Here I am, an Educator, new-formed
And on the verge of ideas and thoughts
That I’m told are too lofty, too grand, for their
Purposes of having students graduate at Funding’s Earliest
Convenience. Administrative charms
Have already told me not to display
Myself and my passions with honesty. I must teach
Like I am greater than them,
Like I approach our stories each
Day with a very very serious
Focus on structure and style and each
Incredibly important
Comma. But I know the Truth.
The Truth is that the richest
I’ve ever felt was when my educational harvest
Had received its lowest return. I first thought, “How shall
I punish? How shall I repay
Your bad behavior's damage with more damage? Your
Misbehavior doesn’t deserve my toil;
Your disrespect was just as bad as their
Records said it would be!” But then my reason
For anger crumbled, and I let love strengthen
My tired and trodden heart, as
I decided to speak to my students with the honesty their
Lives often lack from authority. Intentionality, Honesty, Truth. No amount of years
Will change what I’ve learned in Year Zero: to let love increase.

We're all dying to feel alive,
Are we the living dead?
We hate to love
But we fall in love anyway.
We wander just to get lost,
But we want to be found.
We spend our nights together,
But we feel more alone than ever.
We cover our ears,
Shout across horizons.
What's this sound?
Deafening silence.
Piercing through the noise of the world.

Literature brings me a power,
I forever fail to describe.
As I push my glasses up my nose,
It's my own voice I inscribe.

"I can’t figure it out.” She said.
“I like cigars,
and pretty dresses and crossing my legs.”
She paused,
then continued,
“And I like smoking cigars in pretty dresses while crossing my legs.”
She uncrossed them,
then crossed them again.
One smooth limb over the other.
Just like that.

“But I never seem to have a lighter on hand.
Could you— sir,
please light my cigar?”
“You see, I have no pockets to hold such things and my purse…
Well,
You’ve confiscated that, haven’t you?”

“Thanks.” She breathed,
and inhaled,
and exhaled;
Sluggish wisps of smoke dissipating into the air.
Just. like .that.

“I didn’t know L'homme was into women who smoke cigars in pretty dresses while crossing their legs", She said.
“I mean, how was I to know?
I only noticed him noticing me.
It was probably the way my hair was tousled like so,
Or how my lipstick shone a deep, dangerous rogue,
Or the way I sipped at my champagne…
That made him walk over.”

“But I never asked him to light my cigar
Or comment on my dress…
Or stroke my legs.
So when I whacked him up top over the head with my glass,
I bet he never expected it to shatter and split his skull like so.
He dropped so sudden, sir. I…”
Another ringlet of smoke, a sigh, an uncrossing and crossing of legs again.
“I had no clue,
what else to do,
But to sit still in my pretty dress, with my legs crossed, smoking my cigar trying to figure out...
Just how I'd committed ******.”

What has literature become?
Mockery of the new age
They spit on the graves of former writers
They take their names and drag it through mud
Disgrace, distaste
Nothing fuels the flame
The elusive spark as died
We all try to grasp at fame
Only few may succeed
In comparison we falter
We are the ****** ones
left to pray at the alter

Old friend, we lost it all!
We went our separate ways
While rain pummeled the rooftop
and mellow autumn wind caressed a poppy's cheek.
We drove home together, but felt far apart.
As if we never knew each other..
And the bond between us severed
As the lumberjack uproots a tree,
Merciless and mandatory!
Old friend,
Although I still hear the rustling of paper from your chamber,
Your heartbeat seems to have stopped
And your congealed blood reeks of hostility.
I sit here, hiding my head in my bony hands
Which you would hold as we fell asleep.
We were children at the time
innocent and whimsical.
We were captives of our own little kingdom
Funny how our fortress tumbled down
and we chained ourselves to the ruins that remained..
This is not how our stroy should have gone.
Tell me if there's anything I can do other than cry, miss those days
or pour my heart into a poem you'll never read...

It's tough when you have no one to share your pain with,
no shoulders to lean on to.
No one to hug.
And that's when he embraces the darkness of his room
which hugs him with the same intensity
as he cries his heart out.

©rajgomes