Above, if you'll look,
can be found breathtaking
views to the olden.

A flickering faraway warmth
rests in the vacuum
welcoming souls that peak.

Recall the stage before;
when you cannot remember,
as a child indifferent.

Abandon now, project yourself
to that bright star
and emanate pure contentment.

Echoes of long sirens
fade in hushed apartments;

familiar passersby
in the vastness of the night.

Now and only can we hear
the soft winter breathing.

©2017 Alex Bex - www.alexbex.net

If my pen leaves the paper I will die.
If my pen leaves the paper I will die.
If my pen leaves the paper I will die.

it may not look like it, but i am trying very hard.
you think i’m bad because i’m late to class even though
you don’t know why. look at my essays like you know
what grade they’re going to get, when you haven’t even
read them yet. you think because my quiz scores aren’t
perfect that i don’t understand.

but people have different capabilities;
maybe i’m not where i’m supposed to be,
and i need you to stop judging me for that.
all people ever see is how it looks like;
you’re never going to understand if you don’t try.

i haven’t slept right since school started, trying to solve
math problems which don’t seem to make sense. i read
the textbook before i was asked; did every single thing i
was supposed to. it’s crazy. it meant waking up at dawn
after sleeping at two in the morning.

you don’t know how it feels when your best is never
enough, and you have no idea how hard it is to keep
doing that, to keep trying anyway.
you don’t know how often we break.
i have learned to count myself strong, not because i win my
battles, but just because i face them.

we learn to compromise, sacrifice. i don’t have poems
in my head anymore (it’s a mess in there), and i don’t
have the energy to play sports. i don’t see my friends
except in the corridors, all in a rush to get somewhere.

we get no credit, and all the shame. our stories don’t
get told; they’re not the ones where people clap at the
end. we are neglected, felt sorry for, or hated. we are
spectacular at failing to amaze.

we have learned to cheer for ourselves because no one
else will. learned to act like it’s not a problem, that
coffee is your best friend, and you spend nights
studying, just to get lower scores than the rest of them.

tell yourself you’re not tired even when the minute you
start to rest you feel like you’re collapsing. always feel
like crying but you stop yourself; who cares if you’re
exhausted? you still have to finish those papers; you still
have to answer those tests.

what does any of it mean? why am i graded with a C or
a D? are they telling me i will not lead a good life, that i
am doomed already? my story has not started and no, my
fate will not be decided like this. you cannot pass
judgments on my character based on numbers on a paper.

i am more than all these requirements that never end. i
am the work i put into them. so instead of looking down on
me, let us carry ourselves with some dignity. after all, it’s not
a game; it’s not a race. we’re all stuck in the same place. and
the world is tough for everyone, regardless of our “grades.”

Extreme Poetry
Fights, fumes, resists, entices, twists, endures, seduces
Rhymes at times
Or so rarely you want it to explode, implode
Or just mellow out
But you don't stop reading
Unless it bores
Or you're just too tired
Ditties and sonnets
And ABAB and the like are all very well
But real men and women go for
The rough and tumble of truly free verse
Where words are the masonry
Spitting at you in spurts
Confounding, astounding
Welcome to consternation nation
Where assonance bucks up against alliteration
And the inevitable invasion of syllables and vowels
A perverse form of Password that traipses over diction when it wants
Because there are no rules in Extreme Poetry

Does the kept dog howl at the moon,
or does the stray?
I am astray from you,
and my moon is bluegreen and shines like forgiveness when you smile.
The vagrant hound remembers when he was a wolf;
I remember when I wasn’t.
Like him, I eat and sleep and ****
beneath even my own notice. Like him,
I remember every night of comfort and
every kick, and am confused when I find both in the same doorway.
I wasn’t a cur until you called me one – does that count?
When the rains come, I think of your
soft golden warmth, these mongrel legs start to pull me back – don’t
let me in unless you mean to keep me – and my howl is
sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry and I
don’t know which of us I hate.

Unspoken truth behind lips sewn shut,
Bitter words hanging on a thin thread.

Wet needles pierce, falling from the eyes...
Pain keeps stinging from old wounds that bled.

Woven lies and empty promises,
Collections of broken prose and poems...

Shards of the heart littering the floor,
Welcome, my love, to my humbled home.