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Forgive the failings of the parent, the flaws of our design.
Only if we accept our nature can we enjoy what's left of our time.

The poison left in our blood, corrosion of the self,
pain accepted as a norm, obligations on no one else.
They say the mind is the strongest prison,
walls of darkness and chasms within them,
and a fear that pain came first because pain comes always,
and as we peep out into the empty hallways
we see in their endless doors
an infinite capacity for more
and why would any weary traveller
step out into such foreboding
places to explore?

At first the poison seems for life. It runs in our blood and rains from the heights.
But nothing is without cost and the lie must be maintained.
We follow the orders held with us from the day we got our name.
But the thicker the poison and the hotter it burns, the stronger the antidote and the more we can learn.

Pain becomes progress,
a diabolical fuel,
a tool heavy to swing,
but one that will bring
greater transformation
and let's turn bad memories
into useful information.
About: How suffering and hardship gives us the knowledge to make the world a better place.
Hope is for the hopeful
pain is for the hurt
fear is for the child inside
sweat is for the work
song is for the listener
and voices for the listened
Home is for where love resides
only found inside.
In the images we create,
we ****** a part away from fate.

In each act we are alive
and in between our quiet minds
will find some reason we are silent
thoughts turned dark, thoughts turned violent.

Prayer for the faithful
soaring for the soul
how can we bestow these gifts
isn't that the goal?
Not to ask the bird to fly,
the wolf to bear its claws,
but to ask the kind to fight
and the killer to know remorse.

To change one mind might seem so modest
of a billion minds on the planet,
But even to change a single mind
would improve the world we inhabit.
Gerry Sykes Dec 2024
An oyster’s grit accumulating
new layers of aragonite
and calcite, contributing, plating
the growing bright translucent white
and crystalizing hard, pellucid
wan pearl – that forms within the mucid
molluscan slimy dank inside –
a creamy gem is calcified.

Diaphanous and lustrous jewel
or septic and necrotic stone
that’s like a canker which has grown
into an opulent fat spherule?
A pearl forms round a piece of grit,
my childhood at the heart of it.
An attempt at a Pushkin's Stanza. I think this is the hardest form I've tried so far: it was quite a challenge to get the female/male rhymes in (more or less) iambic tetrameter (obviously an extra syllable  for female rhymes). Never thought I would use "aragonite" in a poem.
Jeremy Betts Nov 2024
It's getting bad again
That feeling
That wanting
That almost need to give up

I don't know
If the glass is half empty
Or half full
I don't even see the cup

Being honest
I've begun to notice
That lately it takes far less
For these thoughts to develop

With 40 years of ammo
They are able to be relentless
And my shoddy defenses
Will not hold up

©2024
G Vermeulen Oct 2024
Years I’ve tried to tell you
Couldn’t help but keep it in
Purely building walls
Just so you couldn’t pierce my heart with a pin

There have always been good days
I love our connection when we drink
But when that is over
All of a sudden you can no longer think
A constant battle of words
Bruise my brain ’til it’s completely pink

When I appear enthusiastically
You shoot it down

When I get something done
You only look at what’s next

Last night I was enlightened
By the one who gives me all
That even though you try
You never let me stand proud and tall

And when we sit down for tea
It just feels like you don’t even know me
Odd Odyssey Poet Sep 2024
You have outgrown a handful of lovers and a multitude of friends—
separating your solid pains from a liquid of your tears;
But you were caught in the strain, for as you grow and change;
those you’ve known will grow away to be a change of friends

Through every fence we ***** between ourselves, some remain
on the side where you cultivate your life, while others are
relegated to the opposite side, merely spectators from afar

Maturity is a bittersweet taste:
the sweetness of realizing your growth,
akin to savouring a fine wine, - contrasted by the bitterness
of knowing you will part ways with a few friends
Cos as you feel alone; you’re not the only one in this
world to find growth
Hadrian Veska Aug 2024
I left behind a home
Though one in only name
I know not what I search for
But couldn’t stand it be the same
To be bound was to be free
In the confines of a cell
Yet to be free is to be bound
By no good that I can tell

In taking to the seas
I hoped for some great change
But found that all things blended
And only varied in their range
I had not found myself
Among the waves or great white coast
I thought a path had opened
But it vanished as a ghost
No one or thing could remedy
The hurt I fostered close
No one or thing could change it
But the one was wounded most

So here across the Farrow Sea
I pull a dagger from my heart
Here on distant shores I sit
A world and man apart
#heart #hurt #healing #journey #ocean #sea #adventure #man
a celestial body
lesser of age but
brighter in composition
was found to be
unexpectedly disarming
in its distorted form
unable to maintain
its expected shape
it was drawn in by
the voracious needs
of the other's gravity
a starry beckoning
that caused these
entities to draw forth
towards one another
this sharing of energies
a merger however
seemingly not unlike
those observed before

and yet something
about this pairing
steals the attention
of the experts and
the admirers alike
this rotation of one
about the other
guarding devotedly
from perils unseen
in the midst of
this stellar pirouette
there continues a chaos
pulling from all directions
both together and apart
defiant and undeniable
fluctuating with unknowns
eventually to become
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