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I stare at the blank page for long
Can't muster the courage to be strong
And write freely what my heart desires
But somehow turn towards the fleet of liars

Why! Why I ask, they tell me I'm not good enough
How! How am I supposed to learn to be tough
There is always this feeling nagging me in the back of my head
That I'm not even good enough to write for the dead

Then I turn towards those friendly species
My dog, my frog and my writing desks
I hear them encouraging me to write
And tell me it's so much better than to strive

I've decided I'm not going to listen to those fools
Neither their criticizing tone nor the conniving tools
And this is what a writer's dilemma is all about
To write from the heart and not listen to the world's bout
 Dec 2013 dreadfulmind
Jacqui
Me.
 Dec 2013 dreadfulmind
Jacqui
Me.
My heart feels light
and my head is clear
I can breathe.
My time is to focus on me.
Not you, not her, not us, not we, just me.
It may seem rude, or maybe selfish,
but I cannot care.

The sky seems blue
and my smile is bright.
Worry no longer plagues my heart.
Deep breaths.
In and out.
Out and in.
This is a time for me.

I must love myself with extraordinary passion before I push to love you.
My passion is extending for miles and the weight has been lifted.
I am free from all the shadows of the night
and all the aggressiveness that I would fight.

My smile is bright.
My heart is light.
The sky is blue.
My head is clear.
Solace engulfs my air.
12/13/13
 Dec 2013 dreadfulmind
eva
Untitled
 Dec 2013 dreadfulmind
eva
there was a clock. tick, tock.

it's an endless ticking. consuming me. i can't write, i can't read, i can't sleep. tick, tock.

i hear her voice inside my head. sometimes she screams. tick, tock.

i can't stop thinking. poetry comes in short, five-syllabled lines, always there and never gone. tick, tock.

reverberating tones; beeps, hums and clicks. keyboard tapping, heavy breathing. tick, tock.

one day, it stopped.
it's going to be okay.

people cover me in a thick blanket of comforting words and tense remarks, biting at my skin and making imaginary bruises, tender to the touch.

i'm still here. i was never gone. my wings are taking me nowhere and my shoulder blades ache from the weight, but still they hold on.

i walk on the footpath of a smoke-filled congested road, always invisible but never unseen.

