What a strong grip that you've managed to keep so long
How does it still feel in this moment?
Realize now that the grip was too strong
It's gone too numb to feel if it still constricts
Emboldened by the lies that cross the threshold of those lips

You get what I give and I give you what I deserved
You reap what I sow, but I know what you think I don't
Believe me, you know you've deceived me

You seem baffled as I start to roam away from your reach
Wondering where went the chain you've anchored
What of the lessons you've attempted to teach
To keep me guilted, controlled and manipulated
So you can seek all you want from the others you've lied to

You take what I give but I get what you deserved
I've reaped what you sow and you know that I don't
Believe you, I know you've deceived me

So come clean to me
Bare all your guilt
Set me free
You've already abandoned me

Still you don't resist
To continue so disrespectfully
You keep your secrets disappearing
So what is it that you still want from me?

So come clean to me (come clean, come clean)
Bare all your guilt (what you hide from me)
Set me free (your cage no longer fits)
You've already abandoned me

So why should I stay by you?

©July 2024 Neal Emanuelson

Sally would with the wall
Music so shrouded, a hat of compliance
The terror involved
A chance meeting with resolve, that stated intention...

My name is Carlton
Spate energies, and the vague way
A harping halt to better problems
Has saved me from a hateful demon, with it to say:

Choose me over any other, the collapse of vows
Has a futile throw of light, in the remark innuendo made
Salt and harmony, to fetch a liberty without how
Is a door on commonness, that has the shape of futures sate

Lemonade and dickory cookies
Shown the time of their life, a hallway to sigh
Scurrilous was a special man, with a plan, for a dreams ease
With the stone of fending remorse into a corner, of life...

Patiently, the day came to a close...
Proud Sally, or privileged Carlton
A wish adrift in the evening your, the scared host
Of another smile to win, the promise of a stoic question...

Hello, I have the world to sleep longer than me
Simply roles of victory, victimized by a lip of succor
Rhyming and doling the obvious, of a secret means
To an ending for serenity, that knows your craving for ours?

The questions, the doubts,

the suspicion, that monster --


with too many heads.

How is in the house
Drama, fearsome now, and a gift?
Sordid we knew, the count of thou
Simple reach and prosper, with an eye to lift...

Here, seldom...
The deeds we fated in the shadows
Have a quiet keep, of what hope will love...
The rue and the risk, of vanity that a silence avowed?

Share, sakes...
The pout we made, for avidity to bloom
Security to fare, the court a decision makes...?
Has the silence for a hero, that is the future to groom...

Clarity, sense...
Has us by the toe, like a fruit...
Of simplicity to step forward and make amends
That seem to be ours, to worth and reveal to you, a tongue mute?

Savagery, sides...
Regret for a friend found in the times, a wish
We shall reason, is a recreation of soulless pride...
We deceived from a poignancy, with a kiss...

Now, is in the none
Achingly, our sincerity is a fashion of prodigy
Where in a thought, all of a tout to see the sanity of since all along
Took and never mistook, for a phantom of privilege, we mean...

where is hope
in this cluster **** world
we are just powerless disciples
of distrust and suspicion
of our systems and overlords
a bunch of anonymous souls
who have learnt
to question everything
emboldened by our
social media alliance
we are a coalition of suspicion

but a cluster **** of suspicion
will be no salvation

hope is
people doing the things that they love
things they believe in
being humble warriors
of self determination
helping each other
in compassion and grace
and in so doing
showing others that
there are good people
in the world
because we are all
just people together

life on our globe has turned
truly ‘complificated’
and many struggle to maintain
a semblance of the ordinary
in our daily goings about town

face masks, regulations and prescriptions
have changed how we can interact
if we may at all
with each other, friends, family, or strangers

physical distancing may rise desire
for at least digital social closeness
yet in its wake
emotional remoteness seems to grow

hanging like a shadow over
occasional live meetings with old friends
children, aunts, uncles, grandparents etc.

we watch them with veiled suspicion
they somehow look a little less familiar
since we met them last time
who knows what they might carry

strangers watching strangers we have become
growing more alienated from each other