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I sit here and ponder
As a trailblazer,
No
A pioneer,
No
A lazy explorer,
Whatever that means, but sure
On a relatably aspect,
I'm really just a simple court jester
A third wheel passenger
A classic trope
The main guy, brushed off by those who used to claim to care
Ignored like a wondering stranger
Both lead actor and expendable,
None playable character
A name not worth trying to remember
Never a shred of credit offered either
An already undesirable role turned disaster picture
Struggling to hold it together
Both as a lover and a fighter,
Man and provider
An overdramatic graphic designer,
Not a producer
Also fighting nature as a stand alone reality denier
Because "it's not fair"
...or whatever
A true, true believer
...in what though?
I'm still not sure,
Go figure

©2024
Jeremy Betts May 2022
Everyone's dealin' with their own personal demon but I'm only ever bein' seen as a monster
Always judged accordingly, ironically by one family friendly imposter after another
Every other sinner the world over is allowed their own irrational feelings to be front and center
For them love is always the answer to offer, reassuring they need look no further
But I gotta "**** it up" and "move on" from this gutter faster which I take as to make sure my 50 caliber finisher is fully loaded with one in the chamber
And if the **** thing doesn't misfire on the first pull of this here trigger I figure I'll be a single bullet Russian roulette winner hero figure or would that make me a loser?
Am I an incurable cancer? I think I know the answer but I'm not sure and I'm sure not a doctor
However, it's only a matter of time before everything I touch turns into a disaster
Could it be that I'm just a carrier? An infectious delivery driver with t-rex arms making steering clear that much harder
What is pretty ******' clear is my presence here makes no one's life better, just spoiling the atmosphere, so I back pedal out of the picture
Then you label me a quitter the moment you notice I'm no longer there to be your *******
I guess I'll take that title if it'll make it easier or help you to feel better about what went down here, just please don't allow yourself to stay bitter forever
But rather allow time to erase my lingering stench of failure from the air altogether
It's only fair that I make way for you and anyone here to enjoy life without the fear of me being anywhere near
Your bright future wasn't mine to take and alter so I'll round up every bit of pain I caused that made your heart heavier and your life harder than it needed to be ever
Then take it with me to be a sacrificial offer next to me on the alter like a lamb to slaughter
Tomorrow will be the first day of the rest of your forever with no black cloud loomin' over

I gotta ask...

Who do I apologize to once the deed is done and I pull out of the race, refusing to run
Instead, turning the starting gun on myself to become a ghostly astral projection
It should be everyone but it'll be close to no one due to a punctured lung and crushed windpipe from being hung from inside the hole I dug starting back when I was young
No human being person type thing had a single **** to spare, not a one
Wouldn't even let a rerun apology or empty sympathy roll off the tongue, and forget empathy, ain't capable of none
Couldn't hear or didn't care before I was gone so I'm a shoe in to continue on holdin' the same position I've been in from my beginnin', now doesn't that sound like fun?
I've gone and done the forbidden so any opinion of me will only worsen as they lose sight of who I was as a person
Forgettin' my mind was a maximum security prison, the only way out presentin' itself to me was a coffin
But you're only focusin' solely on one particular fraction of an action
Ignorin' why that particular path was even taken in the first place, don't be mistaken, it wasn't a knee **** reaction
A quick observation and the pain would have been plain as the nose on your face but I caught no eyes lookin'
Just heads turnin' away the exact moment I notice 'em watchin'
Silently each formed their own conclusion and brought with 'em some ******* opinion from their twisted vision of me, all to feed the illusion
The one that claims I took the easy way out without explorin' any other option
You say you know me, you call me friend but have proven not to be in the end
But by all means, go ahead and continue to pretend you're the better person

How could you have known...

First of all, exhaustion was half the reason I was even in that head space
I could only envision this exact endin' ever takin' place as I fell from grace
I gave up tryin' to replace the dark with light cause try as I might it was all in vain, and in my haste I didn't notice the byproduct of a chronic toxic waste
Every attempt to place one foot in front of the other was riddled with set backs and laced with failure and I could never seem to rid myself of the foul taste of my own biohazard base
I'll be just another cold case with more than a trace of evidence but the answers in the proof aren't important enough to chase, never the time nor the place
Given up on before I even started the race so no warm embrace at the finish, no congratulatory smile from a familiar face
No one there to return my dinghy smile that's held in place with cheap elementary school Elmers glue paste
Why was the tare down so quick to take place with hardly an ounce of effort but the rebuild progressed at a snails pace?
There were many who watched all this take place in real time but avoided eye contact whenever face to face and I'm convinced that would have continued to be the case
I know I'm a disgrace now but wasn't until now so what excuses are you going to pull from your briefcase of two face ******* and put in place explaining why you turned your back on me in the first place, back at my birthplace?

