Searching for some sort of relevance
Something to tie me down
                    -or lift me up
Something to keep me in motion
                    -out of my emotions
On a path forward
Not back around
To when I was
                Sad and Disillusioned

Monogamy
Only two people
Becoming one in flesh and spirit
Strapped in this life together
To battle out the struggles
To care for one another
To guide one another
To correct one another
Till Death Do Us Part is the key
The key in life to true happiness

Girls Girls Girls!
Get your Girls!
Tall ones, short ones
Fat ones, skinny ones
Black ones, White ones
Asian ones, what have you!
We have them all
Here in front of you
At the click of a button
And a little desperate flirting!
We have a million!
Yes sir, a million girl to sleep with!
That can turn a frown upside down!
Yes sir! Each girl you ***** will make you happier
Than any guy who screws less!

Not sure the best way to come.

My eyes watch the camera reel,
hollow and hawkish,
unfocused, unreal,
I try to grasp the meaning here,
sullen and sarcastic,
illusive, instilled,
Forgotten fragments that don't seem to meld,
jutting and jagged,
reclusive, revealed,
The lens of life,
false and fibbed,
lost, lurid,
paltry and pitiable.

Paris
The city of light
Having its darkest night
Since World War Two.

Lebanon
Double the body bags,
Yet no media hags
Turn their heads.

Normal
For there they say
But for Paris nay
And so we pay attention.

Kenya
Syria
Iraq
Libia

A suicide bomb
Over here,
Two hundred dead, we overhear
Wrapped into our daily news.

We pay it
Almost no heed
As the blood drips down to feed
The list of the dead.

We say
It is because we have grown
Accustomed, yet we have flown
Over the Coocoo's best to believe this.

The truth is,
Both for here
And there,
A white life is worth far more.

It is worth
10 Black American lives,
16 Hispanic or Asian lives,
27 Arab lives,
35 African lives,
These numbers
Straight from CNN
And the New York Times.

Do we not bleed the same blood?
Have we forgotten what it is to smile
Such that we cannot see ours are all the same?
What has happened to this world,
Once so gold and bright,
Now a darkened, saddened grey
As it weeps it's tears
Upon the red river
That runs through the valley of fears.

He didn't bother calling
Or asking how i am
She didn't try to make me smile
Just gave me a little food to eat
They didn't care that my face was bruised
They hounded me with more work
It didn't take a break
It pounced on me
With these pains, my hope is gone to the wind
Crying won't make it better too
Just resilience and hope
That tomorrow my face will see a semblance
Of a smile.

I grew up moon shining past glowing street lights
and I was invited to an underground ring by a man called Life.
I met him in the ring in the middle of the night;
I threw down my gloves for ill advised street fights.
He threw down grimaces, and spit disguised as tears.
Blood rushed through ringing ears,
Blood rushed into my head, suddenly hazy with fear
and then, suddenly, blood rushed out of punctured sides.
High on adulation, I brought boxing gloves, respectful nods, handshakes, and cheers.
Life brought me low with sucker punches, broken laws, and sharp rusty knives.

how nice it must feel to just simply wake up refreshed
after umpteen years of innocent sleep
where you were blinded by passing headlights as you took the long way home
drunk off milkshakes and water bottles and german cologne
and you wake up fresh faced in wrinkled white sheets
and the neighbor lady’s wind chime is calling your name
and the sun shakes your hand and welcomes you in
and pours you a drink as the next dream begins
how nice it must be to just simply turn around
to run your hands over pictures of your past and smile
to wave at your decisions, laugh at your consequences
clean as summertime white picket fences
how nice it must be to breathe in a breeze instead of bleach
to admire the etches in your palms instead of hiding them with yellow rubber gloves
to spend what’s left of your young years free of regret
and not scrubbing a split second out of the carpet

Memorization is not education.
Success is a fixed point,
Success is not happiness.
Fame is not acceptance.

Your destiny is not defined by any book,
Unless you allow it to be.
Books do not define your destiny,
Unless you allow them to.

What happens beyond death can not be known,
It can not be known what happens beyond death.

I am whoever I am,.
And you are whoever you are.

Originally written 7/26/11
Revised 10/20/14

(c) 2014 Brandon Antonio Smith

Solemn Surprises
In happy crevices
A revelation
A confrontation
Disbelief.
The good kind.
The bad kind?
Sweet disposition
I never want to leave.