There are people that have this ability to make people melt in their hands

They walk around  their entire lives finding their prey and engaging them and make them melt

The victim is usually rewarded with a night of rampant *** and is then dumped into this puddle when the antagonist
of this story is done with them

Sometimes it takes days for the victim to turn back into a solid substance
Sometimes it takes weeks
Sometimes they never fully turn bqck to normal and their will be a part of them that will always remain liquid because of the antagonist

Many fall victim to this antagonist

Until the protagonist comes along and upsets the routine
The protagonist cannot be melted
And it is due to this very specific favt that the antagonist ia revealed as the true protagonist of our story

That's usually a goodish enough story line that melts the audience

But people like myself who do not melt sees the true sadness in the lack of melting

We do not melt because we have been melted ao much that we went for an operation and we came out transformed
We are now metal
And I'm sorry to disappoint that antagonist/antagonist who becomes a protagonist
But the best you would ever be able to do to me is to warm my heart

Look to the person on your left
And to the person on your right
And pull out your phone, and look at yourself through the reflection of your screen

Each one of you has been affected by toxic masculinity

If you looked and saw a woman,
You saw a victim, someone
Who's been tied down and told what to do
To stand in the kitchen and do the dishes
While the man stays in the other room with the TV
And has an affair with the sofa

I hear the two of them are happily married now,
In fact, the couch and the man are inseparable

The man becomes the couch, and the couch becomes the man
defiling that once holy entrance to that place you used to be able to call a home

When you were younger, you couldn't have known what the world would tell you you are
But now that you've grown up, you felt the pains and gained the scars
Now you know where the world wants you, and what role you play
On this stage, where the director's decrepit creaking hands come and defile you,
You holy sacred place.

He sits there and pays no attention to the hardwork going on adjacent to him
His thoughts are confined to whatever pretty colors and captivating sounds float across that screen
His eye lids shut only to keep from having a drought because he does not contemplate
He just sits there and waits for you to be done making his dinner for him

And what if he's working in the other room, and you can't see it, is there some sort of redemption for this man?
I cannot say, but he cannot expect to stand to the side of his life, pretending he has no emotions, teaching his sons that this is acceptable behavior,

Stop sinking into oblivion!

And when the woman speaks up and expresses these buried emotions, hurt ones, she is antagonized, like
Isn't this just another ***** with her crazy feelings?
Like shouldn't she be watching so that the chicken doesn't burn on the stove?
Like what happens if I let my guard down and let her in
And acknowledge that she is a human being?

The man says he can't do that
He can't lose his power in the situation
So he tells her those feelings she has are invalid
He makes her feel like the antagonist of the story of this man's life
And the only reason she stays with him is because she's developed Stockholm syndrome
And she doesn't want to be alone
And because if she's heterosexual, this version of a human being is the only one that's so readily available to her,
The kind that treats her like garbage, disposable, unable to have her damnable emotions redeemed

But a critique of something doesn't merit doubling down on that ideology you grew up with,
It merits its changing
So,

Men in the room, hear me now

You are victims too!

You are told to keep it in, keep the tears back
To stand up straight, to provide, to not show any weakness,
But you are most strong when you acknowledge those weaknesses openly
And possibly discover that some of them aren't even weaknesses
They're just a part of being human

And this trend is so hard to break, so hard to crack through stone that was laid 22,000 years ago
But here we are
The buck can stop with us

We can stop antagonizing
We can start acknowledging
We can stop treating people as subhuman when they express emotion
We can start skipping in the streets and holding each other's hands

Because there's nothing masculine
About treating other humans like ****

We can eventually reclaim that word, but first it has to be exposed for all the harm it's done

Look to your right
Now look to your left
And look at your phone again

Each of one you can be a part of the solution
Not a part of the propagation of bad myths

Ah, the season of gifting.
Antagonist of year-long thrifting.
Tradition sadistic,
Materialistic,
Four quarters in pockets worth sifting.

This year I hereby proclaim
I shan’t be consumed by the game.
Cycle of curse
Purpose perverse
The namesake, an oversight became.

Christ’s birth did in fact begin,
Holiday distracted by sin.
Misguided it be
To forget idly
The sacrifice He made for all men.

