts flow from heads as blood flows to my head in a fistful of fun,
But do not let mere fuckery and folly become a disguise for intentions underlying intimacies.
This is not some superficial pursuit.
I want to peruse the intricacies of each extremity.
I want to corral each thought in my precious memory,
A delicate delicacy not uprooted by contemptuous jealousy.
350 · Apr 2015
All I Need
Ryan V Apr 2015
All I need is a *****
Nothing less or more
For they are people too
Yes like me and like you
Trying to belong
Right or wrong
Trying to find what to say
Just to get through the day
And truly trying to find
A secure state of mind
Wearing a mask upon face
Whether make up or grace
Getting along
All to belong
342 · Apr 2015
Untitled
Ryan V Apr 2015
Reality...
Oh what a calamity!
But thankfully
I have friends and family
who personally
understand
my unique brand
of insanity.
330 · Aug 2016
Fragile
Ryan V Aug 2016
Have you ever felt that your heart is hollowed glass being put under more and more pressure until cracks form fissures on the surface and it slowly breaks under the weight and sprays glistening diamond dust across the breeze as what once made you who you are spreads to the stars still holding fragmented dreams unachievable and foreign yet familiarly yearned for?
320 · Oct 2014
Untitled
Ryan V Oct 2014
You can’t handle it but it will set you free,
Although you can try, you can’t hide it from me.
It’s not in the papers it’s on the walls
When it’s let out, he who hides it falls
We constantly try to seek it out
But it is hard to take in through doubt
It will make you angry and will make you sad
But it is always good even when bad
It can move the masses and open their eyes
It is painted on the earth and written in the skies
It is the foundation that holds up the roof
It isn’t a lie… It is the truth
304 · Jul 2016
Subconscious Soliloquoy
Ryan V Jul 2016
You and I are the same though your big owl eyes stare me down asking "who?" and I'm wondering too recently things haven't been easy to spin and to spread snip snap there goes the thread of the fabric of time and space as I race the erasure of my mental merry go round of broken thoughts and drunken dreams filtering them through the soul by means of ego exciting the innovative rush of waves crushing my lungs with currents of love floating through one ear and out the other tracing my brain along the way through the angst and anger around the dark deceit and laughter and wriggling round the goals I'm after emanating out my ego directly into the black hole we call life where we are sure it exists but mysteries of its nature persist unexplored and unexaminable depths of delusional conclusions masked in illusion of love given down from above yet there is no higher than thy own mind and heart and death may never due us part since I'll forever be your light in the dark the lantern and key to release you from your worst enemy the silhouette of shadows a no named menace mincing and mashing memories and the scary thing is the villain is already inside disguised within dark thoughts on a dreary day yet we keep him at bay in the subconscious soliloquy answering "who is me?"
288 · Jan 2019
Made in America
Ryan V Jan 2019
I address this grievance to the flag of the divided state of America, and to the nation for which it stands, one electorate under law, rhetorically divided, with liberty and justice for sale. Where supply and demand is the law of the land, America. Land of low fat low carb gluten free gluttony. Home of the diet double espresso. Nation of a decrepit prescription of the common condition based on callous repetition of rhetoric. We can't Compromise the promise of compatibility for a culture of coercion through coined commerce currently creating currency through craving. A public sporadically radical, showing signs of torrential existential turmoil and torment. Imprisoned by cuffs and shackles, chains and whips, butts and ******* and legs and hips. Now there’s bookbags full of mags and clips. Classes taking cover, news flash another weeping mother followed by the voice of the mass’ biased thoughts and prayers, and to think that this once was rare. My country tis a fee, land where it costs to be free. Home of break back opportunity and men maintaining slavery but nicknaming it economy. Establishment of laborious lobotomy. Land where justice is blind except to class and color line, federally funded crack ******* genocide, slyly twisting the rhetoric, the difference between prescription and criminal addiction is aesthetics. Yet they try to blame the ****** epidemic for mass incarceration invading the lives of those too poor to be patients. Enforcement is cuffing crack ****** while cops get nose bleeds with escorts behind closed doors. Outlaws working corners and streets while all rights are reserved between corporate sheets. Private prisons profiting on human rights violations using correctional castration to remove voices by stripping votes and choices. Rehabilitating via dehumanization. Now chain-gang gathered cop shot corpses litter the monstropolis its a matter of time and we ain't as fast as the clock is. Tick Tick bang there goes the next kid, would've rather he'd been arrested but for those below so it goes, unnoticed, no mass hysteria. So it goes when you're made in America.
