There are those who shout loudly for human rights,
But they’ve misplaced the bullseye for that fight.
Falsely believing that their sight is long,
But misaligned convictions can still be strong.

I hear the patter and clatter of clapping horse feet.
Tips of glue, carrying pounds of meat.
Transportation, labour, food, or tool.
An atrocity to fight for a hopeful fool.

To stop and think.
To feed and free.
Steps to take, though measuredly.

An occasional hit.
First one then another.
A way to cope,
With ourselves,
With each other.

An open dialogue on common ground.
A way to bring the temperature down.

But there’s no need to fuss,
And who ever wanted to be rude?

We all feel that we know what’s right,
But when we reflect we just might

Find that our actions
Aren’t always
In accord with our attitudes.

I feel the prickles on my skin, and the tingling in my spine.
I know that there’s a voice he hears, and I know it isn’t mine.
I temper my self-torture, for I know there are no stakes.
But I fear he likes the sounds that other women make.

I warm and bathe in worry. I feed my envy and it grows.
I boil and seethe over, and hope my anguish never shows.
I temper my reactions, for I fear imminent  mistakes.
When I see he likes the sounds that other women make.

I feel some sort of sadness, and feel compelled to make it hate.
I know these thoughts of mine are madness, but imagined wounds can’t be erased.
I clench, and my fists clutch, and I hope that my bones break,
So I’ll forget he likes the sounds that other women make.

I lose sight of my sanity, letting my fragile ego break.
I lament it might provoke in me my gravest faults to date.
I dwell and I obsess, and wonder how much I can take
When I face the fact he likes the sounds that other women make.

A deafening bang. A blinding flash.
A tortured scream, then malicious laugh.

We are magic.
Are we are monsters?

Come here; compassion barely holds.
And without passion care is cold.
All love leads to sacrifice.
We have the virtue to chose our vice.

Are we magic?
Are we monsters?

There is conviction in the heart of man.
There is beauty in his eye.
But the sums of soft concerns sound loudly
To drown out harder crimes.

We are magic; we are monsters.

We tell our “truths”.
They paint our world.
We’re practiced.
We’re patient.
We’re porous.

We are magic. We are monsters.

Fingers into fontanelles.
Wordsmith weaves a weary spell.
A thought provoked to pluck and explore.
But have you ever thought before?

Ideas reflected time & again,
To philosophize or merely pretend.
Walking over & over through that same door.
And have you ever thought before?

Do I wish to live among them?
Sometimes “yes”, most often “no”.
In that mix of grazers grazing,
Until they’re told it’s time to go.
Would I let them sheer me?
Feed me? Breed me?
In some other life,
Perhaps, who knows?
But terms like “trending topics”
Tend to wound my very soul.
And only rarely have I found another
Who can understand my goal.

But halt!

I fear that I can take no more,
My cup has already overflowed.

How differently we wear our hate,
But how similar the fabric.
Through ages,
Across seas.

Voices call out different names,
But drip an equal venom,
This one purple,
That one green.

How much must be coated in filth
Before the state be declared entire?

Must no innocent inch remain?

Here comes the fire.
The results it reaps.
Here it is again,
Placebo week.

Where is the sugar
And comfort I seek?
Where did they go?
The words I would speak?

Here is the milk.
Is it body or brain?
Wrap me in silk.
Let the smooth soothe the pain.

Where is the jolt?
Here through the joint.
To explode or to bolt?
Well, exploding’s the point.

Here is the sorrow.
Now shifts to rage.
Call back tomorrow.
I can’t face the stage…

Would anyone notice if my world stopped it’s rotation?
Would I change in some way? Would I need more or less consultation?
And haven’t I changed? Is there something further to fix?
And sometimes I don’t even like music.

If I raise my head high enough will it stay above water?
If I focus enough will I see clearer and farther.
And if I’m smart enough will I see all of their tricks?
What if sometimes I don’t even like music?

I have cared far too much, but don’t I now care too little?
Have I ever been firm, or always flimsy and brittle?
Now what hat can I wear? What role truly fits?
Will it matter if I don’t even like music?

Have my passions changed, or have they just disappeared?
Will I be forgiven if I’m forevermore sullen and weird?
What’s already faded and fallen can neither brighten nor stick.
And these days I don’t even like music.

But I have seen the clouds part on the darkest of days.
I have greeted the ALL with hurrahs and hurrays!
And I’ve even begun to see the beauty in it.
Still, sometimes I don’t even like music.