We naively regard generosity
As holiday’s behavioral piosity.
But if dollars and cents
Are the tools of offense
Over shadow favor luminosity.

Water in Africa is *****.
American child in poverty.
Politics aside,
Convenient homicide,
To enable the ills of society.

In the global economy we flaunt
Wealth by comparison, bitter taunt.
First world problems abound
Pass the turkey around
Central heating and air, what a jaunt!

What if this season we decide
To extend two palms open wide?
Sacrificing ourselves
Rather than stocking our shelves
Dying whispers echo true: “we tried.”

Don’t spend your money on me this year.
Not iPhones, not tickets, not Blu-ray or beer.
Instead know you can
Distribute more than
A snort, a lie, and a tear.

(optional conclusion to assist interpretation of last line)

Snort of derision,
Lies of provision,
Tears, even true,
Hardly subdue
Anguish deprived of tradition’s revision.

If a girl is hopelessly crying in a forest and no one is around to hear her, did she actually cry?

All that you’ve heard about Rapunzel is pure lies.
She had jet black hair, that was darker than the midnight sky.
Entirely broken inside, waiting to end her life.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you what really happened tonight
Grab a delicious treat and something sweet to drink.
Before I wish you a goodnight’s sleep.

Once upon a time there was a young girl named Rapunzel
Since the age of ten she had been locked away in a monstrous tower.
Kept in chains by her demons all day.
They liked to play games with her mental state.

One of the games included, Simon Says.
Simon Says, cut a blade through your wrist.
Simon Says, bang your head against the brick wall,
Until you begin bleeding and start to fall.
She hated Simon Says,
But she always obeyed what they said.

Mother Gothel was an antagonist; a myth.
Rapunzel made her up in her mind to have someone to blame,
For all the wretched pain which she endured everyday.

Loneliness became her closest friend
As she sat alone in a cobwebbed den.
Listening to the clock ‘tick tock’ in her head
Over again like a broken record.
Making her want to rip her hair out to shreds.

The voices screaming in her head made her psychotic.
No one cared about this depressive girl,
More than they did about summer rain.
They all couldn’t see her suffering, so it didn’t matter.
Instead they threw her in a tower, an architect built.
So her mind could rot in tiny pieces, lying still.

One day a boy named Flynn came into the mix.
He loved her with all his heart; they could never be apart.
When he was around, her eyes light up.
Forgetting the misery that came after dark

Tomorrow came along.

Rapunzel was found sobbing in her fragile pale hands.
“Leave me alone!”, she screamed in terror with her eyes closed shut.
Shaking uncontrollably, while the rain and tears flowed as one.
Just like the river she wanted to drown herself in.

Flynn gently helped her to her feet in panic.
The electricity still flowing through her entire body.
“I love you.” he softly whispered into her ear.
“I love you!” he says with passion and honesty.
Her breathing slowly came to a halt, after hearing him speak.
He made her believe that life had some meaning.

Her soul now feels at peace
She looks at him with pure sincerity  
He whips her tears away, “I’ll never leave you”.
A promise he can never keep.
“I love you too”, she says with ease.
Their eyes meet together, as they laugh in unison.
Lips softly meet as one; the night has just began.
This is the happiest Rapunzel has ever been in years,
Too bad it will all suddenly disappear.

…

It was all an illusion.
Rapunzel suffered from Schizophrenia.
Flynn was a figment of her imagination.
An escape from her cruel reality she faced.
The townspeople didn’t want to deal with her mental illness.
So they washed her away, to be left astray.

People hate what they don’t understand,
So everyday for eight years she sat freezing in sorrow.
While her demons devoured her spirit.
Incapable of love and affection.
With a hollow chest where her heart should be.

In order to cope with the ‘life’ she was living,
Her mind made up Flynn.
Though they were madly in love; he was a fairytale.
As years went by depression ate her whole.
She died alone, in a pitch black room.
No light seeping in, with nobody to love and hold her.
To tell her everything will be okay,
And keep her heart beating in place.

If a girl dies alone in a tower, where everyone hates her, and no one is around to witness her death: did she actually exist?
The End.

