"You made it look easy," they whisper—
A phrase that echoes, hollow and sharp,
Cutting through the quiet of my solitary journey.

Navigating parenthood alone,
A military spouse stretched thin by distance,
Selling dreams as fragile as glass,
Balanced on the edge of every choice.

A diagnosis presses against my chest,
One child in my arms, another learning beside me.
Battles hidden behind closed doors,
Invisible to those who see only the surface.

When I bared the depths of my soul,
Resilience bloomed like wildflowers—
Not a cry, but a roar.

Judgments swirl around me—
A storm of misconceptions,
Echoes of untold stories etching my truth.

Others glimpse my path only when they walk similar roads,
Their perceptions shifting like sand,
Revealing the landscape of unseen struggles.

My journey is not a blueprint,
Nor a promise of simplicity.
Each step a singular rhythm,
Each challenge a raw, unscripted melody.

I didn't make it look easy;
I made it look possible.

Resilience is not a performance,
But a quiet, fierce rebellion.

No shortcuts, no easy roads—
Just forward motion,
Carved from determination,
Etched with survival's raw grace.

I sit here, posting, writing,
Yearning for attention,
Hoping for hearts I might earn
From the avid reader.

I check, and check, and check again—
Yet nothing takes effect.
My heart grows tender,
Dreaming of climbing stature,
But the steep hill looms impossible to capture.

Still, I post, still I write,
Determined to yearn and fight.

What have I got to do?
For this life to become alright.
Sleep, thrive and fight?
Cause blood's all I see within my sight.
As i put up a fight every night,
Without a care if I might die.

So my questions still stands,
What humans are truly made for...
Whether to really start wars?
Leaving behind many scars,
And acting like the justice guards.

The truth is all about the lore,
Nobody needs much anymore,
But I'll rise even if I'm sore,
Without a need for praise,
I'll survive for my own grace,
Thriving in this war to leave a trace,
Even if others do it for a paycheck raise.

What lies beyond this dour door
that leads to things ahead?
I stand and wonder what’s in store
behind this portal grimy with dread.

Its glass is cracked, its lead paint is chipped
while its brick wall is turning to sand.
Its handle doesn’t invite to be gripped,
nor does it tell me where I’ll land.

I look all up and down the street
and see only more doors that look the same.
Before each one are more: their feet
wish to walk away from these doorframes.

Each one of us is seized by impotent rage
at facing a choice that’s no choice,
to be fixed as if in a steel cage
and finding no cause to rejoice.

But one of us in this bleak boulevard
must be the first to twist the ****
with the will to face the path that’s hard,
to not let our lives by fear be robbed.

Let each of us kick in our doors of fate
and overthrow their grips on our lives,
smash the clock and pass through that gate
with heads held high, fearless of where we arrive.

Spurred by the clarion call: it came to pass
our pent up waters burst the dams.
No captives are we! We struck en masse:
Battering rams forged out of lambs.

Orange
dancing lady slippers
perform uncoordinated
reblooming of dormant orchids;
warm and cordial in
informal candor
but agoraphobic
from misfortune;
mourning and remorseful
over flowers wilting, mortal.

Daybreak aurora
portent of
sunlight to come,
but stuck northward,
scorching corneas
in torrid dysphoria.

Organism born
horticulturally
disproportioned
and poorly formed,
origin in morbid horror;
cerebral cortex
its own torture,
the mortician
orphaning the organs
from the corpus;
stored in morgue,
torched in crematorium,
vivisected immemorial.

Stems and tendrils incorrigible,
disorganized into
deplorable ****
of tangled discord
clumsily running its course,
corsage and bouquet
aborted in accord.

Important shortage
warrants foraging
for resources
hoarded by some
abhorrent lord;
crowning court this
monarch's consort,
sordid and immoral,
keeping score like some
sick and sadistic sport;
reinforcing order of what's normal,
stronghold cordoned to conform.

Pollinating
swarm of hornets,
buzzing orchestra
of wings in chorus
quarreling with silence,
their scorpion stings absorbed;
stabbed, pierced, and gored.

