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They ask, why care so much?
Simple, my ancestors blood and bones
are the foundation of this nation.

But that isn't your blood or mine?
We have come a long way!
True but broken chains
don't free us from shackles,
and half measures
can’t get us across the finish line.

If you hate it so much leave!
In case you missed point one
I'd much rather fix what's broken.
I want to make sure that the stacked deck
is reshuffled. That kids don't have to grow up
in war zones, where the only way out is debt
or a casket. Where people don’t get to profit
from the very thing that took others freedom.
I want a playing field that all can use,
where the rules make sense and the enforcers
are kind. Where I'm not the oddity
for never having been behind bars.
That people realize that there's more
to our culture than our bars.
I'm over the 40 acres
I want 24 Oscar's. Maybe then I'll see
myself on more than just ESPN and MTV.

Others have it far worse than you!
Well then let's elevate them too.
A rising tide raises all ships.
So let's create a flood that washes
out the hate. When will people realize
that we aren't enemies. That the system
crushing you is already destroying me.
If they can put people in cages for where
they were born then Eastside or south
of the border are just bad hands we are dealt.
I don’t know how to fix it
but I care too much to be quiet.
So thanks for reading my thoughts,
but will you stay silent?
My raw feelings this Juneteenth 2019
Anastasia Jun 2019
Cut my throat and let me bleed.
Your silence, love, is killing me.
A bomb went off inside my head.
But sadly, love, I’m not dead.
Not yet. Not yet. (I’m not dead)
Get out of my head. (I’m almost dead)
I’m not dead. (Not yet. Not yet)
These shackles are cutting my skin.
I don’t want to let the darkness in.
They’re sharp, so sharp.
The shards of a broken heart.
Get out of my head.
I’m not dead yet.

Hold me close
The blood is flowing
I'm not dead yet
But I might be going
Paint the roses red
With the dripping from my head
I'm not dead yet (Not yet),
Slit my throat
And watch me bleed
Your absence, love, is killing me
A bomb went off inside my head
But sadly love
Sadly love
Sadly love
(I'm not dead yet)
A song started. Thought I’d post ig. Might add more later (updated, due to the love I've received ❤)
Bus Poet Stop Apr 2019
not much he reasons, resonating the question,
in the resounding places where both are congruent kept

we talk of lines all the time, line divisors of our
denominators and our numerators,
but truth and secrets are 1/1
so the rational number is always one indivisible whole,
with liberty for both,
when
the glass shackles^
be broken

but let us not dance around the marshmallow fire,
while watching clocks melt as our memory persists,
so secrets and truths have a rigorous solute/solution relationship,
yet, the dividing line melts over time and the answer

in all the poems that the body worked,
with experience, you can see the works becoming
the body solution blended,
undefined admixture, defined, refined, all just fine,
for the microscopic difference is in the eye of the beholder
but requires breaking
the glass shackles^

for
one will enchain
one will set you free
when their meld is melted
Nemis Apr 2019
There's an invisible monster,
Who's holding me in its shackles.
And we share a great bond,
Not the one meant to be broken.
I'm a puppet, with anger as the strings
And he's my master, controlling me from within.
I'll never let it go, because I adore him so
And he's forever with me, even if I want to let it go.
It's about how the negativity controls us, makes us lose our mind and makes us pretty much a puppet is like.
Shea Nov 2018
I walk with a straggle,
The chains become tighter with
Every step.
You see, this is my reason for
Giving up.

"You hold the key
to your own shackles"

I can set myself free,
With what ambition,
when my hands are tied?
What's the point of changing
When I've lied
For them to Believe I'm fine?

They say you can change,
They say it's possible to Believe
In something other than pain.
For this, I won't give up.
For this, I'll keep going
Until my hands don't reach
As low as my shackles hang.
Baqir Talpur Nov 2018
Isn’t it incredible?
How i fall in love
With a different thing
Every day.
Yesterday, it was your laugh.
Today, it is your memory.
And tomorrow maybe,
Just maybe,
It would be our communion;
Beyond the shackles of worldly ordeal.
Bus Poet Stop Jun 2018
~for those who will read this and weep~

the quiet ones,
the silent Job ones,
who quote not from the
Book of Lamentations,
but author their own,
based on-the-job experience

localized versions of cryptic elegiacs
accepting the wooden crosses borne,
stepping up to the
unrequested unforeseen,
then buried under, burnt alive,
yet never relieved by dying,
nailed by words, stronger than iron,
promises sworn, promises kept
with no ending date relief,
promises by and to themselves,
but not for themselves!


the wearers of crystal glass shackles,
adorned with decorative locks for which
no key did the maker make,
nor any divine creator
dare conceive an early release,
never no escape contemplated,
for the lock human, unrepentant unbreakable,
a decorative useless metaphor gesture,
a blunt “life *****” advertisement

I compose amidst a
bus pond of mismatched city folk,
a tapestry of ages colors and differing views on god/no god,
none would believe that as the bus sways me,
it’s in rhythm to holy choral music,
hundreds year old,
divinity masses and motets worships,
where one human can hide temporarily
a safe house,
to calm his questioning relentless
from the horrors of no answers,
for when the mind has no solution
to the rough and tumbling lives,
lived in glass shackled confinement,
the poets desperation equals theirs


summon eagles to transport these imprisoned,
but the shackled refuse,
I come to them but they wave me off,
I go crazy for once I was enslaved,
thirty years war that left devastation,
from which so many poems created

so I speak with heightened regard
of one who planned futures for others where his
non-existence was a founding father (ha!)


but the day came and
I was released by my own inactions,
but means nothing until a way to
away found
to release the yet bound early


got a couch, airline miles, hundred dollars
in my pocket and an unrelenting need
to save them, a consumption disease,
the glass shackled, at ease,
won’t rest till all are freed
this my creed
no one left behind

these cyber words do not mock
for they are unbounded, set free,
when
the flesh connects and the needs of the flesh
are stronger for they are in heart conceived
Andrew Rueter Oct 2017
I have raised hackles
And wear grey shackles
They're distractions in my brain
They kind of sound like chains
They hold me still
Until I get my fill
And secure myself
To endure this hell

You tighten the screws
I'm beaten and bruised
Please don't stop
You're like the cops
I depended on your aggression
Then shocked by your secession
I wanted to be shot through the palms of my hands
That was the most pathetic part of my plan
You called my bluff
And put me in cuffs
You took away my agency
And then exited hastily
You're just part of the chain of rain
That will eventually stain my brain

I wear shackles
I hear cackles
There's amusement they find
In the fact that I'm blind
In the fact that I'm crying
In the fact that I'm trying
My miserable life is a joke to them
They think I have a broken stem
They callously disconnect my links
So they can crawl through my fence
Trying to change what I think
Making me constantly feel tense
So I can be what they hate
That'll make them feel great
I have to restrain reactions
Throughout our interaction
They're looking for reasons to hate me
And ways to grate me
And deflate me
I must dial my love back
Before they attack
My mind must be restrained
In this life I'm engrained
Khun Aug 2018
I've gotten myself a pair of golden shackles,
It is shiny.

My parents love it,
It brings them pride.
My friends is envious,
Because it shines.

But soon, I realize.
The shackles' painted gold.
What's worse,
With it, I can't traverse.

Golden shackles,
Is shackles after all.

Now I'm trapped,
shackled, bounded.
Doomed.
Only time can release me,
From this golden shackles.
Personal story. Probably some can relate to.
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