There's this guy who constantly gives me grief online
as if I need a reminder that I am not funny or smart
that I am incapable of posting any story without his remark
as if he should impart and bestow all of social media
with his divine and seraphic academia:
what is with that?

He posts comments about how illiterate my poetry is
how it doesn't follow the rules; the do-nots and the do's
pontificates how its not properly punctuated
as if I should give up altogether and just shine shoes
and forget trying to construct sentences
just wander in the carousel of nebula's
eternally seeking the tentacle of enemas:
what is with that?

This guy enjoys winding me up like a persistent hobby
the reverent devilment of sadistic entitlement
pushing my head under water for a digital baptism
that I should thank him for his rhetoric enlightenment
as if he was blessed with a correspondence talisman:
what is with that?

This isn't even a poem.
I am letting off steam like an overused kettle
fed up of his mortar forever rammed in my pestle
the temples are raging and my brain is just draining
to explode on cue on the next digital heckle
the cracked and broken vessel
into a vengeful steam-driven projectile:
what is with that?

This, < here > , is my only escape
and creative cathartic vent
I'll post this lament
with the stench of discontent
and tag his name and then just wait
for his feverish malcontent
that I should dare to
prevent his God-like dissent:

memo to self
to a digital antagonist
and his verbose verbal cyst
and the keyboard of twists
when you push
sometimes you get
a big shove back
so don't be surprised
by my riposte
and this poetic attack.

Last night I dreamed
My life as a comic book.
An intermingled mess,
Those who have not read
Every single issue,
Cannot begin to know.
A brightly colored spectrum
Of unexpected blows.
Amidst all the villian’s
Unrelenting throws
Of powers no more
Than planting
The seeds of self doubt,
I stood armed to fall.
As each seed landed
Upon  my head,
I fell to watch
Each punch line
Read only
“Bam!”
and “Kapow!”.
The plot never thickened
And never came to save me.
In a story
from the villan’s head,
Perpetually trapped
Until the hero returned
to write her portion
of my tale.
As the seeds grew
Into absolute fear,
A twisted feeling
Took hold of my gut.
Who is the antagonist
and who the protagonist?

The hanky he was sobbing into was crusty,
*****, unwashed, unclean; yet strangely comforting to a little boy,
as he cried he made his way to a culvert behind the school,
some place the other kids couldn’t see him crying,
it was more comfortable being near rocks
-next to that watershed for some reason?

He looked down at his antagonist,
the scaly-green feet,
they made him cry harder,
he lamented…

“Why have I been tormented so?”

“Who gave me these feet? Who made me this way, lizardly, scaly, an animal no?”

“What class am I, what species? Are those toenails, claws or a disease?”

“The way I’m treated makes me sad. Where is my mommy, where is my dad?

“Did I come from an egg? Didn’t we all? Why do they pick on me, make me feel so small?”

“My feet are reptilian even I can see that!”

“Am I part lizard? Are there horns on my back?”

“I can’t hide in sneakers ‘cause the claws tear them apart.”

“Not great at math, language or art.”

“They always pickin’ on me, today it’s in the schoolyard.”

“That is why I sit here on the rocks crying with my ugly feet and sullen heart,”

“Cannot run fast so no baseball, basketball or soccer…”

“The other kids tried to stuff me in my own locker…”

“One mean little girl even threw a dead mouse at me!”

“But I’m only part lizard as far as I can see?”

“My English teacher says that my words are like a bird song”

“If I talk like a birdie along with monster’s feet, no wonder I don’t belong!”

“Even still, to be so mean to me, I know that it is wrong…”

“ONE DAY I WILL SHOW THEM ALL, THESE FEET THEY HAVE A PURPOSE!”

“MY WORDS OF SONG AND FEET OF MAGIC COMBINE A COSMIC CIRCUS!”

“I am no freak of nature, no forest Pan or Satyr…”

“It is not the way I look, my clothes or feet that matter…”

“It is what is in my heart and mind, the things I do that truly count…”

“For those things that make us different, for they are tantamount…”

“Seven heads, seven stages, seven fables, seven sages”

“Seven stars and seven wonders and seven heavens that we’re under…”

“And all those things they say are great and marvelous about us…”

“Will one day be written in the book by Great Old Uncle Taautus!”