You fire at will without thinking
Thinking is only believing when it’s real
It’s real when it’s not
Sixty years in the making
You came to this land you proclaimed
Sixty years ago
It was peaceful with no remorse
All those who seen each other hugged and shake-
Hands they known to be as one humanity

As minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years gone
We seen lives treated like ants
New leaders were conjoined to unite nations
They say “We are only peacemakers.”
They’re the ones making the weapons
They’re the ones who keep killing
As a retaliation of self defense
But who started it?
Who robbed the land when it was beautiful
Who continued the ways of ******?
Who repetitively inhere the Massacre?

You fire rockets like it’s the Fourth of July
You even celebrated standing there with elation
Is this humanity? Is this right?
Is this the peace that nations conjoined to create?
'They' pay their taxes for you to commit crimes?
Is this the world we really wanted to live in?

Do you really believe-
They’ll use their own flesh & blood as their shields?
They’re in an open-air prison
In no rhyme nor reason will make them falter
They don’t believe in power
Only in power of faith and hope it’ll end
Yes.
It will end.
One day.

When that day comes
What you preached with your accusations
Your fake cries
Your fervid pretense of justice
Your deaths that you started
Your ‘media’ that corrupts minds that were blinded-
By your mendacity, armed with treachery
With pure dejection & cowardice

*The whole world will know then
Who brought upon pain
Who suffered the prolong unfeigned pain

They bombed Gaza
Gaza lived
Humanity died

sometimes i wonder if god keeps a record
of all the times i have been left,
all the times i have been unable to leave.
i wonder if he thinks to himself,
"when will she learn?"
as if he feels my heartache too.
i picture god with a furrowed brow,
hunched over a typewriter,
beginning me again and again,
a mountain of crumpled paper at his feet.
but somehow -
he always ends up at the same point in the story
where i am all ****** palms
and half-hearted hallelujahs
propped up on bruised knees.
spitting up blood & teeth at his feet screaming,
"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?"
but he doesn't answer.
and i catch myself wondering if the silence
is his way of punishing me for making a deity out of you.
after all, the bible says he is a jealous god.
i could've sworn there was a verse somewhere
that said you weren't allowed to love anyone other than me.
but now that i think about it,
i probably took it out of context.
if i could add a parable to those already existing,
it would be how your chest
felt like church under my head,
and how i thought to myself,
"this is how it would be if he loved me back."
or how you fled my bedroom like a crime scene.
i am still bleeding.
i won't tell you how many times
i cracked my heart in half
trying to be what you wanted.
how my lips on your skin felt judas.
now i am waiting for god to begin me once more,
hoping he'll leave you out of the plot this time
because i don't think i could stand to lose you again.
see, rumor has it he knew you'd leave
and has been trying to make it up to me
since before we'd even met.
my song is one of repentance.
the wood finish from abandoned pews
rotting under my fingernails.
i made sacrifices you didn't ask for.
i have never known
whether my inability to abandon people
is more a strength or a weakness
but so far everyone i've ever loved
has turned into an exit wound,
and myself into a flickering no vacancy sign.

- m.f.

I filled my bullet holes from the inside out
Concrete substitutions for flesh laid by a man of stone
So cold to the touch in the moonlight hours
I almost forget I was ever warm
Perforated to the core of my being
My initial rebuttal to the pain i felt was to harden myself
Teach myself to live with the cold
And look towards the solid shadows I then casted for inspiration to carry on
Fool myself into believing in the wholeness of a broken man
I lived as a creation of my own twisted and transformed imagination day in and day out
Dragging along the heavy weight a shield of hate brought with it
The problem being
Behind that shield I was protected fully from any outside source of grief
But I was trapped as well
A layer of thick rage and apathy deflecting any and all other emotion
A poison that constantly ate at what was left of me
Soon I became too weak to stand
The price you pay for being invincible against all other forces is that you can never stop yourself from dying on the inside
I had built a fortress to no avail
Because I had trapped the evil within myself
On my knees, my body rotting away
What was left of my flesh began to shrink back
The concrete was losing its grip the walls of skin that held them in retreating
The evil had won
Chunks of cement fell to the ground and crumbled
The agony indescribable
I was losing the last ounce of security I had left in this world
I was weak and the heaviness of the shield left when I could no longer hold it
I was defeated
I sat awaiting a death that in my mind was the only thing left assured to me
But it never came
Instead, I saw the sun rise over the horizon
I felt its warm rays on my disfigured flesh
And all around me was illuminated
In the light I saw how horrible what I had done to myself really was
At the price of living I had bought myself immortality
Nothing more than a cruel joke
Night never came again
And eventually I stood up
The light shone through my bullet holes as I did and the last of my disgust for the world was gone
I buried the shield and the crumbled stone deep in the darkness and never went back
Because no matter what may have been in my past, no matter how much blood I had shed, I knew that now I could live,

Truly

The poetic heart got broken.
A million shards of glass were ground.
Words of all profound.
Written with an ink pen,
of purely mice and men.
Her pen once was a feather,
stolen from a mother swan,
Tip honed to an arrow head,
Thrown from a bow,

The writers notes are passing by.
With courtesy and a bow.
They're showering ink in passing,
as the clouds are painted black,
rimmed with fading memories.
Can be no turning back.
Clouds are burst by writer's pen,
Thunderous hail of broken glass,
of fierce wind and rain.
Writing tales of past loves,
On pavements once again.
(C) Livvi

BREATHTAKING
I would hold my last breath for you.
Hold it tight and never let go.
I feel a spark from far in my heart.
A trigger captured in my eyes.
A vision, a perfect image.
Held close while sleeping.
Omitted when awake,
pardon me not,
for these things,
for I do not understand,
Sparks generate fires at times,
leaving fingers charred and burned,
So for now at least desires concealed.
My breath is released.
Your precious image is saved,
So I can dream more,
until our next meeting.
Our eyes will rest.
Fast asleep in beautiful dreams.
(C) Livvi

Poetry is like gusts of fresh air
Harbinger of the soul’s catharsis
Flowing emotions through the pen
Concealed pain written across the pages
Healing the pain which was long buried

through the cusp of
predawn heavy dark i woke,
one knee too cold to
feel. stars imperfectly ablaze;
radial fractions between
soft fingersplits in overlying canopy.
at ground level, spinning
slowly, i pried a small hole
out of my cocoon of moss. drew
legs to chest. felt clean air wash
up and over me. this is all that
matters. everything. acres alone,
save trapped stoat or the small
hawk in my ribcage. kea call
up at pearl flat; hours later,
i thaw. i rescind no sentiment.
and i dare not take back a
mote of motion. my
hands mend you sweetness on hazy
days the sun careens through
dust and valleys.
                                endless spurs
on all horizons to clamber to
you, or just to find me. endless
convection to spread wing under.
endless permutations of lovers; but,
of course, nobody else
would near suffice.

down a darkened trail, sleep
heavy on shoulders, i waltz with
torch dying in one hand. beating
heart in other. a fine
day crawls up over
peaks; i sigh, smile,
endlessly think
of you.