Pixilated war,
And out in the real fields
Insurgents rally against
Tin men and robotic dogs.
Death from above,
Artillery & first-person drones.
I sip an energy drink
In 60° AC Fahrenheit weather,
I don't stop to think
As to if orders deserve questions
And whether I would be satisfied with answers.
They don't have drafts,
We have programs & apps
To pilot steel fellas.
Suppress, eliminate, rescue,
Some of them even punch up the graphics.
Last week, I traipsed through
The inhospitable Arabian Desert,
Many decades ago rendered entirely uninhabitable,
To help diplomats involved in a helicopter crash.
The day after that,
I was in the snowy north
Fighting red droids.
And soon after,
On an island in the Pacific
Defending from adversarial users.
I must have died 10,000 times.
And from what I hear on the news
We make advances only to be set back,
And vice versa,
But it's been seventeen good years
Going back & forth.
I don't know if I can recall what we're fighting over.

Speak of love,
So many hopeless hearts,
With none to give.
Something to dream they'll find,
When they aren't even sure what to look for.
Find it on your own first.
Otherwise, you'll just end up hurting others
Or hurting worse.

Charcoal hands
To hold my ignited love,
The only reciprocity
Is to be maimed & scarred
With flames beyond the fire's control.
Gasoline loves a match-
Bright & hot, destructive, fast.
Burns out to within, and then
It's all exhausted;
Embers smolder to ash.

You are superior to 𝘸𝘩𝘰?
I am no one's inferior,
And if someone has differing conjecture;
Congratulations, I believe you!
Clearly, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 are less than 𝘮𝘦.

I take good advice
Even if I don't like the source,
Because I trust in knowledge
And in the pursuit of more.
I think for myself,
Because I cannot allow others to;
Evidently, not many do.
I place my respect, like I place my trust-
As to how I pay-
When it has been earned.

Just like all the nepotism today,
Narcissism is wildly popular-
In fact, it's good.
You should only care for yourself,
Forget about any platonic love for others
What use can you derive from them?

I stalk through the dark hallways
Drifting through remnants of a sun.
Spirals into vortexes, cascading shafts of light on
Brief transits inward, where time falters.
Forces push & pull and all around
The tide of the cosmos envelopes me,
Wading through the static sea
Waves come in crashing-
Laughter, screams
And yet, no sound escapes the vacuum