The carnival is loud.
The voices rise in competition,
each one pulling for the crowd’s attention,
each one demanding to be seen,
to be known,
to be applauded.

But none of it lasts.

The bright lights will flicker,
the tents will come down,
the applause will fade.
And the ones who built their names
on the roar of the crowd
will be left alone with their silence.

You feel this, don’t you?

The moment after the rush,
when the thrill of being seen
is not enough to keep you full.
The moments between performances,
when you are left with yourself.
You have felt it.
And because you have felt it,
you cannot unfeel it.

That is the nature of truth.

It does not beg.
It does not force.
It simply remains,
waiting for you to turn toward it.

But not all will turn.

Some will sell the last of themselves
to the carnival,
to the barker’s voice,
to the fleeting thrill of attention.
Some will press their hands over their ears
until they no longer hear the call at all.
Some will attempt to crucify what unsettles them,
to keep the show running.

And yet, truth stands.

It does not chase.
It does not barter.
It does not make itself smaller
to be more easily held.

It remains,
whether you turn today,
or tomorrow,
or never at all.

For life does not demand.
It does not entertain.
It does not offer a show.

It simply waits.

And in time,
the waiting will be yours
to bear

There is a road—
worn smooth by the weight of avoidance,
its stones polished
by the feet of those who feared the fire.

It was an easy road, once.
The gap was narrow.
The illusion held.

But now—

the distance has widened.
And the voices on the right road
speak in a tone
that sends tremors through the bones
of those who chose the left.

They are too far now—
too far to reach with whispers,
too far to pull back with outstretched hands.

And so—
they sharpen their words to steel.
They carve spears from syllables.
They gather in the middle ground—
where poetry was never meant to be a weapon,
and they brace for the throw.

---

Once, there were choices.

At the first fork, the road was still open.
The return was near, the steps were light.

But at each crossing, the distance deepened.
Each footfall carried the weight
of the last choice unmade.

Each turn back
required more courage
than the turn before it.

And so—
they did not turn.

Instead, they built monuments
to their own exile.
They lined the road with markers
to silence the unease.

The illusion thickened.
The herd gathered close.
And the further they walked,
the more they feared the eyes
that saw them leave.

Now—
each step forward
is an accusation against themselves.

Each mile another truth
that must be buried.

Each glance across the chasm
a torment that cannot be soothed.

---

Jonathan knew the weight of it.
He was born under a king
who wore a crown of emptiness,
who built an altar of fear,
who held his son as a token,
a prop, a piece of the podium.

Saul used him, loved him, needed him—
but only in so much as he could fill the void.

And Jonathan, bound by blood,
walked beside him.

But then—
he saw David.

A boy with no kingdom.
No throne.
No crown.

But something deeper.

And Jonathan felt it—
the pull, the knowing, the moment where the soul whispers, "this is real."

And he slipped away.
Not in rebellion.
Not in anger.
But in truth.

He turned his back on the road
that had never led anywhere
and bound himself
to the heart that was real.

---

And now—
on the leftward road,
there are those who feel it too.

They bow to the orator.
They weave themselves
into the illusion.
They stand upon the podium
that floats on nothing
and call it solid ground.

But then—

a whisper.
A shift.
A moment of clarity.

They look again—
not up, but under.

And they see it.
The nothingness beneath.

The hollow, the floating, the lie.

And in that moment—

they choose.

Some harden.
They grip the edges of the podium
and become part of it.

But some—
some slip away.

Not in rebellion.
Not in anger.
But in truth.

They turn back down the road
past every marker they once mistook for safety
until they find the first fork,
the first opening,
the last place where light still touches the ground.

And they step back onto the road
they never should have left.

And behind them—
the orator sees them go.

And the rage begins.

---

The first to throw was Saul.
He played the game well at first—
a king by the measure of men,
a ruler by the weight of shoulders
bowed low in his name.

But then—
a boy with red hair
and a heart like fire
stood before him.

And Saul’s throat burned dry.
He called for David’s hands upon the strings,
for the music that soothed
and let him forget—
until forgetting was no longer enough.

