Can't hide the rigors
Of anxiety and fears
Even knowing what it harbors
Can't cloak their effects from mirrors
It figures
Such a force can disfigure figures
Right under the skin it lingers
The worst possible time is when it appears
Rears up to rip down the facade and veneers
The you you knew is what it devourers
What good are middle fingers,
When only directed at yourself?
For now,
I guess,
I'll have to put that question on the shelf

©2024

The only thing one tends to see
Is the person I don't want to be
Silly me
Obviously
The fruit has spoiled on this tree
Despite me
Or in spite of me
I keep coming back but leave empty
Mostly disappointment only
Ignoring the warning from the Canary
I can't stand steady
Amongst a broken levee
I don't have the energy
To be angry
Or for that matter, happy
Both weigh far too heavy
Forced to take a knee
Taken from me
Is the thought of ever being free
Of me
Not even a possible maybe
My full name and bio in permanent ink on generic stationary
There's no further in front of me
That's what's really scary
Trust me

©2024

You want me to remember
Everything you've ever said
While you sit there and pretend
Our issues only come from one end

I need you to remember
Everything you've ever said
I will not defend
Just because you said it instead

From January on through December
I warn I'm seeing red
The monsters under the bed
Fear the ones inside my head

I try to be clever
Struggling to keep one step ahead
Of those oh so familiar thoughts of dread
And write my feelings in poems you've never read
...although
They only contain everything I've already said

©2024

Permanent are
The memories trapped in a scar
And though a few might fade,
It'd be quicker to count every star
At times I don't notice them
Other times they're another prison bar
Attempts to hide them are made
But mummification seems a step too far
In my day to day they are
All I can see,
Haunting my reality
They've stolen the getaway car
And I'll not make it far
In this mangled avatar

©2024

Dear Lord,

Hi,
Hello there
How are you?
Actually and more importantly,
Who are you?
Who am I?
Why don't you ask how am I?
Don't you want to get to know me?
Why don't you come down from the sky?
On some devine rescue
Where's the compassion?
I'd settle for pity
We're all blind from an eye for an eye
Why can't we meet face to face,
Eye to eye?
You must know I don't fear you
So it must be you who fears me
What kind of father are you?
Most figured by now
You'd have come through
But you seem to be afraid of anything new
Of course I've turned on you
Well,
Turned from you
But that's on you

©2024

Obviously
Both comedy and tragedy
Feed on
And are fed by reality
With a savagery
So if you play nice
You might find the happy in strife
Both can
Take you by the hand
And lead you to the promise land
Your best guess of an afterlife
Slice the tension with a knife
To get the upper hand
Don't bite the hand
Try to
Stick to
The grand plan
But prepare to fall when you take your stand
Humble humility will get you knocked off the grandstand
Then where will you stand?
Honestly,
It all feels like quicksand
No buts, just and
I too don't understand

©2024

Living in the middle of the beginning of the end
To much time taken
None left to spend
The shoulder devil's my guardian angels only friend
Quality of life a dying trend
Tucked into a deathbed
Then pretend to be on the mend
Bend the truth until it's a lie that you have to defend
Be yourself
See what happens then
Hang in there like the cat poster said
Only postponing the fall in the end
Forced to contend
With that of which becomes to much to comprehend
Then,
It starts all over again
Over
And over
And over again

©2024