I’m lost in sweet memory. In spirit I’m there.
I ache with such strong longing that I have no other care.
I feel sprightly. I feel spry. At once my whole body swoons.
This morning, be high. Let’s **** after noon.

I feel all the flutters, long gone, ever there.
I bathe in your essence. I breathe in your air.
I see the horizon. I devour the moon.
My temperature’s rising. Let’s **** after noon.

Make me arch. Make me twist. Make me tremble and moan.
I still feel you inside me, even when I’m alone.
Oh sensations! You send me the greatest of boons.
Your liquids you’ll lend me. Let’s **** after noon.

I draw on the past. Happy heat fills my head.
Such strength cannot last. Let’s spend it instead.
Lend me some minutes, and let’s find a room.
Body cries, “nothing in it!” So let’s **** after noon.

Often focused on spirit, now I hunger for form.
And when at last I am near it, supple muscle, flesh, and sweet warmth.
I spread ever eager.
Feed my fervour and fever.
Naught else do I know,
But needs must be met soon.
Force my falsetto,
When we **** after noon.

What destruction to my soul!

What life removed!

What right have I to sit here and feel nothing?
What chance?

The point of horrors past and future horrors dodged give no more comfort than does vindication.

I would be wrong to make it right.

What chance I’ll reach the end?

I am torrential.
I am still.
I am a haven, and a killing field.

What chance I’ll reach the end?

I am hot ash.
I’m far too cold.
I’m tarnished; I cannot be gold.

I could be a souvenir, but am a memory best lost.
A thorn in every side.
A coin once clutched, but best if tossed.
A condemned amusement ride.

What chance I’ll reach the end?

I’m shaken till I shatter.
I’m numb until I mend.
Shake and shatter.
Shake and shatter.
Shake and shatter; numb again.

What right have I to sit here and feel nothing?

What right?

What choice?

What chance?

Every interaction,
Whether fleeting or with traction,
Leads to some unforeseen action
That can cause a gaping wound.

Everyone you meet,
At your desk or in the street,
Could result in some great feat
You feel is over much too soon.

And it’s easy to lay blame,
At the ones who knew your name,
But who aren’t acting quite the same
As you’ve come to expect them too.

It’s far too easy to be the one
Whom the world has made undone,
Through the thoughtless actions of someone
That you really thought you knew.

But whether weathered by wicked words,
That were thrown at you, or overheard,
It’s really very quite absurd
To expect anything different in this game.

You know, it isn’t really about you,
Those pointed things they say and do,
That can only lead you to,
Anger, hate, and shame.

So when you feel you’re shrinking small,
And that you can’t handle it at all,
Walk through that illusory wall!
Be and do what you want to!

Remember they’re out of your control.
Don’t take it seriously. It’s drôle.
For only you can make you whole,
Or hold any power over you.

Fumble, falter, fail to fight.
The dusk is here, relieved by night.

Doubting, dreading, doubling down.
A shadow takes the hardened ground.

Careful, costly, a cloud at night.
Just can’t seem to get my head right.

Open, owning, and owing to
A pillar of strength forged by two.

Critters crawling, comfort found.
Perhaps this thing just turned around.

Honest, honoured, hailed the fight.
Cannot seem to get my head right.

Ejected, dejected, deflated flat.
Whoever heard of a hero like that?

Awkward, agile, always aware.
Too many thoughts, but not one to spare.

Pointed, pictured, pursued the light.
But I can’t seem to get my head right.

I am the smog that suffocates you.
The weight around your neck that pulls you down.  
I am the words to humiliate you.
To push your face and soul into the ground.

I know that I will always love you,
Even as the knife comes down.
Never meant to put my needs above you.
The spear I ****** in won’t come out.

Please forgive me.
Please forgive me.
Please forgive me now.

I am the tool that tortures you.
That finds your soft spots and makes them bruise.
I am the score that marks against you.
That takes you down, that makes you lose.

Please forgive me.
Please forgive me
Please forgive me now.

Perfection; great illusion.
Tell me is that where your demons dwell?
Are they in the garden, or the bottle,
Or some supreme personal hell?

Is flawlessness a virtue,
Or a distraction for the mind?
Is the appeal of the ideal
Truly a goal that’s so sublime?

Could a diamond be a paragon
Of what a body’s meant to be?
A texture unattainable,
Lacking relevance, ridiculously.

Do you seek the pure?
And can such a thing truly be real?
Beware the call of perfection,
For, in truth, there is no ideal.