Like a tortoise
slowly inching forward, torpid,
morass forbids;
roots exploring floorboards,
divorcing into a gorge,
fingers blindly implore
contours of the walls
searching for the door.

But drawn and quartered,
blossoms' florid
and ornate frame contorted,
warping its own portrait;
assorted torment transforming
efflorrescent, metamorphic.

Dwarfing, enormous,
and soaring towards orbit,
forty story high
arboreal forest
flourishing before us;
gorgeous morning glory,
thorny laurel adorning.

Forthwith,
storming windows' glass,
bastille, and castle supports;
warring against fortress
though swordless,
never resorting to forfeit until
entire territory terraformed
into floral orchard-
fragrant and vibrant aura
rewarding victoriously.

Assertion
Clammed-up
On the relay
Second guessing
The shrunken head
Of old therapies

The clock says
It's time
To nod off
Greet the morn
With withered fist
Rationalised fury

Trying to
Replace the
Pimply face
Of ******
Angst baseless in
Content
On the tether
Of just another

Addiction in a
Succession
Of spiritual
Vices perpetuated
By the nonchalant
Visage of a world

Uncaring
In derision
From calloused hands
Caused by
Hard work
With little or no
Monetary avail

Hand to mouth
Foot in mouth
Hand on crotch
Crotch saddle sore

What's the point
Of a worn-down point
Dull but
Double-edged  
Just to prove

The sword of Damocles
Is still hanging
Over the head
Of your enemies

Who pop
Their heads
Up over
The hedgerows
Like pictures
In a shooting gallery
At the carnival of
A battlefield distant

Filled with relics
Of another
Dead-end
Ill-purposed war
Of the worlds floating
On the crest of
Mine-dotted airwaves
Prompting viewers
To drown negativity
And to salvage
The positive

A broadcast from
Bipolar formats
In living colour

Double-edged          
Double-standards
Double-dealing        
Double-meaning
Double-minded      
Double-jeopardy
Double-troubl­e        
Double your money
Doppelganger leading
Double life

All propagated in
Double-time

Best
Double your efforts
And tune out!

I am weakened without
The Eternal Imagination.
                         It lifts me above the bitter
                         Waters I have drunk from
Like a thirsty deer ignoring
                         The faint acridity and
Lapping the coolness until its mid-section
Cramps and it sleeps it
                         Off in the tall cool grasses
                         Only to arise again
                         To drink of the same source.

Foamy blankets outstretch over
Endless bitter pools before
                 This wanderer who searches
The midnights keep for my souls Delight
Passing other shrouded figures  
Who wander through
This universal dream
Like ghost ships
Gliding the haunted deep
Never sailing beyond this
Dark world of mores and memes
And endless waves of prosaic time
Slumbering in our brokenness
Lost in dreams of our barrenness.

How long will Heaven wait
To awaken me from this troubled sleep
Or will this restless dreamer pass
                    Through the final dark
And misty veil only to
                        Continue to wander
But then in eternal sleepwalk
In an infinitely darker universal dream
With the now otherworldly ghosts?

I still have so many more
Miles to go
But I am now wide-awake in deep sleep.
I have escaped the hungry deep
                              As a bird from a snare
Soaring miles above in newness of life

For the levy of holy waters
Has been breached.
Now this cleansing eternal deep
                              Keeps drawing me on
To Reaches unknown.

When the wind is blowing
with the voracity
of a hundred love songs
that tear flesh from bone,
You have to flow with the whirlwind.

Life doesn't wait for you.

When the earth is breaking
apart beneath your feet
with the fury
of a thousand guttural cries
that freeze the marrow in your spine,
You have to crawl through the gravel.

Life doesn't wait for you.

When the forest catches fire
all around you, burning
with the hunger
of a million weeping mouths,
You have to breathe through the smoke.

Life doesn't wait for you.

When the flood pulls you under
with the tentacled might
of all your failures and sorrows,
with the darkness
of a billion dead suns,
You have to be the light
that burns brightest.

Life doesn't wait for you.