Gratitude,success

Those two words

Had been thrown idly

Through decades freely

Could be in a form of morsel

Or fortune ,family  or health

But its also the will to breath

At every dawn

To forgive or to love your figure

To stand or fall

To cry or to chuckle

To speak or be mute

The mediocre of it alone

Is another thing to pounder

A promise made, a vow—unbelievably grand
Until tanks and footsteps disturb the land
Handshakes firm, papers signed
Yet missiles and bullets still lag behind

Peace is non-transferable, war is our own,
Limited liability for the lives that we've blown
For threat prevention, we may reinforce,
Bombs will drop without a hint of remorse

When the world begins to ask
We say we honored it, our assured task
A truce! A pause! A peaceful day!
We’ll bomb them all by the end of May

We reserve the right to reverse the ceasefire
As bodies fall to the chorus of our choir
Diplomacy’s a practiced art—
Where ceasefires end before they start

How are we so far apart in this bed?
Sleeping with venom in our hearts
Tension fills the room when we’re together
It’s love and war between us
Since when did we become enemies?
Fighting on opposite sides
Two atomic bombs ready to explode
The battle line was drawn when the arguments lingered long after malicious words were spewed
Like a gunshot what’s said can’t be taken back
The wound stays hidden under layers of resentment
Building like mold until it festers over the foundation we’ve made
What remains is similar to a war torn country.

The person you hate
You love them but dislike all their ways
The person you hate
You need distance, but feels boxed up, contained
The person you hate
“Exposes you” and makes you feel all ashamed
The person you hate
Your trying your best to keep from going insane
The person you hate
Everyone’s telling you, you have all their traits
The person you hate
Surrender to Jesus, get on your knees and pray
The person you hate  
I know you’re in a storm now, just wait for better days.

in chains i stand
before you
trapped as i am
make me anew

release these bonds
break these chains
set me free
from all my pains

let me go
be who i'm meant to be
no matter what you say
i'll finally be me

I wore my heart like heavy armor,
Fighting shadows, none of them true.
Quixotic in my relentless fervor,
A soldier lost in skies of blue.

Six-shooters are holstered, swords are scabbard, arrows are un-nocked, blades are sheathed.
Not in the course
Of one petty conflict,
But comparatively throughout history.
There is more intergovernmental cooperation,
More trade and tourism,
More declarations and treaties.
The common person
Has greater breadth of movement
In travel of classes & region.
The ignition of all these dormant conflicts
Will not lead to any new or better resolution
But, more likely than not,
More conflagration & revolution.
To win or to lose
In a game of confusion
With the strategy of lies & ambiguity.
Better than to limply concede
And forfeit all claim to belief
In what you fought to seat.

And in fifty years from now
Some blasted fool shall say:
The ignition of all these dormant conflicts
Will not lead to any new or better resolution
But, more likely than not,
More conflagration & revolution.

I think about your old haircut and
I miss muddy torn up shoes;
scuffed canvas, stained laces.
The tote-bag with a badge patchwork
forgotten in your house, now an identically
rigid, faux-leather
handbag. Homogeneous.

Your eyes narrow when I laugh too
hard, at something we used to like. You
wince and turn away,
behind your freshly highlighted hair.
You cut off the last of the
colour you'd begged for. You tell
me you never cared for the
things we used to love, so
I shut my mouth
and grapple with your change.

I wrote you a letter, handwritten and
hand folded, in tea-stained paper
and ****** red ink,
my heart displayed for you. You pinned it
up against your mirror. Sun bleached
and binned. The text message you
returned to me deleted itself last year.

I think about the rips in your tights
and the dirt under your fingernails
and search;
but find manicured perfection masking
any remains. I paint my nails and
mourn the friendship
we had, while you sit down and smile
beside me each morning.
You've polished your gemstones
into mirrors.

Why are you so desperate to ****
the girls we used to be?

I eagerly await another day of attempting to meet new people.
Students amble through our campus, up and down the hill,
Listening to music, staring at the ground, or caught up in their head,
Past a new potential friend: me.

I’ve got my friends, ones of the highest quality,
In the city, just half an hour north of me.
I don’t see them much, though, and I have no way to leave.
We can’t speak much, either; they’ve got jobs and loves and lives.

So, to maximize my social potential, I put myself to work.
I’ve mastered the art and science alike of socializing;
“Use this register”; “smile at this distance”; “speak to listen, don’t wait to talk”.
Studying it all extensively to figure out what’s best.

They’re everywhere, I hear, in the dozens, maybe hundreds.
Folks just like me: trying to overcome the awkward and build a bond.
So where are they all, and why do my paintings remain unseen?
Why do my endless chemistry attempts produce no reaction?

Well, a girl said “hello” in the stairwell as I headed for my dorm.
She smiled, seeming to be one of few to acknowledge my attempts.
Just a friendly gesture, sure, yet I think of it often, her unaware of its value.
I cross paths with many daily, yet I’ve seen no interaction like it since.

I let my confidence carry me toward new opportunities and situations I desire,
Yet, whenever I go to approach them, something nags at me.
A hand that pulls me back; a wall that stops me in my tracks.
It’s Anxiety, and he’s back, worse than ever.

Within this conundrum lies a great irony; a twist that tears at my conscience.
The closer I get to making friends, the tighter Anxiety’s grasp grips me.
“No, what if your words are taken wrong?”. “The bond won’t last.” “...But your eating…”
The reward, even if achieved, seems not to be without caveats, he claims.

He’s right; at a distance, I am safe; nobody can see me struggle to eat,
Yet this sentences me to suffer the animosity of my esophagus in solitude.
I am shielded from criticism, watchful eyes, and the projections of my mind,
Yet I am my most isolated in the most social of the places I’ve ever lived.

So, I eagerly await that new day of attempting to meet new people.
Fellow loners who walk ‘cross pathways, through buildings, and to their dorms.
Cradling their digital safety net in-hand, perhaps fearing what I fear,
Past their new potential friend.

An abstract painting
Up to interpret.
Is it just me,
Or the mirror has a disfigurement?
Did the flower abruptly bloom,
Or was it something swollen in me,
That grew while I was sleeping?
Stunningly consuming the insides within.
Or does it pain
Because I'm empty?

Lovely and as useless
As a seven year old's drawing.
As haunting of a sight
Like a storm cloud nearby,
The drug of a cinephile.
Even my chest hurts when someone hugs
So even my ribs are in agony.
Or does it pain
Because I'm empty?