‘A festive song for thy ears’,
Sang the jovial busker;
Brimming with gratitude,
With pennies of silver
Or the coppers from well-worked hands,
The heavy gold of the rich;
Once weighed down pockets
Generously giving.
‘A festive song for thy hearts’,
Sang the jovial busker;
Playing with precision,
With clarity and care
Or the subtlety of pristine art,
The blending sound of the voice
Soothingly warming.

I look for beauty
even when it's dripping
in the corner of an alley
filled with all the monsters
underneath my bed
and inside my head.

Sometimes the need to grab strangers by the shoulders,
And beg-BEG- for them to hurt me,
Pretend to love but actually hate me,
Romance me, only to ignore me-

Sometimes the need to grab strangers by the shoulders,
And ask for their prayers,
Spill out my darkest confessions,
Grieve my past self to them-

Sometimes the need to grab strangers by the shoulders,
And preach the importance of freedom,
Inform them of the world’s woes,
Bore them with politics-

Sometimes the need to grab strangers by the shoulders,
And demand they save me,
Pause my loneliness before it turns foul,
Accompany me during my days-

Sometimes the need to grab strangers by the shoulders,
And scream help, so the birds flee,
Becomes ever too powerful.

So powerful I recoil from human interactions,
Until I can perform the average conversation again.

Putrid smells of dirtied innocence,
A veil of eager stupidity,
Misfortune converts to violence,
Roots caged by the ashes
Of what once was,
My hometown of resilience- staled,
Replaced with glory seekers
Spewing words void of value,
Pickets of dishonesty,
Weekends of gloom,
Shame.
I feel foolish as I reside here,
Bleeding within the garden of thorns,
Punctured by the claw of the bird.

I see you in the drunken man on the bus, singing hits
from the 60s,
I hear you when a man near your age belittles me, over a
job he knows nothing about,
I feel you when that initial rejection from someone hits, craving
validation you failed to gift me,
craving to be enough,
I smell you as friends open bottles of cheap ale, a scent
embedded into my bloodstream,
I miss you when I see a father and his child playfully race in the
park over the road,
I'm always wanting what I don't have.

Berry trees fall glum
At snowfalls greeting; Ruby
No longer loves me.

Isolation
Inundated with information and ideas
Impersonal in spite of abundance
A window, short on context or connection
Yearning for people and personality
Connection, a shot away