16.**
What a small weight for the most important gas,
that is keeping us alive.
I was 16 when I realized that my mom
had forever been my biggest supporter.
I was 16 and I was still holding my fingers crossed behind my back,
hoping that Santa was real.

I'm the hidden meaning behind good reasons
that have paved the way toward bad choices.
For I have realized, sitting silently in the corner,
that we are all forced to realize our
own self destruction.

Like the building and the wrecking ball,
of which I am often both.

I am your overspoken words and unsaid thoughts.

I am not the beautiful bare trees in the winter,
but instead I am your poisonous dinner.

I am the passion behind tears
and the emotion behind screams.

I am the thoughts that keep you up at night,
and your cold, bare feet.

I resemble a constant string of avoidance and indecisiveness.

I am your dewy eyes and groggy voice at 7:30 in the morning.

I am nothing but a blinking statue.

I am 16 years worth of unanswered questions.

Yet in 16 years will all I be is
another 16 years older?

I am the epitome of drowning without water,
and not to spoil the ending for you,
but I still have 16 years worth of faith,
that everything will be okay.

When the morning was waking over the war
He put on his clothes and stepped out and he died,
The locks yawned loose and a blast blew them wide,
He dropped where he loved on the burst pavement stone
And the funeral grains of the slaughtered floor.
Tell his street on its back he stopped a sun
And the craters of his eyes grew springshots and fire
When all the keys shot from the locks, and rang.
Dig no more for the chains of his grey-haired heart.
The heavenly ambulance drawn by a wound
Assembling waits for the *****'s ring on the cage.
O keep his bones away from the common cart,
The morning is flying on the wings of his age
And a hundred storks perch on the sun's right hand.

I feel like a big man
in a straight jacket
who has just learned
despite all his strength
he'll never break the restraints

I'm not saying
you should ever give up

Just relax when you can
Don't fight so hard
You'll be free soon enough

It is  what loneliness feels like on late nights
and I find myself drunk texting poetry

I want to make your ears time capsules
for the things I have to say

Sometimes I settle for your phone

I want to wake up
in the morning
with a message from you

A picture of your smile
Your smile
Your stupid beautiful smile

It is all I ever really wanted anyway

I am a dot on Seurat’s canvas.

You told me that I wouldn’t be respected if I used Times New Roman, well maybe I don’t write to be respected. Maybe I write in Times New Roman because I like to read in it.

I could write in Wingdings. Would that make you happy? Would that make me stand out?

I don’t write with words I don’t understand and I don’t embellish nature to sounds pretty. Times New Roman isn’t trying to impress anybody and neither am I.

I am writing about what is real and I am writing about how I feel and I don’t need your opinion and I don’t want to hear your spiel.

Did that make me stand out?

Insignificance is a relative term
The pessimistic thoughts that pass through our heads…
The thoughts that say:
We are not good enough,
We do not matter,
We are insignificant
These are all just thoughts
Controlled by you
A person,
Who can make choices and decisions,
And although you may not be able to change the world as a whole
You can change those insignificant little thoughts
Because a person is more than what you think
They are one of seven billion, but how big is seven billion really?
And the world that you truly live in is made up of much, much less
So the next time you think you aren't enough
Remember that it’s you who controls whether you feel like enough or not.
And when I feel like I’m drowning and I can’t breathe during the day,
And all I want to do is crawl up in a ball in my house and cry and feel and be left alone
I have to be reminded how much I’m worth
Because even if we don’t know it,
We are all worth something
Even if sometimes we make mistakes
Even if sometimes we hurt ourselves to let people know we aren't fine
Even if we feel like we’re nothing
We aren't*
Because although the world is a hateful and horrible awful place full of ignorance and judgment,
There are still lights and halos and happiness and there’s laughter too in there
There’s babies being born, people getting married, and random acts of kindness being done
There are cookies and baklava and puppies
There are young lovers and happy children and sweet singing
There’s music and art and love being made
And although the babies may be still, the couples may get divorced, and the acts of kindness may be empty
The cookies may be burnt, the baklava old, and the puppies dead
The young lovers may break each other’s hearts, the happy children may grow up and the sweet singing stopped
The music may be sad, the art distasteful and the love not true
It doesn't matter because all these things are part of life
And all of these things were done by people
And you’re a person
So I’d say that’s pretty ******* awesome.

306 British & Commonwealth soldiers were shot at dawn for desertion in WW1.
Inspired by this fact and by BBC1's drama The Village*

I

Good-hearted soldier marched away to war,
Sad-eyed mother and father watched him leave
To help a noble cause worth fighting for;
Or so the government had us believe.

Bereavements swiftly followed. He returned
For time on leave, a changed, embittered soul;
Troubled by death where distant fires burned
As month on month the shelling took its toll.

Mentor and loving brother, man of peace,
Such was this force of nature we once knew;
Now weighed down with all war's catastrpohes
So guilty to be of the living few.

Oh bitter hindsight, cruel hand of fate,
That says what we must do when it's too late!


II

I saw him walking back along the path
That headed to the seaport, bound for France;
So full of care, lost in the aftermath
Of ****** conflict, as if in a trance.

Then suddenly he stumbled to his knees
And crawled, down on his belly, cautiously
As though bullets were coming through the trees
As though to shelter from the enemy.

He raked the grass with darting, trembling hands,
His staring eyes were wide with urgency
His legs would not obey his brain's commands
His lips whispered a plea for clemency

I saw my love, he didn't see me there
Longing to save his broken soul with prayer.


III

Never was a more terrifying sight
Than naked terror, screaming from his eyes;
I still recall him staring, every night;
It haunts my dreams from dusk into sunrise.

I wanted to embrace him, stroke his hair,
To whisper words of solace from the Lord;
But sometimes prayer hangs on the empty air,
Sometimes we cannot rescue the adored.

Later I visited his lonely room
To find him on his bed, facing the wall.
He turned to meet my gaze, eyes full of gloom
As if no soul resided there at all.

I made him pray with me, for love Divine;
Heedless of God, he pressed his lips to mine.


IV

I blush, I burn with shame, when I recall
I gave in to his kisses willingly;
He wanted heaven's solace not at all
But took his earthly comfort all from me.

So long I'd waited, through his years away,
Wishing to win his love through some kind deed
Now in his trembling grasp, too lost to pray,
I lay entranced by passion's burning greed.

When it was over, I looked at his face
He seemed to see some bright epiphany
Perhaps at last he knew our Saviour's grace
At last his breath came slowly; evenly.

He murmured something as I rose to go
I knew I loved him, but never said so.


V

I never said I loved him. With the dawn,
His doomsday clock was ticking down his hours.
I never said I loved him, I was torn;
For what love sanctifies, wartime deflowers.

Hindsight has pierced my heart with bitter thorns,
Trampled my dreams, stolen all future joy;
For in that worst of cataclysmic dawns,
I never said I love you to that boy.

I never even said a last farewell
Though warm kisses still echoed on my skin;
My silence tortures me, I am in hell
I burn in silent wars I cannot win.

The Redcaps came and took away my Joe.
I loved him; and now he will never know.