Even after all this time
When I feel broken and alone
I tell myself I need you


You started my brokenness
I don't need you

Or maybe I always will.

-
I’d scream for death
With this pain inside

So take this broken heart,
Oh my remaining card

I’d rather lose all the love
And trade it for a cold rock

Beg for your enchanted hand
That’s fond of collecting hearts

Seize the grief is my only demand,
Oh Queen of Hearts of Wonderland.

Up the steep steps
as you reach the age old fort,
you breathless behold
the green valley down below
and that magnificent mound of rock
by the name Robinson Hill.

In the sweet silence of birds' chirping,
the winds reek of rifles and gun smoke
and you hear not the rustling leaves
but bullets echoing all over the valley
one more down, another down
as they held the fort till fell breathless
passing into tombs and memorials
you read to pause for a breath
up above the green valley
where the grasses grew over the blood.

I let you go
to Philadelphia
I let you go
thirteen goin' on “life”
to your momma-- (God rest her-- and keep you
--from wherever she is)
to your father in Philly
outa the picture

Sheepish in the doorway of my classroom
back again
one last time--

Say good-bye, kid, to your short stay in Scranton
a town that can't rhyme
whose name falls over its own misery
No use for outsiders

“Where's your book?
Found your binder in the rain
Soggy protest to school's demands?
Of course it's yours
I checked, ya know”

"No way!"

Desk's been empty, three weeks now
Still, gotta ask
“Whacha doin?
Where ya been?”

“Khmir,
I'm sorry for your loss....”
Thirty seconds shares our grief
Thirty seconds for your future's-- all I got

“Listen to your teachers!
Do your work!
Please-- be okay?”

Khmir
in your wooly black coat-- like a bear
like a dare
shruggin and dancin in the doorway
of the “show”

Homework? Aint happenin'
But one paper, though
on why--
YOU-- should be president

and I almost vote for you

A spider crawling down my wall
Met me crawling up

                                 By Phil Roberts

They lie warm together
In the afterglow of torrid love
Her head on his chest, he says
"Sing me to sleep, my love"
So she hums and croons
A tune he does not recognize
With soothing sounding words
In a language he does not recognize
"I love you," he murmurs as his eyes close
"I know," she says smiling
And so, as he sleeps
She lies open-eyed
Imagining a future he will not recognize

                                        By Phil Roberts

1) Wake up one day, make myself a steaming hot cup of coffee, go to the balcony and say good morning to New York City

2) Have pancakes and coffee at a cool diner and tell someone my life story

3) Write a song just for myself and not release it / share it

4) Dedicate a day to just spending time with my mum, no phone distractions or anything!

5) Stand up for myself.

6) Stand up for myself again (I reckon I'm gonna have to keep doing this as I get older, and as I interact with more strangers who think they know me)

7) Help out a charity - either a Cancer charity or a mental illness foundation

8) learn how to drive and blast out Taylor swift through the speakers

9) grow up and occasionally look back

10) become more confident

11) dye my hair at least one other colour before going back to basic black

12) dream big but not too big, don't want to lose sight of reality...

It takes a song, a quote, a scent or a dream
To bring you back

No matter how long you've spent absent from my mind
Somehow, you always seem to reappear

Before, it broke my heart
Now, I hold my ground

You're never going to dissapear
But I can live with that

And I'll be just fine

Every time I see a
McDonnell-Douglas
80,
Or MD-80,
I sweat the deadened
Drop
Of a labor
I’d wish not
Remember.

We called it,
“The Oven,”
Name and noun
For the belly,
The belly of the
Beast –
Texas high noon
And no water,
While
Tossing luggage:
*******,
Prongs
And cadavers,
Hours on end
Under Spanish howl
And deafening
Jet engines.

I soon left,
The tarmac,
The turmoil
And clamor
Of airport operations areas.
I picked up,
Walked to the
Cantina
‘Cross the way,
Grabbed a beer,
Grabbed a U-haul
And grabbed my
Girl
On the way out.
I’m here now,
North
And of no end to
Mechanism,
My commodity
Food,
My machine,
Now a car,
Though admittedly,
When I look to the
Sky
And spot an MD-80,
I remember my
Toil
And sympathize for my
Sister,
A blonde and the
Youngest of the brood
Who continues to
Stomach that very
Hell
I’d freed myself from.