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Zack Ripley Nov 2023
I know. I've been holding on
to things I should let go of.
Lost memories. Lost life. Lost love.
But, as scary and painful as it can be
being lost in the past, knowing how evanescent the mind can be, a future without them somehow seems worse.
Michael Murphy Nov 2023
If ever there was a man
Who sought to understand

The trouble in your heart

It was me

To apply a healing touch
To comfort and as such

To curb the flood of tears

It was me

Now the time I fear has come
My work complete, must run

Just remember as you smile

It was me
I have been the turnkey in many a life, with no regrets
Elena Nov 2023
I started using again
Needed distraction
Needed happiness
Needed the buzz
I started using again
Replaced my mind with a pill
One two three four
After that I lost the count
Cigarettes burn my lungs
I breath in and breath out
But I still suffocate
In my own despair
Jeremy Betts Nov 2023
My head is everywhere BUT in the game
Existin' and livin', my very own ball and chain
I walk the walk, a strut of shame
I wouldn't recognize a day without a cripplin' amount of pain
Physical or brain
Far more damaged under this fleshy terrain
I've lost the safety line between insane and sane
I'm lost beyond what I could not contain
Low to no visibility, can't see through the fog and rain
Not a chance in hell I'm coming out of this the same
A constant strain on this average Joe camouflage membrane
One I've made to hide what I'm made of, keeping the real me out of frame
I'll take the skill, you go ahead with the fame
If it's destiny who needs a strategy, why train?
What happens to the rest of me when there's no more life force to drain?
If I knick a main artery vain would you then know that I am not playin' around when I say all pain, no gain
Don't need no stupid prize so I won't play your stupid game
It's rigged anyway but that's why you came

©2023
Elena Oct 2023
it was walking on a hot pavement
with bare feet
it was screaming into the darkness
waiting for someone to show up
it was cold hands and steady walks
through woods and uncovered paths
it was finding hope
in smallest shapes
it was laughs and smiles
among broken people
it was fading away
with the sun going down
it was a small light
shining from the candle
it was a fear of being abandoned
of being left all alone
powerful word
small yet powerful hope
that keeps us going on
Ken Pepiton Oct 2023
--------

Man's gotta do to be, no se?

Who tried to contain your little mind, conserving things,
when America was great, like in Disneyland.

Take me aside for a pep-talk, exactly
as one might imagine, no lolly-gagging …

Peace in patient repose, supposing your
prepositions are herein, exposed to the air
we breathe, and can, by common POV, see,
from ground level through eyes located half way
to the moon,
Alice, to the moon, a social reflux
from the drunk juggernaut's dream… typical crass buffoon.
Mensur proven class.
Given a taker's disciplined mind, a priest can form a king thing.
S'true construed to seem the way the rules is writ.
Hell been formed by men with ****** scars, long before
Victorian mores,
let holiness be declared, ratio
to rank in the time of the Magne Charta, nicht wahr?
Heads held high, stiff upper lip, think like a stone.
- or be as happy as a pearl in petrified pigshith,
kings are imaginary things, built, not born.
But the taste of the order in battle, earned.
For the might to rule, the feeble folk
submit, allow the lie to tie your children, using
chains you forge, being either really you,
or are you spirit, come to guide the guardians,
to holy sacrifice, seed of Nathan Hale, taken to
total AI universal soldier in a New York minute.
Inspiring first principle, lad, proud to be
an American,… got me 3rd place,
behind a future Major, 2nd place,
and a future Nuclear sub Captain, good Mormon.

In real novel events, universes where Miramar,
belongs to the Marines, who practice East Mediterranean
Air War tactics, around Yuma, semper fi, and always ready.

Sad state of mind to pretend to hold true, in the instant,
its your trigger to pull, or your turn to die, it happens,
all the time, life's not worth killing for, really,

the mind of the soldier can so easily mime Bismarck,
and hear Stonewall Jackson sing, "every puppy's got it's day"
- squint, and put the sun at y' back, what better way.
Charge.
A royal burden being discipleship, the lieutenants,
at least the lieutenants, then the sergeants,
all the little plastic men, lay down to pave the way
for the tanks, and the tanks took Tinnanmin Square
***-toks of the looks on the faces
of the entire race of kings and priests and servants
of the temple guarded by the most loyally conditioned,

the Devil Dogs, they proudly call them selves, semper fi.
Fi, is faith used to tie us to our task, are we not the few,
the proud, the brave, or
are we mere hewers of wood,
and drawers of water, oh lad,
without any noble pedigree,
become the athletic supporter,

who has not vowed, if given the chance
to stand firm for God and country,
with the boy standing on the burning deck, in values deep

enough to stink
of underlying rotting bodies of brave enough lads.
Life at the moment is too chancy to imagine not worth the effort, to make some minds imagine playing in peaceful games of liar catching, like poker, kinda.
Falling Up Oct 2023
If she was empty
Would she still be there?
If she was empty,
would anyone care?
If she lost the passion
Lost the drive and the will
Who would she tell?
Who would see her through all that,
And accept her still?
Is she good enough?
Has she worked hard enough?
There's still a long way to climb
from the bottom of the well
There's still a long way to climb
But it's because she fell
If she can keep her head afloat
She can survive
But if she gives up and drowns,
Who will know that she was even alive?
Pete Badertscher Oct 2023
I don't think I can…
I promised and she's happy
     I'm … complacent, if…
               …Not happy.

When I was younger I was devout
To my ideals. I would speak
With fervor and vision
About dark beauty and my take
On the human condition.
…About how we are bound to nature
By blood and *** through
Evolution and mutation.
…About how humans were polyamorus
Creatures, beings of righteous love,
And the bearers of pain and choice.

Then I learned what choice is.
I chose money and comfort
instead of pain and hardship.
My vision of a glorious life lived
On Occam's sharp blade
Was dulled on salty, wet silk sheets.
Each choice, made out of love
On what I believed to be
A Foundation of compromise.
Each choice took a piece of
darkest nature from me and returned me to
safe suburban parks
The dark,now,
illuminated by street lamps.

Now when I look at my path
And feel the old me rising
Knowing I must make a choice
I don't think I can…
I promised and she's happy
     I'm … complacent, if…
               …Not happy.
Poetry for the loss of something one never had for valid but meaningless reasons
Jellyfish Oct 2023
Fall can be hard for me,
I remember school years at this time.
Back when things were hard yet simple
and my mind was more kind.

I remember a swinging boat
and colorful flashing lights,
A space ship spinning us round and round,
and feeling so happy inside.

I also have silly memories, but
the one I made them with is gone.
When I remember the hallway giggles
I run. I hide. I sob.

Things at home back then were hard,
My dad was rarely around.
My sisters would bring home friends to keep-
My mom never handled this well.

Our house would be full and I, alone
I'd find my peace in forums and games,
Chatting with men who I thought liked me,
My heart back then was full of hope.

As I grew and moved around,
I found I never really understood myself.
Why do tears bubble up so often?
I freeze, I fawn and forget but don't move on.

Autumn is beautiful but brings up so much.
I miss people I don't know anymore
or have the privilege of seeing
and I'm left to wonder if I ever knew them truly.

I watch the array of leaves change and fall
And wish to be one of them.
I could fall from a branch,
But be picked up in the wind, only to live again.
skyyy Oct 2023
To love you
In secret
burns through me.

I can not hear the birds
Singing to me.
Your song echos

Touch me
I want to be devoured by you

From within, I cry out to you
but my surroundings paralyze us

We cannot say it.
Like salt statues of lovers
I freeze when I turn to you

Why, then, do you wait for me?

I am stone, I am still, I will never catch up.
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