One time the inside of me was dead
only way to stop the jitters in my head
jitters forcing my heart to rip into shreds
Charging my pulse, forcing me to feel red  

One time the quite made me feel calm
Bruises slowly disappearing from my palm
The first time my breathing played like a song
Discovering the difference between what's right and  what's wrong

One time they said that I was too nice
they don't know my heart was once cold as ice
Experience comes with it's own special price
Your childhood would have been my paradise

One time I felt everyone else's pain
I saw how it moves through us like a chain
Fueling it's power through the dead right brain
Making ignorance a comfortable ball and chain

One time I screamed angry at the universe
Seems like being humane is a blessing and curse
Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse
we have normalized a society that should make you averse  

One time I realized it's all worth the fight
It's not so bad to be someone else's light
Despite all the hatred I'll stay polite
because losing your character means losing the fight

People try to tell me that your thoughts are not you
That they’re not your character
But what better presentation of your character
Then the voice of your subconscious
And the screams of your demons

Voices in my head
Gain life on the page
Showing their all
Upon a new stage

Bits of me are in there
Some in more than most
You just have to find them
the paper is the host

I may be the blues man
I may be the painter too
But, just what parts are me
Well, that is up to you

Each character, each story
Is a part of me
But each part is well hidden
You have to dig to see

I'm in every story
Somewhere in the words
I may be just a shadow
I may be singing birds

Look and you will find me
And learn just who I am
In the river of the story
Or hiding near the dam

Each page contains a segment
Of me there in the rhyme
Look hard, I'm really hidden
Don't worry, it takes time

I'm in every story
Every character is me
Just know that I am with you
Look hard, I'm tough to see

the most prominent thing i remember is the back of your head and how the last thing i always picture is the front door closing
my heart is left empty and so is my bed
i can't claim it to be ours, not anymore in this room of broken promises
i wish you could have left me your clothes hanging, then maybe you would have lingered longer than the wind or of how cigarettes smell
you may be wondering why i'm struggling for air, trust me i've been trying to quit but with every drag and stick your face shows up in between and if that's the only way to not forget then i'd rather choke on coughing fits
the day you carried out your bags, you took away what belonged to me as well
you were the whole package of dreams and soon to be's, you were my future but you cut the strings and i had no choice but to let you slip through my fingers
you stayed long but how you withdrew yourself from me was an act of retreat
you did not have to leave
so if you ever come back searching for me, know that all i have to offer is to forgive
we make mistakes as human beings, it's our nature's way of living but i will never blame you for wrong doings
i will love you for as long as these corners stand firm and still, afterall this was the house we lived in

Have you decided it?
The name of your mascot?
The hair colour? The eyes?
The hair style? The skin tone?
The character race? Nationallity?
Have you?

"Just do it as you wish" — that's how you respond to my question
But no, I won't do that
Because for me — Original Character or Mascot is something that resembles you the most
Why do I bother myself to make one for you?
Because no, I'm not too good in writing, also in english — far below your ability, I often do some grammatical errors
But I'm quite good in expressing my feelings, memories, emotions on drawings — a picture that represent a thousand words

And for me who have been living a lie — hiding behind this fake smile, my world is an empty place
But you've seen the other side of me, and instead of leaving you nurture it
You give me strength with these memories, my feelings with you
That was the the realest side of me, where I finally can be honest to myself

So please, answer my question
And let me draw your mascot
Let me believe that it's true, our memories, our feelings, our emotion
Then carve these beautiful memories of us eternally, where I can find it really lively when I started to get drowned again in my living lie

Because without you that memory is nothing more than just an imagination

Wink, wink,
Let’s not say what we think.
Hokey smoke.
Let’s pretend it’s a joke.
Act like you’re in on it with me
And I will reward you secretly.

Let’s laugh about women
When they can’t hear us
Make stupid broad jokes
Come on and join the chorus.

Let’s be a couple of the
Very classiest of wags
By making many jokes
About lezbos and ****.

Wink, wink,
Let’s not say what we think.
Hokey smoke.
Let’s pretend it’s a joke.
Act like you’re in on it with me
And I will reward you secretly.

We can think of ugly names
To call our Asian colleagues
And not let anybody hear
About our verbal intrigues.

We can meet someplace
And not let the liberals know
And rip up their politics
For a couple of hours or so.

Wink, wink,
Let’s not say what we think.
Hokey smoke.
Let’s pretend it’s a joke.
Act like you’re in on it with me
And I will reward you secretly.

There’s always religion, of course
Since there is so much to say
So there’s plenty of fuel for us
On how bad Catholics are today.

And then there’s always on hand
Those strange believers in Islam.
Hell, they even chose a name that
Appropriately ends in the word slam.

Wink, wink,
Let’s not say what we think.
Hokey smoke.
Let’s pretend it’s a joke.
Act like you’re in on it with me
And I will reward you secretly.

~~<☆>~~

It's one thing to forgive
That is, indeed, a mark of character.

It's quite more inspiring
To forgive those

WHO DON'T FORGIVE YOU.

~~<☆>~~


SoulSurvivor
(C) 2/2/2016

Girl No. 1 wears her jeans cuffed and hates everyone but the Jets. Her voice is honey-thick around biting words. Smiling does not come easy to her. She wears her face like a mask—big glasses, big eyes, big quiet. When I see her, she lifts her hand in a grim wave, delta creases in her brown palm. Her excuse for her silence is that she’s boring, but she’s not. She dots her eyes with tiny stars and listens to German orchestra whenever she can. She thinks she has buried herself well, but bits of her still protrude from the topsoil, aching to be known.

Girl No. 2 is grey flannel and deliberate sentences. Her hair covers her face, yet when she speaks about trees and animals and the hole torn in our atmosphere by ultraviolet, ultraviolent rays, she is thunder. I gave her lotion for her cracked hands one time. When we smiled at each other after, we knew at once we were part of the same club. Girl No. 2 never corrects people when they forget her name. They say Kaitlyn, Kaleigh, Katie…let the word drop as if it were no more important than a used napkin. I hate it. I pick her used napkin name from the floor and smooth it over my lap. I say it right and she replies, with perfect seriousness, thank you: Thank you for the correct pronunciation of my identity.

Girl No. 3 is a hard one. Look at her once and you’ll see Maybelline lashes and a glass-cutting face. Look twice and you’ll see more. The sag of her shoulders, the stinging weariness of posturing for people far beneath her. I startle her. I’m too inquisitive for her taste. She does not want the world knowing her mother drank three liters of ***** before driving off a bridge, that her favorite color is celery green, or that anorexia and anxiety stalked her through the halls of high school like a pair of vultures. She wants to stay in her castle of ice, but it has imprisoned her. You poet, she teases me. You right-brained heap of color and sensitivity. You’re too much. I don’t know what to do with you. I ask her who she is and she recites her answer. 130, 125, 2315. But this girl is more than her IQ, her weight, or her SAT score, and when I tell her so, her Maybelline lashes are ruined.