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Ryan Z Ricciardi Feb 2013
I stood in a room full of strangers
Staring at pictures standing like stoic reminders...
Reminders of a life cut short by tragic end
I stood in a room full of liars.

I kept to myself while others shared stories
My mind was somewhere else while everyone spoke
Forced conversations, the things you're supposed to say
I kept to myself while others hid their true colors

I walked out before it was over because it was just too much
You didn't have to die feeling so alone, or being all alone
No one acknowledges that you took your own life, even if by accident
I walked out before it was over because it wasn't about you

I buried a friend of a decade because drugs became your comfort
You died because you needed something that anyone in that room could've offered
It pains me to know that not one of us was aware of how desperate you were
I buried a friend of a decade because we were too selfish to see that you needed us.
Feb 2013 · 592
A Suicide Letter
Ryan Z Ricciardi Feb 2013
To all who read this composition:
I shall share my disposition,
With these last words I waste my breath
To dignify my dance with death

I've found the reason that we live
Now life has nothing more to give
If shared, the world would see my plight
You must live on to fight the fight

The reason I shall leave today
Has a name, I dare not say
Her voice is soft, her eyes are deep
My memory of her, in death, I'll keep

I die today, so much more than satisfied
I find myself with nothing left to hide
So here you'll find my epitaph
A personal requiem, on my own behalf

I need her, but you could not understand
My love, and fate, go hand in hand
Visions of grandeur all put aside...
She will be the method of my suicide
I'm not sure how clear it is, but when I wrote this it wasn't about a woman. Nor is it about literal suicide. It was meant to refer to the death of who I was before I discovered love. This poem is a letter saying goodbye because I would never be the same once I discovered love.
Feb 2013 · 657
Caged
Ryan Z Ricciardi Feb 2013
I see the calm sky growing dim
And sense your presence near this place
I can feel you breathing somewhere within
If I could only see your face

From bitter walls and heartless bars
I make my plea to God and saints
It's not my heart that left the scars
But my corrupted mind that taints
Jan 2013 · 447
Trust in This
Ryan Z Ricciardi Jan 2013
I made you a promise,
You knew I could keep
Only to realize,
Your trust ran too deep

I made you a promise,
You thought I'd stand by
You thought you could trust me,
But you weren't sure why

I made you a promise;
You hoped It was true
But when the time came
You saw it fall through

I made you a promise,
You laughed in my face
You walked away cursing
As I pleaded my case

You made me a promise
That made me cry
So now I'm alone
Because you can't trust a lie
Jan 2013 · 1.1k
Warm
Ryan Z Ricciardi Jan 2013
It's a strange pair of eyes
That sees sunshine in rain
It's a strange way to feel
Finding pleasure in pain

It's a strange thing to know
How to find comfort in fears
It's strange way to be
Tasting honey in tears

It's calming to find
The peace in the storm
And when everything's freezing
I'm always warm.
Jan 2013 · 867
Same heart different minds
Ryan Z Ricciardi Jan 2013
Like an apparition shimmering in the sun
possibility and promise oiled your gun.
With stars in your eyes for better days,
you marched with pride against a worlds malaise.

Strong minded and willing, with a mission in mind
I packed my bags, and joined up with my kind
With hope in my heart, and a difference to make
I stepped off that boat, for our freedom's sake

Proud and courageous you forged on ahead
sewing the worlds wounds with bullets and thread.
A brief moment of silence, a cease in the fight
enemies sharing the same moonlit night.

We trained for these moments, in body and heart.
I knew with what luxuries I'd have to part.
They fed us ideals, and their political ends,
I didn't do it for them, I marched on... for my friends.

With questions and morals guiding your boots,
you followed commands hating their roots.
Your comrades in arms, your last link to right
toasted the empty star spangled night.

We waited in silence, full of fears we deny.
Laid prone in the sand, a night sight to my eye.
The ironic view at the end of a gun...
A foreign land lost in the mind of a son
Co-written with an old friend, my confidant.
Jan 2013 · 1.2k
Our Court with Consequence
Ryan Z Ricciardi Jan 2013
Derived from the remnants of sacrificed thought
fragmented reminders of lessons taught
**** the device used to rose tint our sins
and shatter mirrors that sustain fake grins.
With self painted visions, we are pacified
Convinced...
Horrors inflicted have been indemnified.

Tied to past convictions we cannot shed
commitments that exist solely in our head.
Painstaking attempts to make justified
the pain that we've caused that cannot be denied.
Who are the victims of decisions we've made?
If given the chance...
Our suffering for theirs, could we bear to trade?

Whispered snickers hint at retribution
offer redemption but no solution.
Mistakes which drizzled in unspectacular drops
collected in pools and drowned cultivated crops.
Prisms of pain inflicted by selfish choices
Cut deeper...
When we ignored the pleas in our victim's voices.

Pointed fingers say all that needs to be said
our peers may believe us better off dead.
But the harder we try to fix our mistakes
the more ground we lose, that we cannot retake.
With guns to our heads, and a knife in our back
No weapons...
Us against the world, and we're under attack.

Weight of responsibility burdens our souls
sapping our strength and confusing our goals.
Stripped of our artillery, naked and exposed
inside we're screaming but appear composed.
The enemy looms larger with each of our errors
Weakened by defeat...
Realization strikes, We are the true terrors
Jan 2013 · 542
From a Veteran: To a Voter
Ryan Z Ricciardi Jan 2013
They will take all of the credit
If we ever win this war
But they don't share in the suffering
That rests on the shoulders of the poor

We elected them to lead us
Because we believed in their ideals
But the machine that we've subscribed to
Needs blood to grease the wheels

There's a conflict of interests here
No matter what they say
Our politicians made the purchase
It's not their children that will pay

They try so hard to justify it
They said there was no other way
This isn't a game to win or lose
Because young men die when rich men play

— The End —