desire for something i don't know. but it's there. never gone
Through the years of transparent existence, a void of illusion becomes apparent and slowly becomes nothing more than a side-show. The dribbling glimpses of truth fade like the bones of old. No man can create such an indentation in the mold of space and time that the observers at the end of eternity will render their imprint upon the infinite gaian consciousness and body of universal proportions of any significance. Even the earth laughs at such ridiculousness. The ego is a strong bind - it can create maya and attachment to such fantasies easier than a bear can find it's ideal location for a winter hibernation. It's a world of craziness, where nobody knows whats going on.
The man woke up from his deep slumber. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Squinting, he looked around, studying his surroundings and taking mental notes. His thoughts are ***** scribblings on a subway wall. His heart is beating, searching for a band to play in rhythm with. His soul is aching from loneliness and desire. His feet lifelessly surrender their position up on the couch and find the floor, shrieking from the cold of the linoleum. His presence is that of a bird with a broken wing still attempting to fly. He stands up and stares at the ceiling.
The room is small. Four walls of white, one window and one door. The window looks out over the grey city. The door leads into another room - the room most would call a kitchen. In the small room before the kitchen, there is only a couch and a blanket. No lamp. No television. No electricity. No electricity in the entire apartment. The kitchen holds no refrigerator, no oven, no toaster, no pantry. It's called a kitchen because that's what it would be if somebody else was living in the apartment. There are two bananas on the floor along with a box of wheat flake cereal. No milk, no bowl, no spoon. The bananas are almost entirely rotten. The box of cereal is on its side, leaking bits of wheat flake, resembling a dying soldier on a battlefield who's losing all his blood through the wound on his neck rather than a box of the West's favorite morning go-to breakfast.
The man is observing the cracks on the ceiling, along with various stains with no known origin to him. His eyes dart from one corner of the room to another to another to another and back to the first. Spiderwebs. Dust. Decay. A perfect example of life's ability to take care of itself. Biodecomposition. When no one is around to look after a house, over time, Nature will take over it. Vines will grow and overcome the walls. Rain will fall and wear away the roof and general structure. Winds will blow, taking blindshots at the weakened building, eventually cause it to fall. Nothing lasts forever. Everything goes back to where it came from.
The man now steps into the "kitchen", where he begins to study the stains on the ceiling in this room as well. His mind is electric, with no thoughts in the usual sense, but rather just a vague presence of void to help the ceiling stains feel important. He is the space through which everything around him can exist to their fullest potential. After a measureless amount of time, the man walks over to the sad bits of food on the far side of the small room. He picks up one of he bananas and studies it. He feels where it came from. The tropical skies and smells and earth of Costa Rica. There's a little sticker on the banana that says so. Each bit of fruit in the markets nowadays are individually stickered...for prosperity, one can only assume. Though it's best to never assume anything, and instead be open to everything - afterall, anything is possible, at any time. Likelihood and probability are also important factors in the universal constitution of existence. What was the likelihood that this man, when he was a little child, figured he'd be holding a rotten banana from Costa Rica in his hand inside of a kitchenless kitchen? Who knows? The man wouldn't be able to recall his thoughts from early childhood - he barely remembers waking up and experiencing the chilling sensation of early morning linoleum. In any case, everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be, for it wouldn't be if it wasn't meant to be.
He slowly peels open the banana peel to reveal this brown, soft mush of tropical fruit. Just the way he likes it - soft enough to chew with his toothless mouth. He takes his time consuming the fruit, savoring every particle. After a good bit of time, the fruit is gone and all the man is left with is the peel. He takes another good look at the peel, once again imagining where this particular banana came from. Then, in two swift bites, he devours the entire peel - sticker included. He figures the sticker came from Costa Rica as well, and thus must carry that Costa Rican tropical vibe of health and longevity. His eyes then focus on the wheat flake cereal lying next to the other rotting banana. He bends down and picks up the box. The box is upside down when he picks it up and so the cereal spills out all over the area of the "kitchen" floor that seems to be dedicated to eating food. The remaining banana is now covered in wheat cereal.
The man drops the box back onto the floor and takes a seat alongside of it. His fingers hold his face from drooping onto his knees. His knees are keeping his torso from melting onto the floor. He screams with no sound. The pains of existence seep through his hollow eyes and into the receptors of his soul. He screams with no sound. He’s as empty as the American Dream.
The cobwebs are spreading from the corners of the room and are aimed for the human form sitting in the “kitchen” screaming silence with all his might. The cobwebs grow. The commuters of the city highway are commuting. A thousand birthday celebrations are being had. A thousand people sexually uninhibited, joyously seizing the moment in disgusting miraculous unity of mortal physical desire. Junkies are roaming the street for their morning fix. Teaching are teaching their students absolute lies. Governments are stealing the lives of billions and counting. And the cobwebs are growing, encompassing entire walls. The the ceiling. Then the floor. Then they crawl up the lifeless legs of the man who sits screaming in silence and the spiders overtake his body. They stitch his mouth shut and close his eyes with their spun proteinaceous spider silk. The man withers into the wind of time and vanishes from the world without a single soul taking notice. Leaving nothing behind except an empty apartment, overdue rent, and a number in the system of Western Society. His spirit cries sorrowfully as it flees the clutches of molecular existence into the realm of eternity and space. Heaven. He made it. He looks down at the people of the world he just left and sings a pitiful song for them. He’ll see them again. Afterall, they are Him. And He is Them. His Heart, the Sun, burns as the world he left turns. The lessons He left are slowly being learned. One by one. But still, there’s a space between the atoms, between the cells. And that space can never disappear. Without it, there would be no point to the story. All would be one, as it is, and there’s be nothing to overcome. No triumph. Just an endless loop of bizarre beautiful experience and pattern.
the fellow on the street
has no home
and on the unfriendly streets
he roams

not that you'll hear him complain
of the conditions he lives in
he takes every day as it comes
and he'll smile at you with a beaming grin

his world is far from ideal
it has little appeal
yet he contends
with it as this is his deal

