An arctic fire
Scorches the Earth
Into an entire
Frozen turf
Of no worth
Only hurt
Where death and decay
Are here to stay
In winter’s way
To my grave

The leaves are dead
Like the teens *****
Who went to bed
And woke up led
To their reluctant stead

The branches are bare
Like the love I share
With those who dare
Return my stare
Of frozen care

My friends are chill
Once they take a pill
And let the ice build
Until a giant ice hill
Freezes their light will
Seeing life as time to ****
Their shifty shoes I fill

This winter has shown
That I don’t have a home
And if I want to be known
I have to build a new phone
Or get bombed by a drone
So I stay in my zone
Of an arctic cone

I was once warm
In proper form
Until I grew horns
Like icy thorns
And my icicles
Are quite fickle
Their knife sickles
Until blood trickles
On my frigid path
Of winter’s wrath

I’m freezing to death
Until there’s nothing left
Except a societal debt
Of a temperature set
That was never met

The light shines
Everything is fine
But over time
The light declines

The light grows dim
As the days grow slim
Making my mentality grim
When I feel I can’t win

My plight professor
Says I’m a light obsessor
So my sight is lesser
Given the right pressure
Days of shortened measure

The days grow dimmer
So I can’t find a glimmer
Of hope to cope
With the gradient *****
Of the light being choked

As the shadows grow longer
The darkness grows stronger
And ghosts start to wander
Through my past I ponder

The darkness has replaced
Your beautiful face
With a dimmer embrace
So I can no longer trace
My tie to the human race

The light they’re dimming
To continue sinning
Until the room is spinning
And they’re artificially grinning
Is my light of living
So darkness they’re bringing

Somebody shot the sun
With a tranquilizer gun
Now I’m totally stunned
As the plants are done
Growing as one

The light is dimmed
As I am skinned
By frigid wind
I’m living in

My light completely goes out
As faith loses to doubt
On this tumultuous route
Getting punched in the mouth

Sports fans love dichotomies
Brady or Montana?
James or Jordan?
The NHL is aware of this
And possesses two generational players
Alexander Ovechkin and Sydney Crosby
Ovechkin plays for the Washington Capitals
And Crosby plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins
One of the most notable team rivalries in sports
So the NHL asks fans to pick a side for marketing purposes
Ovechkin is sold as strength while Crosby is sold as finesse
Which would be a reasonable way to advertise their league
But like every sports league they are dealing with safety concerns
And the NHL is trying to escape the ignorant assumption
That hockey revolves around brutality and is of a primitive nature
So they don’t want to highlight the sports’ physicality
During this delicate and uncertain time
So more often than not Crosby is favored over Ovechkin
Through officiating, commentating, administrating and marketing
Which implicitly sells Crosby over Ovechkin
To the lowest common denominator
Who are interested in those kind of dichotomies

Since the Capitals are the highest profile team
That plays especially physical
The NHL feels the need to treat them with particular austerity
To show they are serious about safety
But this results in massively inconsistent actions by the league

Tom Wilson is one of the Capitals’ best players and their best checker
He was suspended for 20 games for a slightly late hit
He was in proper checking form
Shoulder down and leading, feet planted on the ice
But made incidental contact with Oskar Sundqvist’s head
Giving Sundqvist a concussion so the NHL suspended Wilson
Meanwhile...
Tom Wilson is attacked from behind by Ryan Reaves
On a very ***** hit that had no athletic function or basis in hockey
Launching himself at the back of Wilson’s head on a cheap shot
Giving Wilson a concussion
Reaves was very proud of himself
Selling autographed pictures of an injured Tom Wilson
And the NHL had nothing to say

Tom Wilson received a 20 game suspension
Losing hundreds of thousands of dollars
For an overzealous check
But when he is maliciously attacked with the intent to injure
There is no suspension handed down

A wise man once said
“An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”
And I agree
So I can’t stand seeing someone treated with a blatant bias
If it’s on Capitol Hill or in the Capitals’ stadium
And don’t want to live in a world where that’s acceptable

If I could say something to Tom Wilson
I’d say thank you for handling the situation with grace
And not to pay too much attention
To the biased elite or the mindless masses
Because all they try to do is dip you in molasses
They’re not going to protect you on the ice
That’s something you must do on your own
And there’s a lot of people who’ll try to give themselves importance
By eliminating those of higher value
You just have to be able to take their hits
And hit back harder than they ever could

