#pretense
...that when it's in heat
becomes swollen with
pride; its feathered arms
drooping low in flam-
boyant arrogance;
its featherless legs
sauntering in pretence
gait as if it's a horse;
and its crooning voice
promising the world
and its all to the
unguarded hen.
Because after it has climbed
up and come down,
it just shakes its body
and waltz off in victory;
never looking back - at least
not until again its in heat.
My fair Adunola
beware of that rooster.
Jan 12
Jan 12, 2026 at 12:32 PM UTC
dined with companions,
who could not care less.
went along for the ride with half a heart,
i confess -
sung a word of praise, or two -
for it’s like a game of chess;
chose my words carefully,
not trying too hard to impress.
i could not keep their company for long -
would not keep lying still - it was wrong;
gave up their lives, in a moment of truth -
raked my soul, all winterlong.
kissed goodbye to the daylight, i -
gave it up for a different kind of nightlife;
believed - solitude was an inmate,
with a hidden jackknife;
turns out - solitary confinement
is but an oxymoron of life.
Dec 30, 2024
Dec 30, 2024 at 2:17 AM UTC
My paint swells with blisters
these white walls whimper
tears create
a vision
a pattern
paintings on the canvas.
But no matter what the poet’s might say
not all pain is beauty to the eye
and mine
blisters and burns and cracks
like my bedroom walls in my childhood house.
No matter if you paint me over and over
or place a rug over carpet stains
or add a frame when you redecorate
building a collage on the wall over time
my paint will still blister.
Nov 5, 2024
Nov 5, 2024 at 6:06 AM UTC
Say it as it is
But don't make it bad, please!
Sprinkle some pretense
On filthy truths and common sense.
Reality as it is
Let us sugarcoat it, please!
Let us masquerade ourselves,
Pretend we have a chance.
If evil wears your name
And has got the hang of this game
Do I say it as it is
Or catch myself freeze.
I've seen the truth
And I've seen the youth
And I'll be ******
If I don't get to watch your end.
Oct 28, 2024
Oct 28, 2024 at 2:00 PM UTC
i sit and watch you and wait like a dog
always just two steps behind you and
always just begging you for scraps
as if two seconds of your attention
would be enough to fill my empty, empty stomach
as if two mere seconds would ever be enough
but you can't even give that-
my friends say i'm too nice and you just call out my name
and when i see that familiar self-satisfied smile on your face
i just become a bad liar and i just look the other way
and i go back to pretending like your bare minimum
is enough to fix my bellyache
Feb 28, 2024
Feb 28, 2024 at 1:23 AM UTC
i wince because you wanted me
to love you tenderly and tirelessly,
but tragically for you, all you ever did
was waste my precious time. so, sure,
you can twist my words, do it for
your own self-assurance, but i will
note yours down accurately, for my
own sanity and art; i can handle being
publicly contempted, but we both know,
deep down, you are still attempting
to be something you are so clearly not
Feb 28, 2024
Feb 28, 2024 at 1:12 AM UTC
in the morning, i will feign ignorance,
pretending to be fast asleep and unaware
as you pull on your shirt and socks
we should have been theater concentrators, like,
if we never talk about it, it just never happened
you're just so nonchalant, and i'm just melodramatic
and i'm never satisfied unless it's something tragically comic
so tonight, let's pretend to be enemies, let's become lovers,
let's drown in shared regrets, get too familiar with each other
after all, tomorrow, when we wake, it'll all be over
your missing friends and my crushing hangover
will, once again, inevitably, reduce us to strangers
Feb 28, 2024
Feb 28, 2024 at 1:10 AM UTC
As night spreads its ribbons of darkness
Loneliness taps at my window pane,
But too lost in reverie am I
To pay heed to its doleful refrain
Wishful thinking helps me to escape
From the madness of Life's fickle ways;
Though make-believe is a tangled web,
I thrive in its ethereal haze
How sweet the proverbial nectar
That flows from his lips onto mine;
What bliss I derive from a romance
Only my wild impulse could design
I swoon at his expressions of love
Sung and spoken in poetic verse;
(Though at times my heart scoffs at pretense,
Seeing not a blessing, but a curse)
Yet, when I gaze deep into his eyes
I thrill to see love's reflection there;
He need only take hold of my hand
And together we climb Heaven's stair
O, how painful are the loveless hours
Of reality I must endure;
In my dreary solitude I find
Wishful thinking holds a strange allure
Ah! but then reality holds sway ---
Once again the snake devours the dove;
But wishful thinking soon restores my peace
With its exquisite mimicry of love!
