SURVIVAL
When I look in a mirror
I accept what I see.
But beyond the reflection
Begins another journey.

The wolf
And the bear-
Two creatures
With life I share

The wolf is pragmatic
But can be flawed.
The bear however,
Will always stand tall.

Wolf is a mother-
The best protector,
But if needs be
You had best flee.

Bear will come,
Rip the sky from the sun.
And turn raindrops into flames
While dancing as you run.

I was born a lone wolf,
But life beat me down.
So then I found Bear
And felt invincible again.

For Wolf the objective
Is not to find home.
But to prepare herself
For being alone.

And if things get too much,
Feelings, emotions and the such.
Bear will be there,
And you had better beware.

Wolf is not always happy
With the prey killed by Bear.
But she instinctively knows
Nothing in life is ever fair.

Bear killed a friend
Wolf should by nature not have had.
It brought chaos to the jungle
And was less happy than sad.

A thing so dear
It would only cause fear
In the kingdom it thrived,
So Bear decided it had to die.

Everything is relative-

Look at this cute, little wolf
And the big, bad bear.
Wolf could not make you listen,
But Bear made you stare.
(Gerry Aldridge ©2017)

They didn't listen when I said I was tired
I said that being different was hard
Because my jeans  don't fit right
My actual genes weren't right

And so I came out in comparison to everything
Already didn't have a father to teach me
The skies will cry if he ever tries to reach me
Not knowing who to trust was something girls my age don't worry about

They're far too happy living oblivious
And I question myself off of this-
How do they possibly not know
That they are all the same person?


Same gloss on smooth Pink lips
Smiling a shark smile that they do like kindness
And they name the rainbow by shades of eyeshadow- as if there wasn't enough color

   Girls like that are happy with the same person for a week
And yet I cannot be happy with myself for a day
Then they switch partners because "Don't  worry he's sooo cute!"
  
  I wonder if they are happier naive
And how hard it will be for them when they realize how the skies are actually smokey black
And they've been looking up through perfect eyelashes- but beauty doesn't last

   It must be nice always being average
With a cover girl to cover you sitting next to you
And manicured nails to scratch your way through life

On tv it looks so copper clean
Ringing in naked dreams
Living out those picket fence schemes
To get the American bling

Morality is black and white
There are no heroic black knights
The good guys are just
And they just wear white hats

But life is painful
Like a cancer vampire
******* your life force
Pale skin quivering

Dark bags under your eyes
No hair there because of the chemo
Despair and denial on ivy drips
And reality tv made us ill equipped
To handle it

Sometime I wish the tears would stop
That the empathy would vanish from me
That I couldn’t see what I see
See what this reality has made of me

History is white sheets
Red arm bands, fat *******
Uninformed Loud mouths
A canvass that drips wet with my outrage

I sip the last drops of my stimulants
Drop the anti-depressants in the toilet
Forget my docility
Embrace more than half of my hostility

I don’t think much will change
Despite how hard I clamor
Despite the sparkles and the glamour
How I use the language to entertain and inform

This is therapy
In the form of Poetry

A drink of *****
A shot that can only go up

Blood that spills on the bathroom floor
A throat that can’t feel anymore

A heart that stopped beating
A person who stopped breathing

The knife, the only one to make her feel again
A life that ended the day it started

It can only be described as death;

Took her body without a care saying, “Darling, your looks can **** and now you’re dead.”

With closed eyes, she can see...
She just wanted to feel human again