Surprise surprise...

...a silence washes over the crowd. What happened to how proud you were with your intentionally loud gossip predicting what round I'd go down?
Were you only joshin'? Just clownin' around? Didn't think you could ever or would never be bound to something so profound?
Well here we are, you called it, the words bound freely from your mouth but now that things have gone south you're no longer able to enjoy the sound so you just turn it down
Or were you one of those hanging around saying I'd never do it but if you ever bothered to look into it you'd find the proof of the opposite truth can be found
But no, it's gotta be that I'm just desperate for all the attention it would bring to my part of town
Whatever, doesn't matter now, you could have never comprehended the reason why while shooting for cloud nine I got stuck six clouds down and wasn't able to post up for a rebound
It's only understood by people who've had the same problem with ups and downs and picking themselves up to finish the round after being so down and out that sea level was seen as higher ground
I know the way my last act went down is frowned upon and the deformation process was bound to take place once I was no longer part of the crowd
But look, you want to know why I choked down a handful of pill bottles for my second time 'round?
My problems were gaining on me quickly, I was steadily losing ground
They had to be drowned or at the very least inhumanely put down
I was no longer fun to be around, a bad joke turned evil clown
My darkness broke free from the compound where it was bound
And now wherever you see me it too can be found
Every day a new battleground
Every sundown a new showdown
A new possibility to possibly be hellbound
Just please set me gently when you put me down
And I'll try to do the same when I let you down.

©2022
Jeremy Betts Jul 2023
Maniacal laughter deployed to be louder than the roar of any monster

Most notably the inner

It gets harder and harder to adjust from looser to winner when just a beginner

Sold a bad bill of goods, nothing gets easier when older

I reside in my own temple but can't shake this feeling of being a squatter

Labeled by life as nothing more than NPC fodder

Never been...never seen a main character

In essence, I'm just practice for a dark passenger that always comes out of nowhere

Far scarier than the for mentioned inner monster but they conspire together

I am not now nor have I ever been a shot caller, never given a reason for no offer

Rather, I've been assigned a standard issue shock collar

Always trying to silence the hollar

Why bother?

Stay inline or find the hypocrisy of anarchy and counterculture

Tried bein' louder than ever before, pullin' from somewhere deep in my core

There's no one with a willing ear prepared to listen so no answer

Preforming to an empty chair reserved for anyone who might actually care

It's been empty for as far back as I've been allowed to remember

So I just stand there, wondering what's the matter, what is matter, do I matter?

A forced and pitiful stature of a habitual quitter being quit on over and over

This is a learned behavior taught by an unqualified teacher, both mother and father

Scream into the ether, I'm a dreamer but this nightmare ain't from a fever

There's no relief either

Not even first chair in the orchestra playing behind the dumpster fire of my own one man disaster picture

A head scratcher to any outsider, just another blunder to an insider

Next time'll turn out to be better

I swear

I'm a lier

We prefer the lie, at first it's far easier

A few too many attempts to hide the pressure, broke the regulator and boiled over

My present back lit by that there **** dumpster fire I explained earlier

My past rages unchecked through my future

A failure by every measure

No answer to why bother

...real quick...

This is off topic
But please don't let me become my father

...anyway...

Cover mistakes faster with lead paint over plaster

Pay no mind to the cancer that comes after

Dangle from a rafter like a fleshy chandelier

You don't have to guess what happened here

The dossier of the crime scene is crystal clear

You couldn't not get the picture

Even if the veil is never lifted, ignorance a problematic but gifted blinder

Gotta know I would never go and drag myself across the floor before arising once more just to lay on an altar

This has been nothing more than my dark passenger being front and center

How could I know letting it steer would lead to a full takeover of more than the arm and shoulder?

Will this ever be over?

Excuse me, is there someone there?

Has there ever been anyone other than me here for that matter?

Hello??

