Have you ever been madly in love?

The old man broke my reverie.

On the long faded green bench white with bird droppings
he was peering at me through his silver grey beard
looking oddly out of place in that college squire park
where only the dreamers at the prime of youth
would sit between classes to exchange love notes
and steal a kiss when the passion couldn't be reined in.

Have you ever been madly in love? he repeated,
and then as if growing impatient by my silence
mumbled, pausing between words,
like they stung him like thorns
it extracts a price been paying all my life
living with a void no other woman could fill
a commitment that breeds only pain
yet makes me insanely boastful
of being madly in love.

It was recess hour and the benches were being filled up.

How many, I wondered, would still hold hands
when the classes are over.

before me
the puzzle just awaiting to
be solved
and I struggle

I know
the answer to the
riddles
the why and why nots

but my hands
seem disconnected from
my reasoning my fingers
cannot accomplish
what I think

every day
I try to put it all together
find a piece that fits
and ten others fall
to pieces

I start over again
perseverance my
salvation
so far

and unending
is the need
to try to conquer
the darkness
closing in
as relentless

as time
ticks

Thought it would be easier,
Keeping everything less
Less thinking
Less talking
Less engaging
Less moving
It makes me less weary,
Less lonely
But also
Less happy
Less warm
And less alive

At first, a matter less seems fine
but as I go on it makes me more...

More dead....

We are the refused...

Barefoot in the marketplace
Born in the backseat
With minds erased
To hide dirt in the backstreets
And mud on the school steps

The fool in the textbook
Paints us inept
Tainted
******
Illicit natives
Miserable Misfits
Nothing the magistrates can't handle

OH!!!
They wish!
Suppress our melodies
But never break our lips

We are the misused...

Our eyes do penetrate
Every false-flag they perpetuate
Even though barbiturates
Are placed beneath our pillows
The shame billows
The shame follows
Rodents to the edge of the borough
Where men create addicts

There
Publicans turn
Badges burn
Magistrates press their shirts and hatch their eagles
Discernment is not taught
Nor is it learned

We are the obtuse...

Blacked out and abused!
Sold for pulpits and ocean views

Magistrates hate us
Their eagles circle to berate us
"Intolerant"
"Outdated"
"Unpatriotic"
"Ill-fated"

But by grace we persevere
By faith we adhere
To a higher truth
A purer view
Our strongholds are not stick
and stone
Chrome nor drone
But
Christ alone
Our strength and hope
Out hope for home

NOT polls and popes
NOT guns and votes
NOT Magistrates  and lazy legislations
NOT eagles which feed on
Desensitized demonstrations
Police brutality and assassinations
Nomadic nations
Sporadic speculations

We
The Refused
We
The Misused
We
The Obtuse
Will NOT cosign evil
Will NOT massage magistrates
Will NOT elevate eagles
We will NOT
We must NOT

I'm that record player that keeps going on,
Playing the same old, outdated song.
I'm sorry.
All my poems spout the same cliches now.
Hell, I'm the embodiment of those cliches now.
I don't know why I'm suffering from the disease
Years after my exposure to patient(s) zero,
But here I am, sick, bed-ridden and sleep-deprived,
Scratching sores I thought had long healed up.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that I don't see colour anymore,
Just the monochromatic shading of decay.
I don't know how to pull myself back up again,
Can't remember how I did it the first time.
I was a ticking time bomb without even realising it,
And I don't even know if I've exploded yet,
Or if this is just the precursor, the countdown
To ripping apart everyone in my vicinity.
I'm sorry.
They say pain makes for the best artists, the best art,
But I'm too repetitive to make anything good.
Even the violent strokes of red have turned dark grey,
And they get darker the further down the abyss I go,
Where the darkness is so dense that light can't penetrate,
And I don't see the nightmares that have come back.
I'm sorry.

rush around your day just stay calm
get things done but remember most of us
will see tomorrow
bring that urgency down to
that force making us rush
light to light
in a hurry perpetually like
we are going to get somewhere
Saturday is going to come and just like Tuesday
it begins with a sunrise and a rude
alarm clock bell
nothing to rush to
Wednesdays a race and Sunday is too

i trusted him like i trusted you, implicitly.

then she doubted, never trust anyone, she said

she had been watcing reality

tv.

then insidiously doubt crept in, as water spread

this weather.

i may be pleased to say that she, maybe

proved wrong this time.

you rang me.

also pleased with the spellling.



sbm.

“Give me the winner, this time! Last week you played me like a fool. I’m done ripping up these tickets, guy.”
The man behind the counter laughed, a big billowy kind that would bring forth rain clouds.
He printed out the next ticket and wished her good fortune. She walked away, bow-legged with a grin on her face. She knows it this time. She feels it, the adrenaline radiating through her weak body, worn down from all the pampering and dry-cleaning she had done for other people.
Other people. How she longed to be other people. The other people had a home, a simple life, songs from their time blasting through their speakers. I can’t keep up with this, she thought to herself. Her dreams were shattered forever and eternity ago. She was going to go places, boy, did she have it all figured out. Planned, organized, obsessing, obsessing, recycling herself like a ***** grocery bag to squeeze every last drop of glimmer she had left in herself.
This is the winner. She knew it would be. She’s aged oh so much more than she had anticipated, her skin dragging lower and lower, as if the devil himself was pulling her to hell, her destiny. There isn’t much time left for this one life, this only forgotten life.
She kept on walking, chin up and tears surfacing. As always, the clerk dutifully waiting until she could no longer see him, if she ever did at all.
“See you next week.”