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Jewel M C Mar 2017
Potholes sprinkled across empty Detroit streets
     like bullet holes in ***** bedsheets

Found within the vacant homes of the forgotten,
     alive with reminders of what used to be

Before the neighborhoods became abundant in abandoned homes
     and awash with abandoned people

Yearning for forgotten yesterdays suspended far from reach,
     searching for a memory of something concrete

While wandering along the crooked, cracked sidewalks
     cemented with resentments;

Forgotten, forsaken, forlorn, foreboding... foreclosure
     crisis spray-painted on the brick of a blown out home

Hungry for habitation despite dishevelment,
     *explicit with endless nothingness
Jewel M C Feb 2017
Who are we?* we ask, always asking ourselves the same questions...

We are the world.
We are brothers and sisters. Sons and daughters.
We are friends, cousins, acquaintances...
We are lovers and enemies, and also, strangers.
We are anyone and everyone, all at once.
We are, despite all else, connected.

That must mean something to us. Shouldn't it?

We are 7.5 billion bodies, each alike in enough ways that might make our differences invisible. (But are they?)

We are the same, in so many ways. Enough that our similarities should outweigh our inevitable differences. Our similarities should be enough to prove that our differences are not worth fighting about. Yet, somehow, they aren't. Because we do fight. We fight without any known rhyme or reason, and without genuine purpose. Without empathy. We fight over our differences with enough audacity to claim that they should be ranked. With the belief that each of our differences should be sorted, allowing some of us to be valued as less than others, and also, some of us valued so much more. So, we fight. Like siblings or old lovers. Every single day. Probably have since the beginning of time, or, rather, when we created the concept of time. Perhaps the fighting began when we became a we. And since, the fighting has been constant. It's the only thing that really brings us together. And the one thing tearing us apart.

We find any excuse we can that will bring us closer to division rather than unity. Somehow, we are still far too concerned with the qualities that make us different rather than with those that which we share. And for so many of us, it seems easier to choose not to share. We are selfish and we rarely share. We are all in this together however we behave as though we are unaware the other exists. Mindlessly we share similar DNA but we act like we don't care. It must be easier to behave as though we are unaware. We do whatever it takes to ignore the facts that lie right before our eyes and we build walls around them. We look the other way, in any direction that might lead us into misdirection. We pretend we don't see, that we don't know, that we don't care.

We the people, of the world. We the hopeless, the reckless, the desperate... We the lost.

We are time-wasters, dream-chasers and we are all ******* fakers. We are figments of our own imaginations. We are alternate versions of ourselves living in realities of our own creation. Realities that aren't real at all, just like us. We hide beneath our fake faces and our fake words. Our fabricated worlds are all we have to show for. We live in pretty, little bubbles as an escape from our invisible reality, in an effort to shield ourselves from the dangers of the world. We're supposed to be in this together, though somehow we'd all rather be alone. We've forgotten the meaning of we, and we've doomed ourselves to eternal loneliness. We are, if nothing else at all, inherently lonely.
Jewel M C Feb 2017
From the passenger seat of my boyfriend's car
I keep my eyes wide while we drive, & watch
The world as it passes me, bye...

I wave from behind the tinted glass
Safely secured from the dangers that lie outside

We turn the radio all the way up
So we won't hear it squeak when we hit another speed bump

Instead we're blinded by bright city lights
Neon signs, streetlamps, & traffic lights;
Green then yellow then red, then red & blue (watch out, they're coming for you)

In the flashing lights, I see the city covered in a fresh coat of graffiti
Train-cars & abandoned buildings, dark alleys & concrete fences,
A bridge overpass where the streetlights have no electricity:

*"Danger Reality Ahead"
Previously "Everyday Drive"
- Detroit
Jewel M C Nov 2016
I'm bottled up
to the brim
but I'd rather be thrown
into the ocean
than opened up
ever again
previously titled: What feelings?
Jewel M C Nov 2016
I think I lost
my voice,
I couldn't stop screaming
I didn't have a choice;
there are demons living inside me
whispering into my ears
telling me all the things
I don't want to hear,
I'm running from myself
from my fears,
but the voices are getting louder
& I'm fighting the tears.
Jewel M C Nov 2016
If I could be compelled to let my heart wander freely,
It would surely guide me to a vivid vision of Hartwell street.
As I make my way, stumbling, I cannot help but detour, briefly,
Unable to refuse an indulgent moment at the corner candy store;
I graciously gather in my hands all the caramels I couldn’t possibly eat.
Sugar fueling my eager spirit, I follow the road to a familiar bend,
In passing I watch the boys play hockey in the street.
Strolling along the cracked pavement, I stop before a supreme suburban château
Taking a breath before swimming in a pool of fond reflection,
I open the gate and let my lungs fill with the inescapable summer heat.
Walking down that eternal driveway, I cross the stretch of yard
Led by my heart’s desire and the bare bottoms of my feet.
Smells of barbecue blend with the sweet taste of pink watermelon
And I’m suddenly craving to chase after the glowing fireflies,
Overcome with a feeling so pure, yet so bittersweet.
If I could, even if only for a moment
Return to 5714 Hartwell street,
I know that I would, in a heartbeat.

But where that tall, brick house once stood
stands another home, much more ordinary,
with a vacancy for memories; forever incomplete.
a memoir of Buni's old house that was filled with so many wonderful childhood memories
Jewel M C Nov 2016
I am an old, wooden paddleboat
Drifting across a still ocean of black,
At the slightest sign of wave
I could crack.

The inky sea surrounds me
Infinitely vast,
Alone I glide, below a moonless sky.

Dark clouds loom overhead, moving fast
I feel a ripple at my side,
In a lightning flash, I see the approaching tide.

The stillness never lasts,
I prepare for the crash.

First, a drop of rain
Falls from the sky,
Others follow, like tears
The clouds begin to cry.

Raindrops sting my splintered skin
In beads of blistering pain,
Following a rumble of thunder
I spy my foulest of fears,
Here comes the hurricane.

My oars are useless
As the storm advances,
I resist drowning
But the waves grow stronger
Lowering my chances.

Suddenly I am underwater
Fighting gravity,
Everything is a blur
As the ocean swallows me.

I break apart beneath the surface
For the thousandth time,
Submerged in the devastation
I wonder if being fragile is a crime.
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