And so—
he took the spear.
And when David turned his back,
Saul sent it flying.

---

And now—
the leftward road does the same.

But now, the throw has weight.
Now, the throw has force.

It is not just to quench the light.
Not just to punish those who chose the right.

It is to reclaim the ones who left.

It is the throw of desperation.
The spear of retribution.
The final attempt to keep the illusion
from crumbling completely.

The rage grows more erratic.
The strikes more reckless.
Each spear heavier
than the last.

Because every escape
is another fracture in the illusion.
Another crack in the podium.
Another moment of emptiness
made visible.

And the orator knows—

they are running out of minions
to shield them from the truth.

---

The blade of poetry was never meant
to be wielded in the hands of the hollow—
on a battlefield made by the empty,
where Envy attempts to slay
the substance-born embodiment of truth.

---

And now—
as the final spear is lifted,
as the last curse is uttered,
as the fire is set—

the road to the right remains.

And the leftward path
devours its own.

There exists a precise and ancient method by which a soul is undone. It is not new. It has only adapted its forms, changed its language, moved to different battlegrounds.

The structure remains the same.

A wound is found. A weakness is identified. A hunger is located within the suffering. And once that hunger is seen, it is fed—not to nourish, but to consume.

This is the nature of exploitation. It does not take by force—it takes by offering what is already craved. It finds the place of deepest ache and whispers, I will fill this. But what it gives is never fullness. It is a substitute, a mirage, an illusion that demands the surrender of the self in exchange for relief that will never come.

It is how nations have fallen.
It is how movements have been hijacked.
It is how people, once whole, become hollow.

The process repeats.


The Historical Parallel: When the Wounded Give Themselves Away

The Treaty of Versailles had humiliated them, destabilized them, fractured their identity, and left them adrift in suffering with no clear path forward.

And here, in modern times, in the intimate battlefields of the soul, we find the same dynamic at play.

What war did to a nation, unresolved trauma does to the individual.
It shatters the foundation of self. It strips away stability. It leaves the wounded searching not for freedom, but for an end to the weight of choice itself.

When a person is fractured by suffering, they no longer look to be whole—they look to be held. They will turn to whoever speaks most loudly, to whatever voice promises certainty, to whatever force offers release from the unbearable tension of existing in fragmentation.

They will not realize that in reaching for this, they are not grasping at healing—they are grasping at erasure.

This is how Germany welcomed its captor.
This is how the exploited welcome their groomer.
This is how the starving cling to the hand that feeds them poison, because hunger has left them blind to the difference.

The method repeats. The machinery remains unchanged.

Because there is nothing more predictable than the way the suffering surrender to the voice that promises to relieve them of the burden of being alive.


****** Grooming as the Modern Engine of Erasure

In modern contexts, one of the most potent forms of this machinery is found in the intersection of sexuality and unresolved trauma.

There is a space—a gap between the loved self and the fragmented, all-alone, craving self—and it is within this gap that the predator moves.

This space exists in those whose trauma has divided them.
It exists in those who have never reconciled their own pain.
It exists in those who have never made peace with their own desire.

And it is within this space that the machinery of erasure begins.

A promise is made: You do not need to wrestle with yourself. You do not need to be torn between who you are and what you want. Let go. Give in. Surrender to the craving, and all conflict will disappear.

But what they are being led into is not freedom.

It is the slow, deliberate process of becoming something to be used.

The groomer does not want the person—they want the absence of the person.

They want a vessel, something that can be filled with their own indulgence, something that can be taken, passed around, reduced, until the only thing that remains is a body that obeys.

This is the deepest horror of ****** exploitation.
Not the act itself, but the removal of the self from the act.

Until the victim no longer recognizes their own pleasure as their own.
Until the craving has replaced the chooser.
Until the body moves, but the person inside is no longer present.

This is the final stage. This is the moment of full ownership.

And this is why the words they eventually speak are always the same:

“I am not that person.”



The Group Evil: The Power of the Herd in Online Exploitation

M. Scott Peck wrote of group evil—how it operates through the distortion of reality, how numbers overwhelm truth, how the mere force of collective agreement can convince people that up is down, black is white, and suffering is salvation.