I drive down the slippery road of life
Where constant sliding is my plight
As rain pours onto the road at night
Encouraging my car to take flight
To extinguish my headlights

I can’t see through the rain
Hitting my windshield pane
Becoming my banal bane
Inside my flooded lane
Causing a sedative strain
Until only the vigilant remain

Eventually the tread wears off my tires
In this slippery mire
My situation dire
I want to retire
But can’t find a buyer
Who can help me get drier

I start violently hydroplaning
Forgetting my entire training
When my tires are skating
My white knuckles aching
As every moment is taking
An eternity of shaking

I still think I’m driving
But really I’m sliding
Chaos abiding
Uncontrollably riding
Through God’s designing
While never arriving
To the place I’m pining
Before I started finding
This road to be so winding

I live in the drain
With runoff rain
That unlocked pain
Inside of my brain
That’s a dying flame
From mighty shame

This life is draining
Never obtaining
The proper training
Or someone explaining
Something worth retaining
As time continues waning

I live life in the gutter
When my relation to others
Is either finding a lover
Or running for cover
No middle ground under
My path quaking asunder

My life is leeched
And washed in bleach
As I drain what I preach
Focusing on what others teach
So I may one day reach
A tranquil beach

They drained my spirit
Because they fear it
But now can’t hear it
Or see its appearance
Since its draining clearance
After outside interference

My energy sapped
From their attack
I join the pack
Not looking back
Down the swirling drain
Used to put me in chains
Becoming my barrier bane
That carries the pain
Of having nothing to gain
For I can’t handle the strain
Of living life in the drain

I live in a berserk moor
During a nasty dirt war
Life now the worst chore
So I enter church doors
But somehow hurt more
Once I’m alone on the floor

I sit in a pew
With nothing to do
For I’m one of the few
Not up on the news
Or part of the stew
So I sit there and lose

Should I just give in
Because I don’t fit in?
Or is that I sin?
It seems I can’t win
With my glass chin
And mask of skin

The church is a microcosm of society
And my acceptance a sign of propriety
But I feel anxiety and paranoia biting me
While everyone else gets along delightfully
I sit in the corner
Like a silent mourner
Or Christopher Dorner
An unwanted reformer

I get so nervous
During the service
Did God serve this?
Do I deserve this?
Or can I swerve this
Feeling I’m worthless?

If I could just be myself
They could probably help
But remembering pain I felt
I put my personality on the shelf
Avoiding similar welts
To the ones I’ve been dealt

The concrete jungle
Isn’t what God’s Son sold
Where injustices are untold
And senseless violence unfolds
Yet the homeless are trapped
In the cynical stone maze
Which might be mapped
But they’re caught in the ways
Of the trail they’ve blazed

They wander the streets
Looking for something to eat
Or at least drugs to defeat
All the ways they’ve been beat
They adapt to their environment
Their environment adapts to them
Never finding retirement
In ****** dens
But developing zen
So their mind can defend
What they see again and again

Some start infecting the city
With a mentality gritty
And an appeal to my pity
Doing drug dealer’s bidding
Rejecting society’s fitting
For their own personal living
Yet others bless the towns
With their communal sounds
Of philosophies they’ve found
After going round and round

They can hold pearls of wisdom
Or knives that cause incisions
They can help make bad decisions
Or tell you what not to do with precision
So they probably shouldn’t be treated uniformly
But then how should they be treated normally?

I come across two vagrants
One pulls themselves up by their bootstraps
Becoming someone fragrant
After falling into doom traps
The other offers to **** my ****
And make it quick
Or bust my lip
With a brick
To get their fix
These two must not be treated the same
And neither should be treated with shame
But we must resist playing their game
Of not cleaning stains and becoming lame

So I wonder where the kind treatment
From the compassionate elite went
When the fortunate used to act decent
For their memory of poverty was recent
But children don’t inherit memories
Only money and assets
So they feel wealth is their destiny
Ignoring negative facets

Vagabonds sleep near the intersection of my mind
Where fear and compassion combine
Creating a blurred line
So I can’t decide
Considering both sides
Of the personality divide
So I lazily imply
They’re both the same guy

I write them all off as evil
Saying they’re not even people
Unworthy to be inside a steeple
With the value of a benign beetle
I view them all as losers
And ******* drug users
And insane spousal abusers
And myself as supreme chooser

Not understanding the stakes
I joke let them eat cake
Suddenly emotions awake
They eat my head off a plate
I didn’t learn from history
Now I’m doomed to repeat it
So there will be no mystery
Once I’m eventually defeated