Tell me I look like my mother
I carry her emptiness
Her grief
Pours into me
Until I am full
Tonight it spills
Onto the tiles in the kitchen
No worries, it is a woman’s work

I am rotting
and poetry falls from my hands
like leaves
from a hollow tree.

He sailed to sleep
on oceans of bitter
angry tears wept
into his pillow
across years of pain
and neglect.
The only time they
noticed him was
when they hurt him.
He didn't know why
he would sit on
the floor and look
up at them and smile
but he always did.
Like he missed them.
Loved them.
The smiles would
sink in his sad little
ocean of weeping
until on the other side
a broken and bitter
man emerged.
He never cried.
He barely felt anything.
This man, lithe from
dodging emotional
connections and clean
friendly physical contact,
seemed more than just
put together. He seemed
superhuman in his way.
He was special. He was funny.
No one could hurt him
or think around his
sometimes cruel machinations.
Inside he wished he
could look up with a smile
and be treasured and loved.
He wished his life had
been softer, less hungry and
much less afraid.
He wished he didn't have
to be strong and cynical.
He wished he was wrong
about things more often.
Wished he could afford
to be, in fact.
He wished most of all
that he could die.

He doesn't know where
the line is between
discipline and abuse.
He's so afraid to get
anywhere near it
that he worries he's
becoming a brand new
kind of bad parent
in the generational saga
of bad parents he has
always been a part of.

Can’t you feel it?
The slow yawn of time
Snapping it’s mouth shut.
Time
Chewed me up.
Spit me out.
Flesh, sinew, bones and hair.

Please, take me away from here.
I just need to get through this day,
This week,
This month,
This year.
I don’t know what I’m getting through.
What I’m going towards.

My heart beats a death march drum,
My fingers scrolling through a death feed.

Distract me.
I want to close my eyes and rest.
I never seem to wake up refreshed.

Freedom does not exist
We'll always be in chains
under someone else's fist
pulling on our reins

Following some made up scheme
Fed with blatant lies
Told we are part of a team
yet no one hears our cries

Drowning in a world of rules
from law books off the shelf
It's why freedom is for fools
and only you can free yourself