I'm picking up

       What you're putting down

                   You didn't have to throw

                                     it

                                     at

                                     me.

i think about her
way more than she knows --
shes like a song
stuck in my teeth,
or a dream
that won't leave my head.
it won't wash off.

she laughs
and i hear it for days.
she touches my shoulder
and my whole body,
instantly tries to memorize
the feeling.

this isn't love,
not yet atleast --
it's limerence.
the unbearable
maybe.
the ache that is shaped
like hope
with nowhere to land.

Laying on the beach
alone in the dark,
only with the stars
and the sound of the waves.

Sitting on the edge,
just where the tide could touch my toes
but doesn’t.

There’s sand in my hair
but I don’t mind-
it’s warm against my back.

I feel everything
and nothing
all at once,
staring at the moon
as if she’s looking back.

And when the cold water
hits my skin,
I know what she means
and I feel content enough
to leave.

He loves the *****,

and sometimes, I go with him --


to sit there thinking.

I can't seem to wash you off my skin.
Yours accidentally touched mine.
As shadows fall onto the eclipse,
my heart turns into a landmine.

Exhausted it lays, beating faster,
whenever you're on my mind.
Breaths, drawn in sharper,
I can't seem to shut you out.

It's ridiculous, I say to myself,
the power you have on me.
Thoughts of you send splinters
throughout every inch of my body.

Your presence itself feels like a sin.
you're all I think about.
My wishes, never leaving my lips,
could cause the stars to burn out.

It all weighs heavy on my chest,
like ruins no one came to save.
So I leave it there—forgotten, rotting—
just wishful thinking
digging its own grave.

what your thinking is
imaginary and world
is fabricated

Putrid,
Repulsive,
Disgusting;
is but human nature.

A deceitful smile brings hurt;
yet a frown brings concern.
No one is out to get you;
yet no one is there to help you.

I want to be great;
a human without hate.
Am I worth something;
worth at least a couple of glances.
Before I die, I want at least a goodbye.
Humans are horrible —
yet I crave their attention.

If I ever taught poets to read
the worth of knowing when
in life to pretend to know
what it is that makes
a boy become man,
the couplet
rhyming died and lied,

Here it is, my Ai had it for me…
----
Kipling, Common Form:
If any questions why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
-------------
Future ever
when the glory
of military privilege lures the young
to follow a National Pride Promotion,

-another war for holy reasons
to end all wars, if we win...
then
Common Form

that one would be read,
in all my classes,
if If were ever mentioned, as essential.

------------ a response ---- how can I say I know

----- or think, why, I know Kipling felt shame
I know I would.

I have wept with men who believed such lies.
If.
If was written at the height of the Great Game in Kim,
Jungle Book was written
for the son born during the Raj
whose eyesight exempted him

but, he was the son If addressed,
as were all his upper class mates.

John died
in his first ww1 combat
at the age
of almost 18.

What son
of the man who wrote If
would not,
confess the pressure
to join the righteous push against the Huns.

What laureled poet would not regret,
the call to courage only faith
in truth commands
-we must believe the call
to defend the faith

stiff upper lip, keep calm, carry on
taken as a lesson
from a horror, drilled deep
into any real warrior,
real men won't miss
a chance to fight...
to learn the price
of cowardice
- who can resist such urge
the charge, ours not
to reason why, ours but
to do, and die

If you can keep your head, my son…


the lie he relied -- any surviving father
would not be proud, he would grieve, just walk in his shoes.

War ought never be given glory nor honor, hate is man made.