he counts himself lucky
though he's in an adverse situation
not having four walls
in a permanent location

he and his like
have no status in society
they are the people
who've been forgotten so expediently

look in the park and the subways
you'll sight people like them on any day

a roof for shelter
a place of warmth
is well out of their grasp
there is nothing
in their empty clasp

tonight as you sleep in your tepid beds
give a thought to those who are taking rest
in outdoor climes
without a cover
on their shivering frames
this is the picture you should hold in your head
when you're thinking of how bad things are for you
as there are many people
doing it
much much tougher than you

that fellow will greet you
on your run in the park
and his appearance
will make you look very stark
 Dec 2013 dreadfulmind
Ian Cairns
I was raised by a man with broad shoulders and a gentle heart
A sign that my strengths would reside above my waistline
I learned to stand up straight at an early age
Not necessarily to improve my posture like my father had intended
But I believed looking into his eyes would give me an all-access pass to manhood
And by double digits I wanted to reciprocate his masculinity
Nothing would have harmonized my earlobes like the words- You're a man now son

As I grew taller, I finally met the spheres into my father's soul
And much to my surprise, they screamed a sadder melody than I had anticipated
They leaned on crutches, crippled by societal catastrophes
Their stories- captives to cultural constraints
They stared at me blindly as if my presence was backbreaking
My heart was crushed as my father's shoulders shook
And the strengths I once desired were now fossilized by fear

To be a man -society grunts so effortlessly- is to be masculine
And since masculinity and success are socially synonymous
Obviously, success cannot be established without perfection or aggression or oppression

To be a man is to be unbreakable
Because the slightest wrinkle in armor alludes to inability
And combat is unavoidable regardless of swordsmanship

To be a man is to be rigid
Because being fixed in outdated traditions is far easier
Than challenging for innovative conditions

To be a man is to be emotionless
Because passion is pathetic
Sensitivity strikes the community as instability, not authenticity

To be a man is to be strong
Because strength means maintaining control and independence
Not establishing dependability or acceptance

Masculinity still towers over little boys just like me
Presenting textbook answers for real world problems
Masculinity is a skyscraper imposing its will on innocent civilians
By replacing sunlight with systematic shadows
And ripping shooting stars right out of the sky
Masculinity forms internal thunderstorms harboring havoc
For individuals that need more than rainfall for adequate growth
We are not shrubbery photosynthesizing our thoughts into energy
We are not born to throw our feelings into sealed vaults
Our genuine intentions deserve to be delivered on silver platters

Gender roles are one way streets clogged by oncoming traffic
Mirrored headlights approaching complete chaos
There are no maps to point you down the right path
There is no right path
There is no right path
Only roadblocks inhibiting you from any type of progress
Life is meant to be traveled on unmarked ground
Where men and women alike regulate the steering wheel regardless of society's traffic laws
And I long for the day when my son or daughter looks up to me
The day when my son or daughter stands up straight
Looks me in my eyes and sees a portrait painted differently
A soul actualizing strength, not personifying ingenuity
 Dec 2013 dreadfulmind
Awkward
My special blanket
It covers my mind

I'm used to my blanket
Like a small child I carry it everywhere

My mind is a dark place
But my blanket makes it not too bad

There was a time it wasn't there
& it was a nice break

But that was just a break
A holiday

Time to get back to work
My blankets in charge

It tells me when to eat, never
It tells me when to sleep, all the time

My blanket used to give me breathing room
But now, its suffocating me

My blankets choking me
& I've stop struggling

My mind has put the blanket in total control
I shut down

I push everyone away
Even the boy I love

I know it kills him
To see me this way

But my blankets my minds dictator
It calls the shots

I love you, I promise
But this blanket will **** me in the end

Like a blanket of snow
My depression covers me

& I've let it win
 Dec 2013 dreadfulmind
John
Drip, drop, drip
You fired from the hip
Third degree burns
Coming straight from your lips
I start to tremble at my fingertips
I'll never learn because I never made the list
And I guess you could say I got a little ******
So now I roam the country with nothin but my fist

Ever since, ever since
I stopped givin a ****
I just run around
With my heart in my fist
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