We're almost touching.
we were walking side by side,
you're talking about cabs in your hometown.
I can feel the gravity of your hand, calling my fingers
whispering "it's alright."

We're touching but not quite.
you held my shoulder to protect me from the passing cars.
and for the first time in a long while, I felt so fragile.
In this world where I find it hard even to breathe,
you believed me.

I almost said it.
All I need is one ounce of strength to tell you every single thing that I have ever felt about you.

I want to find home in your collarbones.
Would you be kind enough to let a stranger in?
I want to seep in your being because I'm cold.
The world is harsh and my cracks are aching.

Almost.

I'm hurt

I'm hurt
I'm hurt

I'm hurt
Because I just realized

You were hurt
By someone that didn't deserve you
By someone that didn't respect you
By someone that didn't see your beauty

By someone that didn't appreciate you

All your grandeur, he didn't see
And that was your cue

I'm hurt because
When you were hurt

The only way you saw healing

Was by masking your hurt
Not caring who you gave yourself to...
What you gave of yourself
To all that fitted the shoe

So you stacked them up
In the hideous name of "not catching feelings"

You let them do as they wish
Touch you as they saw fit
I'm not saying there is one without blemish
But how can this pass without anguish
When one is truly supposed to love you
To see a queen live like a peasant.
And not cry to sleep in anguish,
When they're in awe of the queen within.

So many have grappled
On this emerald
That you became numb.

Can you even feel that?
My warm hand on your heart.

You say it was about keeping Her happy
How true is that?
How happy was Kylie?
How long did you keep her happy for?
How long did your satisfaction last for?

He dug a hole
You tried to fill it with sinking sand
Now whoever dares to tread
Is actually walking on a thin thread
Slowly slipping
Into the hole you didn't make whole

You sing "men are trash"
As if they are the ones you didn't give Kylie to.
I'm sorry if this is coming off too harsh
Because I want to love Kylie too.
But you gave her away
Turned a blind eye

Put conviction in your reason,

Camouflaged the tears,
Like putting sunglasses on blind eyes.

You sing "men are trash"
"Men ain't ****"

Yes, we make the lyrics
But sometimes women play the instruments

And this, some horrific genre

That we play on social media...

And parties

That we enjoy
With a little bit of intoxication
We enjoy the band play
With a few likes and DMs
We enjoy the band play

You sing "men are trash",
You tell me I'm trash.

When all I'm here for is to love you,

To truly love you of a few.

Not for a motel night's crash
But for a home.
Not for a bottle and some musical trash
But for some Shiraz, soulful indie music and romantic dancing in the dark.
Not to take advantage of Kylie

But to love her too.

You tried to heal
But you didn't.
And I see your beauty
I appreciate you
I respect you...
I see how special you are
How magnificent your mind and soul are.
Your glimmering smile
Your astronomical eyes
All that grandeur,
I see it.

I relish it.

I'm hurt
Because you're still hurt.

I feel like I'm sinking
And you're watching me
Like it's fine because this is the farthest anyone has come in this sinking sand

I want to love you.
I'm trying to love you.
But the hurt you let define you.
Is now veiling what I harbour for you

I'm hurt
Because I want you to stop hurting.
And to help you
I must help myself...
So that I can lift this veil.
For together we can take control of the helm;
Enabling what is meant to be,
Be.

Egalitarians of a smaller world
with forks for fingers
chew loudly on the gravy train
of poor boys paper thin paychecks
spit me out cause I got no cash
better to be on the street with
a shoeless shuffle
than trying to capture a seat
at the silver spoon table....

Pasty-faced bankers counting out loud
the graves of American dreams they spoiled
the song of their voices in unison
is a terrible dirge and a
strange romancer that keeps
one and all clinging to that sweetest of dreams
hope....

Dudley Do Right is a little man
in his little office
acting like the bureaucrat he was born to be
just pennies on the pound for his cold soul
a deadeye wrangler six shooter bang bang
his heart a cardboard cutout of his childhood idol
deadeye wrangler six shooter bang bang

all these flavorless fools
pay to play on the great machine
where the crowds call for ever more
salacious parody of what should be
where the almighty buck stops here
twice a day
all day Sunday
preacher man
baker, solider, liar, thief
deadeye wrangler six shooter bang bang
deadeye wrangler six shooter bang bang

© 2018 mark john junor all of my poems are my
exclusive property and all rights are reserved

My memories were those
I had yet to live,
My soul imprisoned
In the depths
Between life and death 
...
But in the nothingness
I found everything
I found hope,
And everything I ever craved
...
I found love-
Enough love
To finally break through
The cracks of reality
I had first called my life
...
And yet
I live and breath so deeply
Sometimes I swallow the nothingness
I so desperately try to hide

For I am haunted
By the things I've forgotten
And forgotten
By ones I'm haunted by
...
Just to be blown to dust
Once more into the nothingness
Like a fugitive
Running away from time

We drove to the beach at midnight in the middle of winter.
I remember trying to stay warm was impossible,
even with the blanket I brought,
so we went to the covered slide.
It was so uncomfortable, but between the stars
and the moon, the waves and the beach, and you and me,
it was more perfect than anything I could've ever planned.