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 Feb 2016
Traveler
Larger than life
The paths we make
The voices we follow
The positions we take

Politics and religion
Impact our minds
Poetic prisons
Hearts on the line

Coming and going
Haunting like ghosts
So many issues
We dare to approach

Each of us
A means to an end
Blinding lights
Burning dim

On into tomorrow
These torches we pass
Surely these fires
Were not meant to last...
Traveler Tim
Re to 10-17
 Mar 2015
Emily Dickinson
1692

The right to perish might be thought
An undisputed right—
Attempt it, and the Universe
Upon the opposite
Will concentrate its officers—
You cannot even die
But nature and mankind must pause
To pay you scrutiny.
 Mar 2015
martin
Don't approach a dog unknown to you
Holding out your hand, making eye contact
You may frighten him
Let him come to you

Don't write a poem uninspired
It won't work out
In good time
Let it come to you

Don't go out there seeking love
Like a child with a butterfly net
Live your life
Let it come to you
 Mar 2015
Megan H
Time to stop running
It's time for me to face the truth.
Look away from my reflected hate
Forget all the painful loss
Realize that-
Nothing is ever going to work out for me,
But it's the same for most people
So hell,
I might as well try
To live a decent life.
 Mar 2015
David Hall
If I a wayward traveler
were to rest my weary bones,
I fear I’d quickly find my name
in a garden full of stones.

So I continue trudging onward,
without regard for my direction.
Eyes forever pointed downward
by the fear of my detection.

Carrying the bags of follow travelers
despite their ever growing weight.
My steps harried ever onward
by the fear I might be late.

I can’t see my destination
but I have faith to keep me strong.
I can’t let my pace be slowed
by the fear that I am wrong.

I can’t say I quite recall
even the way this journey started
but I must have held some purpose
on that day I first departed.

So I continue trudging onward
without regard for my confusion.
This journey is about so much more
than my self-involved delusions.

If I a wayward traveler
were to rest my weary bones,
I fear I’d quickly find my name
in a garden full of stones.
 Mar 2015
Aniseed
There's a thought that haunts me
In the mornings
When the sun peeks through the curtains
And it blinds me
And the coffee is burnt
So I take a morning dose of
Smoke to mute my taste buds

It haunts me at work
Where my smile is as fake
As the honey tone of my voice
But they'll believe it
And buy two for two fifty anyway
Because I've asked them oh so
Nicely

It plagues me in the evening
When I've settled down with a brush
In my hand
Painting abstract strokes with
No road map
No idea where they're going
Just a current of blending colors
And lines

It strikes me at night
When I'm closing my eyes
And willing myself to sleep
Though the sheep don't run home
Because the path is drenched
In regret

That thought
Which haunts me

And itches at me

And runs laps through my mind

Is that I've never felt peace
In someone's arms

Never felt so fulfilled
To touch someone

Never had words powerful
Enough to describe it

The thought that harrows me
In all the hours I know
Is that I've never known
Love
 Mar 2015
Madisen Kuhn
I am slowly learning to disregard the insatiable desire to be special. I think it began, the soft piano ballad of epiphanic freedom that danced in my head, when you mentioned that “Van Gogh was her thing” while I stood there in my overall dress, admiring his sunflowers at the art museum. And then again on South Street, while we thumbed through old records and I picked up Morrissey and you mentioned her name like it was stuck in your teeth. Each time, I felt a paintbrush on my cheeks, covering my skin in grey and fading me into a quiet, concealed background that hummed “everything you’ve ever loved has been loved before, and everything you are has already been,” on an endless loop. It echoed in your wrists that I stared at, walking (home) in the middle of the street, and I felt like a ghost moving forward in an eternal line, waiting to haunt anyone who thought I was worth it. But no one keeps my name folded in their wallet. Only girls who are able to carve their names into paintings and vinyl live in pockets and dust bunnies and bathroom mirrors. And so be it, that I am grey and humming in the background. I am forgotten Sundays and chipped fingernail polish and borrowed sheets. I’m the song you’ll get stuck in your head, but it will remind you of someone else. I am 2 in the afternoon, I am the last day of winter, I am a face on the sidewalk that won’t show up in your dreams. And I am everywhere, and I am nothing at all.
 Mar 2015
Brandi R Lowry
Saying goodbye
To someone you love
Is like reading the final page
Of an amazing book.

As the last chapter ends
You begin to notice
Just how beautiful
And perfect
The plot always was.  

You appreciate the joy
And even the pain
As you read and thumb
Through every page.

Finally understanding
The moral of the story,
You realize you've reached
The end of this journey.

Although the last sentence  
Is the most difficult to read
Another great book awaits
Once you turn the final page.

Eventually you may stumble
Upon yet another great find.
Or maybe you'll return
To the book you left behind.

You may just discover
Once all is said and done
That this particular book  
Was your favorite story
All along.
For Ty & Des ❤️
 Mar 2015
Kiana Lynn
My problem is that I give.
I give until I have nothing left,
and then when I’m a fraction of myself,
I wonder why this is.
My problem is that I love.
I love without so much as a thought
of being loved back, and then when
they don’t love me back, I’m heartbroken.
They teach you about drugs;
pills, powder, injections.
They teach you about alcohol,
and its addiction.
But they didn’t teach me about that need,
inside of me to fit in, to be seen.
They didn’t tell me it’d chew me up,
and spit me out.
See, they didn’t tell me about love,
or giving until you have nothing left
in hopes of fitting in, in hopes
of feeling something so magical
it’s like you’re drowning.
So I gave until there was nothing left,
and they took without so much as a thought about their theft.
And I loved, loved until I thought I’d run out,
wasting it on people who didn’t care or deserve it.
That’s my problem.
 Mar 2015
PrttyBrd
The pain seeps out in flashes of insanity
I do not doubt you love me
Though I will always wonder why
In my shattered self-image
In my innate ability to be unseen
Was born an adolescent desire
A desperate need
A yen to be quenched of doubt
To be noticed
To be seen
Both within and without
In that longing to be alive
To be sure that I am a tangible being
In that way I push limits
I test boundaries like a child
Taxing the last nerve of an exhausted parent
Pushing hard until something breaks
Proving I matter enough
Or proving I can bend reality
Until I matter not
To anyone
For surely there is a reason I remain
Unseen
Unheard
Invisible
Intangible
Irrelevant
And Unnoticed
So I push when I'm hurt
Because you promised you won't leave
And I believe you
You said I meant everything I always wanted to mean to someone
And I believe you
You said you'd do anything and everything it takes to make me smile
And I believe you
The pain seeps out in flashes of insanity
I test boundaries like a child
Not because I doubt you
Because I need to always believe
32315
My weakness is not a reflection of your strength. I do not doubt you. I only doubt myself.
 Mar 2015
Sour Patched Kid
Whatever happened to the moments
we lived for
the moments we lived from
electrifying lives
currents of passion
high voltage that knew no resistance

what do I have to do?
to feel the surge
to feel the spark
to feel alive again?

Is it in the tomes?
Is it in the songs?
Do the muses hold it in the walls?
Is it inside of me?

Searching for the switch
to send me back to passion
To make me feel charged again
to make me feel in charge again
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