Weight of the world
Broken shoulders and cracked spines
Long run consequences
Short run bliss
What's right for now
Or what's right for later
Good for one
Or good for others
Rubber arms cannot balance the sides
Today's frustration swallows tomorrow
Delinquent youth
Intolerant with age
Rules or freedom
Is there freedom within the rules
Is tomorrow forever tainted by mistakes from today
Perhaps tomorrow is tainted by things further in the past
Then again, could that be where true liberty lies
Letting go of bad choices
Living with the bed you made by accident
Do accidents really exist
Is there even a path
Mistakes that matter need not be ones own
Buried under a world of nothingness
It matters to no one but you

The best advice I was
given about writing was:
write appropriately, suit the reader,
don't make the assumption that they're careless enough not to notice sentence after sentence of redundancies. Most of all, avoid confusion.

And even though I'm young, I try to write for
a younger generation, my generation, one that produced the notion that it is feasible to aspire to write without having the will or desire to read. Welcome this juxtaposed generation with delight. They were born to dream, and there isn't a need for articulation when you keep your eyes closed.

What words will make a bigger impact?
Because what is wit to a man that only
finds enjoyment from himself. The outsider
at this point would rather listen to a person's
complete hatred of napkins. Because they're
just a paper towel folded twice.

Kids want money and fame and respect.
And who doesn't to some degree.
So maybe I must act accordingly.
I smacked a ***** to know
what it feels like. And I keep a gun in my glove
compartment. Don't even ask about the trunk,
because you already know it's locked.
I do drugs because they make me feel good,
and when I feel bad everyone else will, too.
When I crack open a beer I pour some out.
That's for my friends that have passed.
When I pop champagne I pour it on ****.
Because a two-thousand dollar shower
doesn't require clothes.

If that's not what's normal, I don't know what is.
But it's almost as if this generation is
too ignorant to care. Being underprivileged
isn't ironic when talked about wearing
thrift shop clothes, but that changes when you
hop on private airplanes to deliver the message.
And I'm not trying to say I'm different,
I have twenty dollars in my pocket, like most,
although I'm only looking for a come-up.

"It's good, but maybe you should write shorter," I was told.
Granted this was told to me by a man that believes the word artistic
to be closely related to the word autistic, but I can only assume that riding any
unfamiliar wavelength is terribly confusing, if not immeasurably difficult.

Knowing that you can confide in yourself, whether or not I'm misinterpreting
individual delegation for conscience, I believe altruism to be fundamental to
a person before growth can occur. Unless of course you're writing short poems.
And if you're curious enough to implement apathy, sarcasm is a fine starting point.

They say that if you want to master something you need to perform daily.
Accompany this with the old adage, "Love what you do," and you can imagine the potential.
Mastering an activity with love is transcendent, calm although sometimes piquant.
Passion and pleasure aren't identical, but imagine the potential.

I don't bleed ink.
It has to be an attempt at benevolence, to say that.
Extreme literary pretensions you must have to bleed out.
Writing should have a pulse. It. Should. Make. Each. Word. Count.

Yet, when this man told me that my words are good, but I should keep it shorter,
knowing not if I could or would, I became curious as to why he worried more about
length and not the content and story as a whole. Then I had to rationalize this to myself, and thought: It would be easier to convey words with images, like a film or animation.

But I don't bleed ink,
and I guess I don't bleed popcorn.

Buckled at the knees, face in the dirt,
one can only pray for enlightenment, but
at a time when morality is valued by
silver and gold,
a baton twirled
is mightier than the sword dipped in ink
and sprawled across ancient parchment.
Men march in unison, into foreign lands,
while chanting words of a dead language:
Democratia Sit Virtus

Flag inserted into the land, the
obligatory explanation is written
on paper, covered with black marks, in soot.
Erupt in glory, a city once was.
Redacted sentences are had for
good reason:
to keep characters in the dark.
Transparency is only a concept that
belongs on the back of a bookmark.
Dust covers
clouds and envelopes the sky,
as dark and as black as superstition.

We speak with symbols, because subliminal
advertising becomes cogitative rather than
entering one ear and leaving the other.
What belongs in the border is bold, as we
marginalize open space, although the occasional
proverbial foot will cross the line. A slash of the
throat will tell you that all eyes are dotted,
just as some lines are crossed.
Like an olive branch exposed as thorns.

A proper medium is exploiting
vulnerability under rule.
Hot air is expelled when converting oxygen,
or exclaiming honesty and integrity;
lest we forget land comes from sea.
It is in their nature; our nature to build
roots underground.
Better to keep intricacies hidden.
Never is an iceberg fully exposed.
A brain.
The Temple.
Certainly a vault.

What you keep from the people
is for the people.
And common ground is neither
left nor right,
despite what you've been made
to believe.
It's about the courage
to think before you speak.
It's the courage it takes
to gather strength and
beseech the weak.

desperate for a break in loneliness
longing to be devoured
heart once removed
prey versus predator
gentle, lays the Beast
slowly fueled by crowds of vacant eyes
primal feasts of flesh
no bearing on the soul
no past
no future
momentarily sated
a life of pretense
constructs of reality morph with mood
crushed and renovated by perception
the soul eats trusting hearts
unable to quench the thirst
it spits out bare bones
and goes on its way
living for the bliss of escape
oblivious to consequences no one else can see