Oct 5, 2023
Oct 5, 2023 at 9:53 PM UTC
I breath in to find my inner Geezer
ready to speak with a more common vernacular.
I channel my South Londoner
and ensure I have my chipped mugs
ready out on the counter.
I pull the Nescafe and PG Tips forward
from the dusty recesses of the top cupboard
and locate the white sugar, checking that I have
at least five heaped teaspoons’ worth
for the coming encounter.
Later, from behind the net curtains,
I see him sizing up my roof from his van
and I wait for him to walk up the drive to push the doorbell.
Oh, no, THE DOORBELL!
And, too late, what credibility I had pieced together cringes
at the anticipation of the Batman themed doorbell ring,
which until that morning had seemed an appropriate ice breaker.
Jun 19, 2022
Jun 19, 2022 at 3:17 PM UTC
He seems happy, right ?
You hear him laugh, you see him smile.
But did you take the time to look in his eyes?
All you will find is his void echoing with silence.
He sits all by himself locked up in his room,
Smothered in his darkness,
With heavy thoughts and what ifs,
He clutches his tear stained pillow.
He sits up and looks around his room.
To see that the only person there is
Him.
The only person who hears his agonising cries
Is he himself.
He screams in his silence but no one cares,
His pain goes unnoticed, no one can tell,
His smile is like that of an angel, but he lives through hell,
His eyes brim with madness as he strikes at the walls.
So he tucks his melancholy away,
He wears a mask roughly designed of:
Pretend jokes, fake smiles and happy lies.
He’s at constant war with himself,
For caring about people who don’t care about him.
Nobody knows it’s empty,
The smile he wears,
No one knows that the pain he feels slowly devours his soul,
If only you looked deeper within,
You’d see that he was dying inside,
You say that you know him,
But truly, you know nothing at all.
Dec 14, 2021
Dec 14, 2021 at 10:20 AM UTC
Face set and hands met off the clock, innocence is often lost as seconds drop.
Our magic stirs but it's strength can fade, so in retrospect why ever expect better.
A middle ground of careless selfishness, when failure is an automated pretense. The real fault in our aims for success, not of ourselves but ignoring those with less.
Time is short, decisions often compromised, death will soon swing by to take your eyes. Without a single disregard for who you are, to choose yourself above all others on par.
Sep 30, 2021
Sep 30, 2021 at 5:07 AM UTC
Intensely in disguise
A sheep in wolf skin
fear present in the eyes
reflects an inflaming sting.
Striding in the night
despite being nyctophobic
says uncertainty is delight
while being atelophobic.
Hoping this sheath of confidence
would seep into the core
'fake it till you make it '
the nagging quote we all adore.
Aug 17, 2021
Aug 17, 2021 at 2:55 PM UTC
Part of me already knows that
The promises you make are empty
They bare no meaning
Yet I hold on to something
A sliver of hope
I turn away from the truth
The hope I feel is my own delusion
An illusion I create to save myself
Kept in the dark crevices of my mind
I throw myself deeper into the false pretense
and dig myself my own grave once more
Stuck in a reverie of my own, I let myself sink in own mind, pushing myself more into myself. I’m my own demise.
Jul 26, 2021
Jul 26, 2021 at 7:06 PM UTC
~*every distance is a long shot
within reach of a fool*~
Prv. 𝑓:𝑦
bleed your heart out in dripping
poetic pretense―slip
that inky salamander some silk:
*"the wilting waiting flora
bequeathed their busting bouquets and
bountiful bosoms unto the world
in all of its prescient
violence"*
then read it back to yourself
later and be
absolutely disgusted.
throw it away with all the other
things you've done in your
life.
now reach back in your closet
and rattle the skeletons
lingering there.
finger your dreams in the
dark under pressure
from the mind
to find yourself.
the lightning severance
will sing and
anxiety will
harmonize with the knife.
you've done it again...
****** it all up
and everyone
knows it.
you could eat all the erasers
in the world
and your **** still
wouldn't come out correct.
a lifetime of valleys and
seawalls has made you
an avatar of
effortless blunder.
and you can't stop bleeding
all over the page; white
is red again
cause
you blue it.
bleed in―breathe out
breathe in―bleed out
bleed in―breathe out
breathe in―
bleed out...
welcome to the creative
process.