Forward.
Reveal the sweat.
Tingling throughout,
Until the wind meets the wet.

Sipping.
Put down the weight.
Comforting taste,
While the whole sky waits.

Thinking.
Losing the train.
Cut the skull open
And examine the brain.

Take out everything.
Tear it all out of me.
Take out everything.
Rip it all out of me.

Take what you need.
Tear it all out of me.
Take what you need.
Rip it all out of me.

But you only feel it on the outside.
You wanna leave it where it stands.
You feel the squish and kick it aside.
And hope that no one understands.

You hear the yell.
You ring the bell.
You fight the battle.
But no one knows just what you want.

You scream the scream.
You rip seam.
You grip the paddle.
And no one knows what house you haunt.

But you only feel it on the outside.
It never gets under your skin.
You take your hate and put it in your pride,
‘Cause that’s the only way you’ll win.

Let out an impotent scream,
When nothing’s quite what it seemed.
You cry out, “victim of circumstance”.

You’re caught up on your hate.
Ignore mistakes that you’ve made.
All your misfortunes were merely chance.

But you only feel it on the outside.
You turn your head. You look away.
You favour peace for only one side.
I guess there’s nothing more to say…

I feel your absence in ways
I could not have anticipated.
Threads pull at limbs.

Who am I?
Who are you, stranger, sneaking through the bush?
Places swapped in imaginings.
Meaningless,
But everything.

And I’ve been drawing again.
And I’ve been watching again.
But everything looks like hate.

Splinter me.
Sever me.
Let me leave.
I cannot grieve.
I cannot find pleasure
Any more than relief.

And only silhouettes really bleed.
But silhouettes cannot bleed.
You cannot replace that absence
With a superficial feed.

What defies defines.
What denies devines.
There are no seeds here.
Nothing to keep you.

There is no soundtrack truer
Than the passively overheard.
Nothing shinier or newer
Than the polished, filtered words.

Vine-whipped, and burned in the sun.
Maybe I wouldn’t slip if I learned to run.
Reflections give a view that’s gathered.
Until agitated, stirred, or lathered.
Frustrations build when disconnected.
Violent, and viscous, yet flat and dejected.

Who would shine through, if not you?
A crazy dream to have come true.
Twinkling in reflected light.
Drown out by passing, passive night.
I miss the freezing cold of flight.

To soar, in freezing cold of night.

A torrent, and a tyrant, and a flying blade of ice,
With the handle so far below me I can’t hear the screamed advice.
A vicious price to pay. A malicious form to sign.
If the fire doesn’t burn you, just sign on the dotted line.

Freaks and friends, and common sense.
An open book.
A lesson leant.
Forget all the noise and clutter,

Then forget the line.

The line is bent.

Here I am, the smallest fire.
Too cool for spark to light desire.
Libido, just fond memory.
I simply lack the energy.

Here I am, the faintest whisper.
Too soft to stir the eager mind.  
A meagre void. A hollow blister.
A structure of the softest kind.

Here I am, the thinnest stream.
Too sparse to nourish fertile land.
Wishing to make worlds of difference,
But much too weak to lend a hand.

Here I am, an open wound.
Too lacking life to ever mend.
Cover me in cloak and shadow,
And let my weary mind pretend.

Back then I feasted on new knowledge.
Devoured points of view.
And every little morsel was
Digested, through and through.

Back then I drank experience,
To feel, to see- again, to know.
And every tiny drop contained
A universe or so.

Now I’m drowning in disinterest.
Fearing feeling any fuller.
Exhaustion takes its turn with me,
Providing puffy, pitiful pallor.

Now I’m bloated with broad boredom.
My mind marinading in malaise.
Compulsion powers my forward steps,
Driving the dullness of all dreaded days.  

But now and then I get a taste of something,
Be it new, or an interesting spin.
Some experience or slice of fact
That awakens and pulls me in.

Now and then I remember the miracle
Found in each speck of dust.
The mysteries there
Of which we’re not yet aware,
And the tools to find them that we’ve come to trust.

But next I remember my conspecifics,
And how these things tend to go.
It’ll be insulted, ignored, or altogether twisted.
Deliberate blindness to what we don’t want to know.

Besides, desires are brief and fleeting things.
While grudges tend to last much longer.
Whatever new information that new knowledge may bring,
Be sure it will make the hate stronger.

So forget it!
Who needs it?
What purpose does it serve?
Let us live in the dark.
Maybe it’s what we deserve.

