Dear America,

I will like to thank you for a couple of things
that i have noticed for a couple of years

Thanks for destroying humanity
I really want my kids to know that panda bears are from Chinese restaurants
and that Taco Bell originated from Mexico
all Asians know how to handle a Rubik's cube
like the curves on a women.

Thanks for posting these skeletons in magazines that we call models and telling everybody that this what beauty is, so girls can put your fingers down their throats
and guys can juice themselves up
because lets be honest personality doesn't matter, right?

thanks for killing creativity with your genocide
and lynching our education system
because our minds are the like the assembly lines for your standardized testing
if you don’t fill out the right bubbles that means that you are not smart like the rest of us
you see we are robots
if you don't fill out that bubble that you were not programed like rest of us
fill in out that bubble because
that bubble is going to determine if you go to a good college or not.
and remember community college means you are a failure.

Thanks for destroying our free time
Instead of stopping and smelling the roses we stop and take a photos for instagram
instead of going out and meeting new people,
we flash around our privates on the internet like it’s public property
because **** the love I want to get naked right?
because she only needs to loved for that one night?

We don’t have free time because we have to work on
Our Grades
Our Sports
Doing community service
So we can have these perfect resumes
and go to that perfect school
so you can go to that perfect job
and get married to that perfect love of our lives
and have three perfect kids
Retire and wait until your body decays into the earth
at that perfect timing

but wait life isn't perfect right?

Sincerely,
Voiceless Stranger

They say the spots
tell the story
they say the blots
tell of glory

They call it abstract
and try to impart,
although I retract,
this is art

I look at all the strokes
so frequently seen
that make me choke
when asked what they mean

Now as the cold paraded its barren stride
Across the unkept fields
The land glows with a subdued affection
And illuminates perceivable years

Across the expanse walks my dame
Pacing with ease, steps true and light hearted
A flowing ribbon stair igniting sacred memory
Her eyes, my passion shines to vent the unexpected

As well there should be cause for grace
Where for the moments that made us dissipate in a fog of static memory
And dissolve in to the setting sun like ash into dark waters
For no man walks this earth unscathed
And I, as being one of the many, am not partnered with exception.

I will spend the time I have been given
With you memory not on leave
And appraise ever image of your presence
Before they wither, and can no longer be perceived
Your whisper will speak life when I slip away
Only above city lights does she ever walk with me.

Machiavelli spoke of prophets, and surmised that it is only those prophets armed by something that have seen their message spread.

Arm me then, arm me with your nightmares and your suffering and your nights filled with wailing at the sky.

Arm me with the anorexic teenage Americans, with the empty eyes of the Afghani fellahina, with the broken hopes of a ******* in Juarez.

Give me your shame at the mirror's lies, give me your self-inflicted scars, give me that loathing for yourself.

Give me that need for one more shot, give me that hopelessness after ***, give me the knowledge that Mom is never coming back.

Clothe me with the skins of a hundred thousand suicides, pour over me the tears of a million hungry souls, burn me with the fire of ten million hearts broken under the heel of a monstrous tyrant.

Do these things, and you will see us become what you've been afraid of all these years.

~

Sad Existence


It is a sad existence, that of a poet
with flowery phrases and disguised meanings
Tossing out happy faces like quarters
splashing in a wishing well with no bottom

Painting heartstrings in an amber shade of gold
lingering silver linings losing their crease
in frayed bottomed hip huggers
that are long out of style

Swishing fragrant melodies on starch white paper
collecting lines in neat rows and margin’d desires
lips fluttering and eyelashes batting
well below the league's average

Whispering notions of sheer delight,
tantalizing rapid pulses pushing blood
through narrow corridors finding
locked garden entrances in chained Jasmine

Dreaming dreams that only a dreamer could dream
all the while knowing that when they awaken
pen in hand, ink at the ready
these dreams shall never come true

It is a sad existence, that of a poet…who believes their own dreams

Every hard thing that happens to a soft heart
leaves a callus
Every mean thing a heart hears leaves a ringing echo
Every stone that's thrown leaves shattered pieces
Every beating leaves a bruise
Every hailstorm it endures leaves dents
Every wreck leaves a place in need of a fix
Every tear leaves a place to sew a new stitch
Every lie it's told leaves it with a doubt
Every scream leaves it a little more deaf
Every bite leaves it starving
(for kindness)
Every tear drop makes it sink a little deeper
Every drought leaves an unquenchable thirst
Every time a heart is left starving it turns into a glutton
(for punishment)
Every heart that gets cut is left with a deeper scar than before
Every time a heart is pierced by a dagger
it puts on a little more armor
When a heart is left to bleed it
learns to apply pressure
A heart that gets shot learns to become a gangster
Every stab slices, stings, and burns
Every hit leaves a gaping hole too big to ever fill
Every time a tender heart trusts a lie
It becomes timid and learns to fly
(away)
Whenever a sweet heart gets tainted
it becomes bitter
(sour even)
When a hopeful heart's dreams don't come true
it becomes jaded
When a loving heart witnesses hate
It becomes scared with terror
When a heart gets broken it
learns to heal
But becomes misunderstood
When a heart gets cornered it rolls over
or lashes out in defense
When a heart has been used it
stops being so giving
When a heart becomes wounded
It decides to lay down or stay in the fight
When a heart is shackled and tortured
it cries out in pain
When a heart is abandoned
it becomes self sufficient as it stands in the rain
A lonely heart becomes depressed
and learns to self medicate
When a heart becomes an addict
it learns to deal
When a heart is ravaged it
looses its passion
And when love is  lost within a  heart
It becomes just another body part
(that can't be fixed)

© Ashley Rodden. All rights reserved