Apr 24, 2021
Apr 24, 2021 at 9:21 AM UTC
Called out your name
For just a couple of moments,
You were still here
Stared into the quiet
Conversations in our minds
Laughter in our souls
Then the world turned
And the sun set
The seconds are over
And so, you left us.
Dec 25, 2020
Dec 25, 2020 at 7:13 AM UTC
Frightened of the way,
The volume of burden piles higher.
Scraping the skies;
Reaching into the underground.
Trying to fit the position,
Of the needle inside me.
Growing smaller with each bend in its body,
That sacrifices the human behind the machine.
Submerged under the surface;
Hidden beneath the facade,
Of the critters that sculpt honor
Into the frame of my face.
Harvesting acceptance and pride from others,
Who define one look as the truth of pretense.
Blinding eyes from the girl that once lived.
Aug 12, 2020
Aug 12, 2020 at 5:51 PM UTC
Broken glass.
Shattered dreams.
Defeated game.
Crumbling inside.
Yet you smile—
And say “I’m okay.”
Pretense.
Jul 26, 2020
Jul 26, 2020 at 7:29 AM UTC
Life is either—
A game of pretense,
An arena of mockery,
Or a gift of eccentricity.
Jun 29, 2020
Jun 29, 2020 at 8:45 AM UTC
Ivy prying sickly little patterns
Over weathered marble
Drying into autumn
Soured clover spitting flower fodder
Power living deeper
Seething stranger towers clouding water
River founding cities
Plowing fitting visions vowing honor
Dying in the streets
Among the leaf appearing from a gutter
Under marching clutter singing arbor into many others
****** if a murmur isn’t echoed further outing fathers
Bound to pass a burden
Surgeon scalpel serving hallowed daughters
Hours over eons
Over galaxies or galant parents
Drowning in a sea of turning time
Below the grinding planets
Finding little moments
Here and there
To stir the brewing panic
Signing every letter
Leather binding
Solemn coward banished
Given up already
Dreading answers only getting silence
Searching furrowed forest
Lurking treasures forming learned guidance
Breathy whispers egging
Empty guesses pouring from the pious
Crying over constellations
Craven paper tiger liars.
Jan 9, 2020
Jan 9, 2020 at 1:12 AM UTC
II Pet 1:9 coming to mind as I finished, lo, the complexity of this piece, and this: "...lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off--"
(sonnet #MMMMMMMCDXCIX)
How Shakespeare's lines 'non haunt the flag's detail
As't waves to bitter winds' capricious sense
Of play, with memries of late rallies thence
In tow, as all we'd grandly strut through'd pale
Before the empty eye of hours that scale
Down what we said was living, as pretense
Leers through the smoky limelight fading hence
Where leaves pile up too thickly for aught bail.
Is't cuz I've tried 'gain to be stylish fer
What fashion and say Vogue mag swore was due,
Tae learn my peers yet scorn attempts in tour?
Cuz even when I did succeed and do
All that "they" said should be, or called too poor
What we thought tops, Death mocks as ere we knew?
07Nov18a
Nov 11, 2018
Nov 11, 2018 at 4:27 PM UTC
I like me,
Yes,I like me,
I really like me
I really, really like me.
I am no pretense,
I am what I can be.
I am a candy that children love,
I am a nutty chocolate that some die for,
While others are allergic to it.
I am a savoury snack you find in youngsters backpack,
Or you take for picnics.
I am a roast turkey or Biryani for family feasts,
I am a mild soup for the aged.
I laugh and make others laugh,
I cry, but wipe others tears,
I am gentle but can be tough when need arises.
I try to be soft but rough to those who dare cross my path,
I am a friend indeed.
Yes, I like me,
As I am, as I can be.
Nov 7, 2018
Nov 7, 2018 at 4:28 AM UTC
Can I be truly happy?
Strange it feels, that ask.
Stranger still, I can't seem to see -
A face beneath my mask.
Jun 20, 2018
Jun 20, 2018 at 2:38 PM UTC
i worry about my purpose a lot.
it's a pretentious thing to write down i know.
but if i didnt have purpose to contemplate
than all the screwdrivers downed
would be for nothing
all the evenings still in bed
would be for nothing
all of my short comings
would be for nothing.
if there's no corner piece
for me to slide into,
i might just bang my head into my desk
until i cant feel it anymore.
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 2:37 AM UTC