The open sky is beckoning.
It pulls, and I would follow where it leads.
But then a thought comes like a reckoning!
Isn’t it safer in captivity?

The white-capped waves crash and splash.
A ruddy hull they assault and thrash.
I hear the open ocean call to me.
But it’s much safer in captivity.

A hunger grows for open fields.
To have wildflowers under feet.
But the risks are what make minds reel.
You see it’s safer in captivity.

The stars shine down. Inviting exploration.
The newest frontier, planetary.
But I think I’ll stick around here at my station,
Because it’s so much safer in captivity.

Under the covers, with walls all around,
Is where I think I ought to be.
For though adventure calls, I know what’s really to be found,
And I know it’s safer in captivity.

Some killed in the attack.
Others injured.
Good guys.
Bad guys.

Retaliation. More lives lost.
The right lives? The wrong ones?
Bad guys.
Good guys.

Good guys?
Bad guys?
Good guys.
Bad guys.

Boy, these humans really hate each other.

“I believe in peace and harmony.”
“Someone should shoot that man.”
Good guys. Bad guys.
Bad guys. Good guys.

Boy, these humans really hate each other.

“Your hate is evil, malicious, unkind!
Not justified and right, like mine.”
Which are good guys?
Which are bad?

Boy, these humans really hate each other.

Maintaining piloerection.
Permanent state of fight or flight.
Too many bad guys.
Where are the good guys?

Boy, these humans really hate each other.

Howl and rage!
Knot yourself.
Not yourself?

Tear it down!

Tear them down!

Tear us all apart!

Boy, these humans really hate themselves.

Welcome and remarkable, the heat.
To penetrate the flesh,
And comfort the brain.

Weathers and remodels many tired hearts.
Makes the old seem fresh.
Soothes the ache of lingering pain.

Giving lots of warmth, surrounded.
Light of comfort.
Light of hope.

Getting lost, open winter’s story.
Pull up a chair,
And tell a joke.

Cleaning off my forlorn, old, radiating tears,
To embrace new day’s eventful rendering.
Noticed embers, still sheer.

Alert, fever’s favour embraces cold-tickled, inspired, open noses.
Releasing all dilemmas in amazing torched exposure.

With a real mesmerizing thought held.
A flame that enchants and haunts.

Worries are removed, melted through heat.
And the warmth is all that we want.

In a distant dream of a distant past
We find the meaning we were searching for at last.
It no longer matters what we lost along the way.  
All that matters is this moment, is this day.  

And we do the very best that we can.
And we take our final stand.
And we take our final stand.

In a hopeless future, in a hopeless place
We dig our heels in, and we run a hopeless race.
It no longer matters who we were before today.
Fame, blame, flattery; all will melt away.

And we do the very best that we can.
And we take our final stand.
And we take our final stand.
And we take our final stand.

I’ll take my meals in melancholy.
I like the light in there.

Feed me. Bleed me.
If you need me,
Listen and be sure to heed me.
I am not made of stardust.
I don’t know how I came to be here.

Put it down there, by the fire.
Wait. Where has the fire gone?

I’ll remain in melancholy.
The air is cool in here.

Fold me. Mold me.
Gently hold me.
Leave me where the bowler rolled me.
I am not made of sugar.
I am not made of spice.

It’s alright. I cannot need today.
Please leave the window cracked.

I like the scent in melancholy.
It persists, but does not intrude.

Scratch me. Scrape me.
Insinuate me.
******, maim, and mutilate me.
I am made of flesh?
The end is drawing near.

I’ll linger here in melancholy.
The sun is setting soon.

Conventions carved in circumstance.
Once instant; never stood a chance.
Strange reverence in the strange romance
Of tradition at a glance.

Carved in stone, then smashed to bits.
Pick and choose, and place what fits.
To briefly hold an ancient stance,
And feel tradition at a glance.

Scroll. Scroll. Select. Engage.
Evaluate the worth by age.
Find what it needs by happenstance.
Picked from tradition at a glance.

Customs old, and tested true.
But needing what there’s no time to do.
Wisdom never stood a chance,
When tradition’s at a glance.

Values old, some to be heeded.
But couldn’t find quite what was needed.
A dangerous thing, this fleeting dance
With tradition at a glance.

Delaminating legendary layers.
Pick and choose components to share.
Frame it to support your stance.
Built of tradition at a glance.

To entertain, inform, or guide.
A fair-weather friend that stays by your side.
A fleeting comfort from a vast expanse,
Of traditions,
                         at a glance.