cannot find true rest,
all the tumult in this world,
writ both large and small,
saps my upraised arms
alternate
flexing angry fists eager to strike hard
my revived new **** enemies,
and gods inexcusable and conspicuous absence in
Barcelona, Finland and my own
Charlottesville,
and
to quiet comfort commiserating, and storing
all the pain of individual souls I've acquired willingly

and the sunset comes quiet,
trying to sooth by adding
a gentling cream of cooling breeze,
the squirrels eye me suspiciously,
sensing the amiss within,
and all perfect sailboats voyaging past,
yet none stopping at the dock
to offer condolences or solaces

my watch ticks louder

each tick,
a worrisome cursed reminder
this real life seems to be endless struggle
interrupted by small comforts of little voices and
promises that escape is inevitable

each tock,
a fresh notification
the week's approach will contain
another visit from
Hamlet's ghost,
warning of warring factions
battlefield clashing
in a chesterfield plain
between two of mine shoulder blades

constantly reminded how lucky I am,
makes me grow quiet and put pen to one side,
and try to balance accounts, using this time,
pencil and erasure

I need a break and some glue
I need reparations and a battle plan
or happily learn to surrender
and accept being a
dumb terminal,
a slave,
that doesn't ask for
peace of mind
and knock off this poet of the
no way

these words are a paraphrasing of the famous words from
Martin Niemöller,
an anti-******, German Christian pastor:

"First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I wasn’t a trade unionist, so I didn’t speak out.

Then they came for the Jews.
I wasn’t a Jew so I didn’t speak out.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one to speak for me.”

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8/22/17
2:01am

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firsttheycame_...

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

My father: all he wanted was a little,
Just a little, peace & quiet.
The War, that so-called "Good War,"
Had given him neither. And afterwards,
The peace & quiet he sought
Was mainly for his own turbulent, disquiet mind.
He spent his post-war years in the building trades,
Employed by The Brothers Levitt—
Shrewd, Semitic Kings of Suburbia--
Leading the single-family housing boom.
He earned our daily bread
Hammering nails & sawing two-by-fours,
No longer blowing up bridges, or killing Nazis,
The Construction Site: far from quiet dawn to dusk,
Creating daily new acoustic trauma,
Canceling out all hope of either peace or quiet.
Given the cutthroat competition for jobs,
He learned a new kind of stress, as more &
More vets--soldiers & survivors like him--
Coming home, anxious to get on with the
Business of life, scrambled for paychecks.
He also learned sarcasm, his cynicism
Masking a failure to cope with Cold War hysteria.
And then out of nowhere came labor saving,
Electric tools, like the Skill saw, LORD OF CACOPHONY.
Decibels: whining, screeching & shrill.
No Quiet. No Peace.

/\    ○   °  ○
'
    ○°    ()   °○
()       °○
                 /\
     °○      
~~~~~~~~~~~

no fruit to bear
no seed to spring
no animal
no living thing
no blade of grass
no hand to toil
no rain can last

on barren soil


SøułSurvivør
(C) 6/11/2017