The lonely is the only place I go
probably because isolation is the only friend I know
Broken-hearted but kindness is the only feeling I show
Because the saddest people find a way to smile til tomorrow

With a damaged heart and a wounded soul
I find the strength to breach the cold
Eyes red with tears, heart full of pain
My mind is lost, fighting to be sane
Intrepid but my heart is no fool
Wise old soul, experience's school

The lonely know the wilderness best
The lonely are the kindest, the saddest, the wisest

With his head in his hands
And his heart on his sleeve
He closes his eyes against the light of day
And against his quiet despair
He pretends it is not real

But part of him knows
Deep down amongst half-remembered dreams
Emotions that appear from nowhere
And linger
Every cell of him knows

He knows a loss without closure
A conversation without words
Dreams without endings
And hoping without hope

He hears a knock on the door
But no-one walks in
He puts his head in his hands
And his heart on his sleeve
He pretends it is not real

                                           By Phil Roberts

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, **** us, **** us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature's simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
'Goodness = what comes next.'
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

Oh then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be).

By the time it becomes visible
I'll have been in hell for quite a while
Tight mittens binding up my hands
Tempered wince behind the smile

Moist cement ...three feet deep
And a mind that won't think straight
Clumsy and slow...trudging along
In a fogged deficient state.

Simple things become so great
And the pain won't let me be
Slumber 14 hours long
Meet the new..unimproved...ME.

There's a large whirlpool in my dreams -
I sit at the top of a cliff and watch everything in the water
go around and around until it disappears.

What's in the water?

Well, there's only one thing. They're memories.
Memories of us in Paris, Rome, New Mexico, our bed.
Memories of you laughing so hard until you beg me to stop talking.
Memories of him dancing and singing until we all beg him to stop embarrassing us.
Memories of me in between you two, happy, as you both talk over me when you think I'm asleep.

You are asleep. You've been sleeping for a long time.

Have I? That can't be right. All of this didn't feel like a dream.

It was. All of it. I'm sorry you had to find out this way.

The whirlpool seems to be forever -
the memories are endless and all I can do is look down, watching them go away one by one.  

No, this isn't right at all. None of this was fake. It wasn't a dream.

Yes, it was. You need to accept it and let go.

No.
Standing up, I take a look around. I take a step closer to the edge.
Right there. I can see it towards the center.

There's a memory in the water, barely visible.

It's a child standing in a desert, crying out as the people she loves most in this world leave her. The car kicks up dust and the sun beats down on her when she chases after it, finally falling to the ground in defeat.

"Mommy! Daddy! It's me!"

That's the dream. That's what I should be going after.
It's been hiding among love. In between bed sheets and music and laughter.

You're making a mistake. It's just another memory.

No, it's not just another memory. Far from it. It's the truth and I'm going to follow it. I should have followed it a long time ago.

I take another step closer to the edge. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath. In and out. Within and without.

When I open my eyes, I jump into the whirlpool.

Away with your fictions of flimsy romance,
  Those tissues of falsehood which Folly has wove;
Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance,
  Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.

Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with fantasy glow,
  Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove;
From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow,
  Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of love.

If Apollo should e’er his assistance refuse,
  Or the Nine be dispos’d from your service to rove,
Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the Muse,
  And try the effect, of the first kiss of love.

I hate you, ye cold compositions of art,
  Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots reprove;
I court the effusions that spring from the heart,
  Which throbs, with delight, to the first kiss of love.

Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themes,
  Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can move:
Arcadia displays but a region of dreams;
  What are visions like these, to the first kiss of love?

Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth,
  From Adam, till now, has with wretchedness strove;
Some portion of Paradise still is on earth,
  And Eden revives, in the first kiss of love.

When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past—
For years fleet away with the wings of the dove—
The dearest remembrance will still be the last,
Our sweetest memorial, the first kiss of love.

She walks in beauty, like the night
     Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
     Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
     Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
     Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
     Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
     How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
     So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
     But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
     A heart whose love is innocent!

What’s the best thing in the world?
June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in haste to end;
Beauty, not self-decked and curled
Till its pride is over-plain;
Light, that never makes you wink;
Memory, that gives no pain;
Love, when, so, you’re loved again.
What’s the best thing in the world?
—Something out of it, I think.

nothing gold can stay

i try my best to ignore the fact
that one day,
i'll see my first laughter line
a sign
of my own body rejecting my laughter

the beautiful are
the ****** in this land
we call earth