colors blend together
beautiful and inseparable
an unbreakable community,
forged through years
of sorrow and hardship
but also joy and triumph
flags wave as colors fill streets
pride radiating throughout
we are here,
and we are queer.

Mortal wounds that rack the mind,
Focused thru the lense of time,
And sit, aching, upon the soul
To leave a ripped and gaping hole,
Filled by weary, worn requests
To end these gruesome lifelong tests
For peace to reign
And pain to stop;
To open the cage
And break the lock.
But bartered visions bring no respite,
Birthing instead a desire for flight
A longing to run, far and fast;
A desperate escape from a darker past.
And into the future, swoon and fall
Carelessly, awaiting it all,
Finding only more pain yet;
Bringing more things up to forget-
Until the world is swallowed up;
By the memories that hurt and cut.
By pain that sinks and dulls the mind,
Until that pain can fade with time
And follow, then, a different design
Until the soul can say it's fine,
And look up with truest hope again-
Only then will pain find an end.

And as I stare about me now,
I realize I have stared too long
Into the jaws of hell, and how
Pain has made me ever strong
For suffer the weather, suffer the storm
And you're sure to find bright days
Pockets still, but light and warm,
Filled with dazzling, sunny rays.
Now pain is not my jailer,
And I, no more its slave;
Risen from my thorny failures
To put pain into its grave.

I watch you struggle day to day
  wanting more from your life
    but not knowing where to start
From your frustration comes my triumph
No longer need to make your problems my own
  and so I have grown

Look I'm awake!
I used no alarm!
Not torpid, no despair,
Pill worked like a charm!

I've been mentally marinating,
In a cerebral stew.
Truly amazed by
This chemical brew.

-  Shoutout to Zoloft

I've lived the kind of pain they write about
In the tales of heroes,
                       who came and went without
Salvation or celebration; and,
      instead, became close friends of doubt.

When luck leaves your side,
And there's no one left watching . . .
               There is no martyrdom.
No heaven to fall from. No damnation.
                Just nothing.
                Nothing and no one.

But I won't let myself succumb
To the temptation
             of self-righteous certainty,
             false justifications, or
             egotistical self-mutilation -
Just to bleed on those who lay
             Below my lowly elevation.

                     Not like you.
                     I am not made like you.

No longer, will I distort my own view
To lie to the few, who stand with me in the fire.

               It's true.

               I am a worthless *******,
               and even I can hardly stand it
               when I speak about myself.
But this time . . .
It's about more than me.
And, for once, I'm going to spend well the wealth,
That I was given and didn't earn,
On those who showed me how to learn
               And to never become like you.

Yes -
I am judgmental and self-loathing.
I am selfish and I am wrong.
I am naive, and strung out and strung along.

                                But I
                                  am not made
                                             like you.

                                             I am strong.

that's what he said to me
before he fled the scene

whether it be from cowardice,
lurking in the darkest corners of the room

or the joyful victory lap
to triumphantly conclude a race

"Run. Just run"

whispered in the hallows of the haunted castle
screamed into the wind that slipped past you like a stranger, unbeknownst

warning of the foreboding nightmare you are about to be
awoken from

commanding your limbs to expel one last kick,
'till you fly away, far away

always remember, my friend

just run