When education was restricted
They ran to religion
When solace was stripped away
They ran to martyrdom
Loved ones fell
Hated ones rose
As hearts sank
To the depths of the maelstrom
Fueled by the unholy trinity
Value, vindication, and violence

Bombs decimate Afghan villages
With the precision
Of a needle hitting a vein
And as casually
As a contractor putting a dollar in his pocket
The rubble of their town
Lost in a mist of dust
The rubble of their minds
Lost in a mist of vengeance

The rabid dog chases the subjugated raccoon
The raccoon discovers a sacred hole and hides in it
The predator attempts to encroach the void
The raccoon quivers in it's sanctuary shelter
Finding relief as the hound becomes stuck
And laughs as the infected beast starves to death
But ecstasy turns to terror
As the raccoon realizes it's only way out of this hole
Is being blocked by the gargantuan corpse
Terror turns to sorrow
As the raccoon starves to death
Alone
In the dark
It's holy land now hell
For once it had protected the raccoon from unbridled rabies
But since the hound's death
It's Cerberus size obstructs all progression
Holes become graves
And prey are left to pray
For someone to drop a bomb and clear a path

Falling for a liar
I keep asking myself why?
You said my wall was the problem
My wall built to the sky

You didn't realize
what you had done
Every time that you came by
You put my hand on the gun

Step by step I went
Just building that wall higher
Brick by brick it grew
Falling for liar

That's exactly what it'll do
itll make you feel so numb
Realizing nothing you said was true
How could I be so dumb

So high no one could see the top
Looking down from my sky scraper
I couldn't figure out how to stop
Walls and walls built with newspaper  

Here I can see you from a far
I can predict who's trouble
Some say I'm too close to the stars
Far away from your dirt and rubble

Blinded by the light
Nowhere near the ground
All your pretty words
Couldn’t ******* back down

My shelter from the storm
Here I know what's true
Miles and miles from your lies
My clarity is nowhere near you.

our classic tales of war and victory
tell stories of substantial gains
in land, human resources, treasures,
from Homer, Cesar, Charles the Great,
to Ghengis Khan, Napoleon,
the Spanish, then the British empires, etc.

today, dictators are delighted over victories
whose gains are endless miles of rubble
      shown on television
devastated cities bombed into oblivion
     that will take decades to rebuild
     and populate again
hundreds of thousands people killed
     mostly women, children, and the elderly
     who could not flee in time

how can one who has been the source
of so much suffering and devastation
     harvesting bombed-out cities
     laced with corpses
claim victory?!

She unrolled the blueprints
that she had designed.
Building from the wreck that was left behind.

She salvaged the rubble and ruins
and cement of broken promises
granulating and churning it to nothing more than sand;
allowing it to form the foundation of her own future.

She raised one naked agony brick after the other,
cementing it with love and care.

Planting seeds of melancholy,
she watered them with her tears
and watched as the sun's warmth let them bloom
and the moon that let them rest.

She weaved curtains
and plastered the ruins.

She became the gardener,
the architect
and the nurse
of her own self and life.

- Beautiful Sensitive Soul

My resolve gave way under the burden of her touch.
The walls meant to protect me from heartbreak twice over
must've come from Jericho, the way they cracked and crumbled
around me, sending me tumbling unprepared into feeling once more.

Rubble remains however;
the fear innate within me makes itself known,
doubts following my heart wherever it dare go.
I can't help but think: when the walls of Jericho fell,
how many died from suffocation alone?

My asphyxiated heart beats with this anxiety, telling me
I am to suffer the common human millstone.
I am doomed to love too much yet never enough.
The tragic truth of my heart, burdened to be so easily let go.

The tether faded fast.
The ***** in the chain becoming more distant to each other.
Two hands unravelling.

As the tether faded, the grief and sorrow grew, seeding itself.
An oak tree affirming its roots.
A cry of dismay in a blink.

With the tether gone, both oak trees became familiar with each other’s soil.
The tether a forgotten memory.
An ancient picture screen.

A brief wind of past occasionally shook through the trees.
A faded disconnection caught in the breeze.

I'm a builder.
My poems are houses.
Crooked,
ghost houses.
Mad houses.
Burn victims hospitals.
Pet cemeteries.
Monuments
to unknown soldiers.

But also, sometimes,
they are what they are meant to be.
A beating heart with space enough
for them all to dwell.

Usually, not even that.
Only rubble.
Only silence.

we do not want let into the room, we want to smash the ******* walls

call it diversity not ‘decentering whiteness’ not, smashing white supremacist cis hetero patriarchy,
not THE CANON IS ******* RACIST
THE CANON IS FOR MEN BY MEN PRAISED BY MEN
FOR THE BOURGEUIS BY THE BOURGEUISE OWNED AND RUN BY THE BOURGEISE
THE CANON IS AS WHITE AS THE PAGES YOU TURN AND THE PAPER YOU WIPE YOUR *** WITH.
THE CANON IS A CLOSED ROOM WITH A BARRED DOOR
WITH QUEERS ON THE STREET NOT EVEN BOTHERING TO KNOCK
BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT THE DOOR WILL NOT EVEN BE CRACKED OPEN IN THE SLIGHTEST.

WE DO NOT WANT LET INTO THE ROOM,YOU BUILT THE ROOM YOU OWN THE ROOM, IT IS YOUR HENCHMAN WHO CONTROL THE INS AND OUTS OF THE DOOR.

WE WANT TO SMASH THE ******* WALLS.

IF YOU DO NOT LEAVE, YOU WILL BE PART OF THE RUBBLE.

YOU WILL LEARN WHAT IS LIKE TO HAVE YOUR HOUSE BROUGHT TO THE GROUND.