What is this doubt I feel?
Arising like morning mist from a cool night passed
I call into question
My once sure endeavor
There is a crack in the foundation I once thought solid
I have begun to doubt
Like water seeping through the crack
I've laid waste and shattered the foundation
The belief I held most dear
Now slips from my mind
Floats away and fades into the distance

The formulaic mist of several aromas
Both sweet and strong
Hovers within the space
Asphyxiating and amalgamating every new smell encountered
Sanctioning an intoxicating bevy of delicious sensations

In the face of all the atrocities we commit
What is there to do but to keep on with our lonely existence
In the hopes that one day
In no near future of this world
We will clean our house
Master our urges
Know all before we tamper
And leave this plane
For the next to come to know:
We have stumbled
We have fallen
But you must not
We are beyond hope
But learn and you shall triumph
See our mistakes and condescend
If you do it means you have done better
That is all I ask
I have faith you will provide

The enchanting light of early winter
Where the last of gifts
Of the great life-giving sphere inhabiting our solar system
Reach our humbled eyes
To say : Farewell.
The winter will be long and cold without us
But we will wait
With welcoming embrace
For the time you may return
To bask beneath our glory
Green, hope and joy will return
At the turning tide of spring
And we hope you will as well
But for now, farewell

Occasionally one may feel fear's fast grip
But let us not be governed by its restrictive embrace
So the fear of death may not control our actions
May the fear of living never penetrate  our minds,
And depart from whoever's in which it resides
Let the fear of our temporary state scare us not
Let the fear of the uncertainty of our tomorrow govern us not
Rather, let it's constant ******* at our heel motivate us
Motivate us to believe in the abilities we have,
And to learn new ones as well
Motivate us to reach heights inconceivable to those whose minds and hearts have not been freed
Heights which only a man freed may attain
A man freed of the darkness that inhabits everyone's soul
Freed of the fear of the unknowable nature of our futures that consumes us all
Embracing that fear so he can transcend death,
And be remembered beyond the many years he will grace this earth
Remembered for the heights he reached
Remembered for the people he chose to lead up to join him
Because he did not succumb to the malice of condescension
But was a Sherpa to the uninitiated
Giving these freed minds a new perspective
That they may soar to unimagined places
To which they will lead him and us in train
Perpetuating the chain of incredible events
Till we can finally reach our Elysian dreams
Started, not by a people of untold knowledge and wealth,
But by the one who decided to live without fear

What should one issue if not love?
What purpose is there to bringing more hatred and bigotry
Into this already saturated world
That has jaded me
Made a cynic of me
A cynic who is hiding under the cloak of realism
How does disrespect figure into the delicate symmetry that is our lives?
It does not
It cannot
I will not allow it
Neither should any with reason enough to act
But these acts should not be met with further retaliation
If we use the tactics of the enemy do we not become the enemy
Pacification is our hireling
And we must employ it wisely
For if we do
The world may yet begin to surprise me

The 26 that heeded,
Heeded the call of duty
All friends of a childhood too quick passed
Embarking on the journey so well lied about
Thinking nothing of the impending sorrow that loomed
Wherever one must bring a gun to feel any sort of safety

Of the brave but foolish 26
There is one with the most ill of luck
Taken from the barren in which he sleeps
Thrown to a strange and unknown place
Amidst the land stranger still to him
Tortured in all the ways those human thieves could imagine
Thieves of joy and joie de vivre
Thieves of friends and thieves of love
Thieves who tortured
In all ways permitted
By the condition of sparing his life
Not the least of which
A coffin of wire
With points sharp as needles
From which he thought he would never escape
Yet he left it still as one
But with cuts up and down
Like little post-it notes
Reminding and perpetuating all of his agony

Thieves that took his joy
And gave him 25 more reasons
For which his joy was gone
25 pieces of evidence
Proving the lie he was told
25 lost friendships
That never made it to manhood
25 families robbed
An instant of love, now a life of longing
25 memories
Stopped abruptly
But mostly,
25 friends

He may nurture 25 new memories and friendships and people
But none will ever be
The 25 that stayed,
None will ever know the pain
Of the one that returned