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Lev Rosario Nov 2020
Under the same moon
Warm blood spills out of bodies
Into the dark ground.
Babes are taken from mothers.
Stray dogs **** the weak.
Under the sway of tyrants
Men fight fellow men
To escape the swamp of ****.
Children beg in streets
Where the sick lie naked and
The houses are burnt
For the pockets of the rich.
Under the same sun
Tide goes in and tide goes out
Inside this gift they call life
Amy Perry Nov 2020
The more you look around
The more you realize
Every day people are doing
Everyday things,
Things they don’t really want to do,
But must, to get ahead, to stay afloat,
To not get knocked down.
But the more you look around,
You see the hurt, you see the failure,
You see it imminent within you, too.
You resist and you pull away, and you
Tell yourself that you are different,
You will lead a different life and have success.
But the more you look around,
The bleaker it gets.
Sometimes life is better with the blinders on.
Mitch Prax Nov 2020
Dear diary;
I thought I had
no more hope left to lose
...until I found
a little more hope
left to lose.
verus Nov 2020
how did we start,
equating hope to silly?
the fallacy of optimism,
contrasted by the truth of pessimism,
confused as realism, facts
sent by a goal of ataraxia
(unachievable)

supported by leadership position
(unaccessible)

tinted of eudaimonia
(indefinible)
and the loss of getting ahead
at what cost?
do you tear down
others' hope
with your glance,
fuelled by your own
cowardly manner,
afraid of losing
what you never had,
walks around telling others they won't miss it?
RisingUp Oct 2020
With tests there's right and wrong

I loved getting the right answer

But the real world doesn't work that way
Usually no clear answers.

But I still find myself searching
High and low
for the perfect life circumstance
that will make my heart glow

That will leave me content
Restore my joyful self
Instill feelings of hope
Fill my soul with wealth

But it's a faulty search tactic.

Life is never perfect
It can't fully be controlled
Has its ups and downs
As we continue to get old

For a perfectionist like me
This is hard to accept
If I work a bit harder
I'll never be inept

But this means perpetual dissatisfaction.
Only seeing the bad
The world's falling apart
and everyone's mad

I wish I didn't struggle with my mental health
Or think about this so much
I wish I didn't deeply care
About the world's struggles and such

I must believe I can find joy
Contentment and purpose too
To appreciate things for what they are
Hope and positivity to imbue
Kyle T Oct 2020
Fluorescent uplit lights
Throws no shadows
Shows no life
No vestiges therein

Monitors' frontward glow
Radiates no future, no past
Well lit death
No matrix destination

The rows and cubes behold
A conformed neatness
An oppression
A regime built against creation

The soul flutters above
Unseen but seeming
To hold life
The inexorable dullness of life
Had to write this while sitting in my office trying to find the beauty in modern things.
Norman Crane Oct 2020
If I grew wings
would you stab them
with pins
and add me
to your collection?

If I grew fins
would your interest
in me
culminate in a classroom
dissection?

If I grew muscle
would a vivisection
suffice
or would you first crush my strength
within an iron vise?
Inspired by Sandra Wyllie's poem If I Grew Wings ( https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4059625/if-i-grew-wings/ ), whose title and idea I shamelessly stole because I thought it was interesting how two minds could take those starting points and go in completely different directions!
Norman Crane Sep 2020
Bodies jostle toward the heatsource,
Foot stomp, elbowed in the rib,
Muttering voices hoarse, exhale mists
That swirl like deadmen's ashes in the wind.
Pale lumina saturates the cinder skies,
Under which the aged remember
The suns of former lives,
Their memories the glowing solitary embers
Of a world we've left behind.
Ahead, a mother veils her babe with rags
From a passer-by's ravenous gaze.
A man automatously drags
A rattle-bag of assorted human remains,
Leaving trails in the dirt,
Leaving trails in the dirt.
We have splintered apart the frame
Of this landscape of hellpain,
Against smokestack sequoias and asphalt seas,
We stumble toward the crematoria.
My God, the coldness hurts!
As upon the canvas of this frozen Earth
We enact the terminus of human innovation,
The burning of every breath,
The engineered suicide of civilization.
Out, out, brief candle,
said Macbeth.
Into the cull chamber I step,
Hoping there at least I will find warmth,
In death.
Ces Sep 2020
I force a smile to
Regain a sense of normality
Curled lips that
Mask the rawness
Of this aching
Emptiness.

No longer am I enamored
With lovely, naive fantasies:
This blank stare into the abyss
Born out of revolt
Against the lie
That happiness is everyone's
Lot in life.

Fortune is a whimsical god
And living is an unpredictable
Farce between birth and death
Such randomness,  brutality
Victimizes those born
Of sound body
But with a fragile mind
And a crumbling sanity.

Reflections of gloom
Are all that keeps me company
This unbearable pessimism
In this tiny room
Yet I cannot stop my inquiries:
My explorations of truth
No matter how wretched it might be
At its very root.
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