282 · Mar 2017
Untitled
Ryan V Mar 2017
There we were as fools,
stumbling and groping in the darkness
without sight and
full of a false sense of direction
Searching blindly for a sense of comfort
in identity,
that switch which eludes
our fumbling fingers
Desperately grasping patches
of cold hard wall
in pursuit of the change
that will show us the way
My fingers graze the switch
and slide down the wall
and the bulb flickers...
276 · Jul 2019
Humanization
Ryan V Jul 2019
It is no blasphemy just a rhapsody, a rap cd, Arab study. Just have some empathy and connect with me please so we can start to understand our fellow man cuz the jurys out so put the judge in the chambers and take the time to get to know your  neighbors  and maybe you’ll find we all are one kind
276 · Mar 2016
Home?
Ryan V Mar 2016
I find myself sitting between safe familiar walls, locked in fear. I am strapped to my cozy comfort, hiding from the opportunity just outside the door. I am glued to my routines with the anxiety of responsibility acting as the mortar sealing me in these walls. The chain is up and no visitors are coming this way this while. I am bound here by the metallic binding of my boredom. I am content yet restless... disturbed by the stillness of a whirlwind of a life that is blowing by too fast to take a breath... gasping for air as I inhale nothing but billowing plumes of dusty ash. And it is here that I dwell with no sustenance but the hopes and dreams of a place I will race to one day. After these walls become memories tinged with the sad familiar stories of a time that cannot be bought back. And so I know we come and go and with us these walls, this sanctuary of a prison. This place where time crawls as the world speeds along out the window and I am trapped here by my own ****** doing.
260 · Jul 2019
Outsiders
Ryan V Jul 2019
Give me the weirdos and heroes, give me those who are fearless in the face of complacency for they are the ones who crave so fiercely and face adversity rather than forfeit to conformity
171 · Jul 2019
Untitled
Ryan V Jul 2019
My heart is blue my soul black and bruised and spirit marred with weeping wounds crying red tears flying and my soul is burned tender to the touch and every gentle brush of finger tips enough to make me hurtle headlong into Dante’s circles spinning shouts lost in darkness singing voiceless each remark amiss agony at the thought of each kiss as long gone as sweet Beatrice and alas darling catalyst no scar will show upon my skin for you to know where I have been these long dark nights engulfed in flame while freezing chills rend my being lame with no hope of leaps and strides drowning beneath the rising tide of feeble attempts to break the chain that my youth I might regain and with it your loving embrace and soothing tone and starry gaze but yet the current drags me away and as I wake to shafts of day It is so that I find to my dismay that beside myself you still lay and yet deep inside my mind is frayed
157 · Jul 2020
Sepia
Ryan V Jul 2020
You say you don’t remember
Meanwhile I can’t forget
All the times and all the tones
Of every word you ever said
And still I feel that I don’t know
Whether I’ve got credit or I’ve got debt
I don’t know if I still owe
Or whether I’ve paid it all off yet

And now I’m sitting slack jaw
Stunted shattered and afraid
I hear the buzz of the saw
Your cruel love is the blade
Cutting deep, I’m sinking now
Beneath stark waves of pain
Time moved the edge straight down
Past the nerve into my vein

I’ve yet to let myself forget
But you say you don’t recall
I can’t seem to, I just need to
******* give up forget it all
And when rain pours to the sky
The earth crumbles from above
Only then will it pass me by
The memory of your love

You say you want to be a friend
You said its me not you
You said that we would never end
You said we’re a bond we can’t undo
But you did...
and I can’t...
and I won’t...
Forget it.

— The End —