©2023
Carlo C Gomez Jul 2023
Grey skies
flying moor
storm in a teacup
gas cell 4
the clock hands are matchsticks
...
The letting go of everything
in hopes of trimming the airship
this seat is no longer taken
...
In love with a bad idea
the zeppelin and the magnetism
closing in beyond the minimum safe distance
...
Dim blue flame
a psalm of survival:
days and peoples and places
are transatlantic numbers
crawling from the wreckage
the clock hands are matchsticks
Carlo C Gomez Jun 2023
Technological giants

We learned early

How to command our angels

To ascend higher than our sins

They offered us immortality

In exchange for our planet's wealth

And naturally

We signed on the dotted line

Like spies selling

Secrets to the enemy

But here we are now

With the well run dry...
Carlo C Gomez Mar 2023
descendants of those left behind,

they found fellowship with

a singularly brutal environment,

free roaming meanderers

of a crepuscular exclusion zone,

having trekked into

the camps of liquidators

to beg for scraps,

they nosed into empty buildings

and found safe places to sleep,

stopping at Café Desyatka

for some borscht,

the guides speak only of

visitor or occupant,

there are no tourists here,

only the genetically distinct
Nigdaw Mar 2023
the cherry blossom blooms brightly
nature smiles on deserted streets
leaving a carpet of pink to colour
the desolate lonely landscape
it's like an empty welcome home
begging for the normality of children
playing among the flowers, commuters
enjoying the colour of a bright spring
morning on their way to work where
work is no longer an option
the trees will fruit from the poison earth
only the birds will enjoy their bounty
man no longer a part of what was once
a home, a life, a sanctuary
Carlo C Gomez Sep 2022
Handing out wings

like they were portions of God

this narrow asphalt

made by architects of tourism

movers of time and space

reaching out like insane astronauts or genius heretics

breathing our iodine

becoming halogens

the sky moves sideways

dystrophic airwaves

feeble beacons

eerie radio silence

here come more perils from the sky
Nina McNally Jun 2022
Days go by and those bad days become a blur--
I know it's hard but in your darkest of days and
Sadness it will only get better.
Another day and another
Sunrise to show you you can make it
Through! You are strong! You are beautiful!
Each day will come and go and you'll be okay.
Right here is where you're suppose to be and

Here in this moment all I can say is:
Everyone will experience some kind of heartache
And everyone will experience hard times
Right here and now you are with me in
This moment in time ---
So just breathe, let go, and you're going to be okay! <3
wrote back in Jan, 2022
inspired by I Fight Dragons
GaryFairy Apr 2022
Please help me spread the word. This polar shift is really about to get bad. Human kind may not survive. The wobbling,  earthquakes, meteors and flooding is going to be so violent that it might split this earth. The ice shelf is already falling into warmer water and layers of our atmosphere are gone. There will be so many tornadoes and lightning storms that you won't survive in a home or building. If you want to survive, you better go under ground, in higher elevations of hills and mountains. The oceans will flood the USA 200 miles into land. There will be a billion dead bodies floating and on land. This will be getting bad around February 4th or so, when planet 9 makes an appearance beside the sun. The push and pull will make this planet wobble so bad, that there will be waves 50 feet high in places 200 miles from shore. Rivers will rise to three times higher flood levels than their highest flood levels ever. Wild animals will be attacking people. Look at the clouds near you and they have a purple tint. That's energy and gases that will turn to fire, possibly. Please....help the innocent ones.  There will be no water for to drink, and not much food. It is like the US government is not going to help, and will probably be killing. This whole storm will last thousands of years. This is not a joke. I have worked with energy fields since I was a kid, and was amazed by magnets and electricity and I used to help my step father work on tube radios and televisions. I also used to manipulate a giant satellite dish and I would watch NASA stuff up in Ohio, in the 80s. I watched polar shifts happen and it can turn a planet into a gas planet, and possibly a black hole. I have no doubt that it will happen, and it is speeding up now. The pole shift is slow at first, then it speeds up. Then the planet will abruptly stop. I don't even know what advice to give, because no one will have control besides the rich and the violent. We won't even see the same, as our eyes will be switched to different frequency. This is going to be pure terror. I hope that you survive. I don't like poetry reading, but I know that some of you are a lot like me. We feel things differently. I will post some links to some videos that will tell the safest places. The guy really seems like he knows what he is talking about, and he knows more than I do. Please, shelter the innocent from the death and mayhem.
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