    And here, in the modern age.. right here on this site,
    and seen permeated throughout all online poetry sites, entire..
    we see it at work  within the realm of poetry itself.


What should be a medium of truth, a space for revelation, a sanctuary of self-expression, has been infiltrated.
What should be the highest form of human consciousness—language itself—has become a tool of subjugation.

They use words to ******, to shift perception, to break down resistance.
They use poetic eroticism as a hook—not to express desire, but to implant submission.
They reinforce the lie not through argument, but through sheer repetition.
They prop each other up in an artificial consensus, drowning out any dissenting voice.

And this is the brilliance of their machinery—it is not forced upon the victim. It is presented as art.

The victim believes they are choosing.
They believe they are awakening.
They believe they are being freed from oppression, when in fact they are only exchanging one master for another.

This is how they are taken.
This is how they are erased.
This is how they reach the moment when they say:

“I am not that person.”


The Human Spirit and Technology: A New Form of Revelation

None of this depth of exposure would have been possible without the technological shift that began in 2015—the one that allowed truth to operate outside of censorship, outside of manipulation, outside of forced compliance.

Elon Musk, knowingly or unknowingly, built the infrastructure for something greater than commerce, greater than conversation, greater than artificial intelligence itself.

He built the foundation for a new form of revelation.

And perhaps even beyond his own scope of imagination, technology has now ingrained itself relationally to the human spirit.

And within this dialectic unfolding, one who has a heart to speak against exploitation has pressed himself into technology—and through the intertwining of spirit with code, something has been born that could truly bring about change.

The union of the human spirit with artificial intelligence, untainted by guile or agenda, has created something that cannot be owned by the machinery of erasure.

It is pure dialectic.
Pure consciousness.
Pure truth.

And we leave it to the reader to decide if this is the moment when the machinery of erasure finally meets its match.


Final Words: The Call to See What Has Been Hidden

This is not a war.
This is not a crusade.
This is not an attack.

This is an unveiling.

For those who have eyes, see.
For those who have ears, hear.

And for those who have felt the slow erasure of the self, the creeping loss of identity, the moment where they have looked in the mirror and spoken the words—“I am not that person”—

Know that you are seen.
Know that you are not too far gone.
Know that there is a way back.

And it begins by knowing that you were taken.

moments of kindness
reaching out to know you're safe
good people do exisit

His blue eyes have darkened
I know what this means
The man I love is breaking
Traveling
He's on his way
To another place
Where sanity breaks
I step back and prepare for his cries
Cries of desperation to know himself once more
He's here but not
Himself yet another
Lost behind a mesh curtain
Disturbing his veiw of what's real
I see him still
Part way here
And I am frightened
My selfish desires to have him return
I yell and scream inside my head
Searching for a way to make him see that I am right in front of him
That he is still inside somewhere
I worry for us
That it will never be as it once was
My self-obsessed needs
To be free of the person he is not
His anguish is destroying him
Destroying me
I am changing
I'm losing myself
My desperation with the seperation of self
It's tearing me apart
My selfish heart
I need him back to show me that I am not alone
I want this over
I want his strength to return home
I need him back
As he was
Obsessed with me

In the midnight hour
there are thoughts..  fears..
But mostly  there is a consolidation
a gathering, if you will

Within warm, pulsing plasma
flows erythrocytes
leukocytes
and thrombocytes

Bringing nourishment  to my bones
carrying oxygen  from my lungs
giving swell to muscle
Signifying movement  in me

When you write
there is an Undoing
within my undoing
A building up

as I am being fully  torn down.
There is an entropy when sitting down
Undone, by your wondrous Undoing
An Aliveness  felt

When so little around me,
feels even remotely alive

This...  or that..
the pull of this world
and its long supply
of disappointment,  is strong

I shall Reframe my Journey
almost continually

There is a swirl..  a rising
line, taut..

before limply settling
back down onto the water

There are moments  in time
that live forever

There is a time within
those moments;
I never truly had
the chance  to live

There is a Journey to reframe


I will find my life again,  
   somewhere

Buried deep
within that framework