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ryn Oct 2014
Red
Strange malaise,
One I can't place.
Struggling of late.
Discomforting state.

Persistent lethargy.
Sloth-like and heavy.
Burning internals.
Frequent intervals.

No temperature.
No warning lever.
Don't know what's wrong.
Been rather long.

Medicine trough
Can't rid me this cough.
Expulsion so violent,
Incessantly recurrent.

Over a fortnight
This ailment I fight.
Still hasn't eased.
Can't be appeased.

Development is seen.
Now spitting green.
Not just all
That joined this brawl.

It's just the coughing.
No injury I'm suffering,
I haven't bled...

But I see red...
:(
Sit back. Relax. Take a breath. Take a minute. Take a hit. Take a drink. Take a sting. Take a shot. Take a line. Take a day. Take a time. Take a mental Picture. Take a pill. Take something you've always wanted. Sit back and chill..

Sit back, watch the ashes, their crumbling down.
Keep your head in the sky. Keep your feet on the ground.
Keep your buzz going. Don't ever come down.
Keep your face smiling and don't ever frown.
Keep the toxins flowing. Keep your head held high.
Keep your thoughts clear. Stop wondering why.
Keep your hopes up. Drink that whiskey and rye.
Keep moving yourself forward. Live life 'til you die.

Sit back, watch the ashes. They fall to the ground.
Take a listen to the birds, its a beautiful sound.
Take a minute, sit back, watch the world go around.
Take a look at the sky, so vast and profound.
Take a drag of your cigarette, and let yourself go.
Take notice of your freedom, and let the wind blow.
Take off your winter coat, go with the flow.
Take off your mask, let your true colors show.

Sit back, watch the ashes as they land on the earth.
Feel the rediscovery, and feel the rebirth.
Feel the wind on your fingertips, for what it is worth.
Feel the world, what it is, it's incredible girth.
Feel yourself drift away, feel the grass on your toes.
Feel the sun on your face, feel the wind as it blows.
Feel the love in this world, as it blooms, as it grows.
Feel the light on your soul, see the beauty it shows.

Sit back, watch the ashes, their coming, their due
Realize, though, that it's beautiful too.
Redo all of the things, that you love to do.
Remember there's people that truly love you.
Replay all of the memories that make you smile.
Revisit your best friends, and chill for a while.
Resign from your deviance, cunning, and guile.
Relax in recumbence, sit back, reconcile.

The ashes will soon, cover all of this land.
Theres nothing to stop it, no curing command.
Theres someone who loves you, so go hold their hand.
Theres a shortage of love in this world of demand.
Theres only one thought that comes into my mind.
Theres nothing new out there, theres nothing to find.
Theres everything I need, right here, am I blind?
Theres people who love me, people of my kind.

So the world can go ahead and crash down around me, I'll just look Away. I'll just take a look at the things I love.  I'll just take notice of the beautiful Day.
I'll just take another shot, I'll just sit in the beautiful green Grass. I'll just look up at the sky and let the ending pass.
I'll just be sitting with the people I love, and we'll be letting our true colors Show. We'll be feeling the grass on our toes, and letting the beautiful wind Blow.
Get ready to watch the rest of the world fall to pieces. To watch the ashes fall. Prepare for the Show.  But Don't worry...Just Sit back, relax, and let the last of that beautiful wind Blow.

____

Fall with me. Drop with me. Drop like the rain descending from the pregnant clouds overhead.  Fall like an avalanche, free and uncontrollable. Fall like the waterfall, endlessly powerful.  Fall with the world, but not in disgrace, we're falling like leaves into a beautiful place.  We're falling into eternity… discomforting but true. So enjoy the descent, it's the least you could do, for out of this fall comes a beautiful view...

Fall with the leaves. Fall peaceful and slow
Forget everything that you don't need to know
Form truces with enemies, befriend every foe
For now is the time to let everything go
Forbidden are thoughts of a peaceful demise
Forsaken, the image of peace in disguise
Forgive all the subtle and meaningless lies
Forego a renewal, re-open you're eyes

Fall with the Rain drops, now finally freed
This is the beginning of the end indeed
This peaceful decline may be just what we need
This fall from our old withered branches of greed
This pressure discharged… our old ways replaced
This wind now uplifting, this beauty embraced
This Government Tangle, this Empire, erased
This Is the End of the struggles we've faced

Fall with the Waterfall, Establish your voice
Pro-life… Pro-love… Pro-strength… Pro-choice
Protest your opinions, don't let them devoice
Progress now possible, so revel, rejoice
Provide the necessities, laughter and love
Produce something new, something unheard of
Proclaim your new freedom, and wake with the dove
Promise to fall with the rain from above.

Fall with the Avalanche, plush and severe
Don't let the ending take hold of your fear
Don't forget, there's people that still love you here
Don't let these people, your friends, disappear
Don't be afraid now…  The grass is still green
Don't take your eyes off the beautiful scene
Don't let your colors be shaded unclean
Don't let the distance grow vast in between

Fall with the ashes that cover this earth
Be Born Once Again, re-discover rebirth
Believe in true beauty, for what it is worth
Beware of this world, its incredible girth
Below you are roots from which you can grow
Beyond the Horizon is the end as we know
Belong To A Bigger Picture, go with the flow
Become something less…  Sit back… Watch the show.

Fall with the ashes, but not in disgrace. Finally we can escape from this place. The government gone, the Empires erased.  We can Fall with the raindrops, with beauty embraced.
Take off your masks, let your true colors Show. Let the sun shine bright, let the moonlight glow.  Revisit your best friends, Let yourselves go.
and let the very last of that beautiful wind blow…
Inspired by The Mars Volta
Encased in, tubular, too much too fast, written again with music in the background!
Screams now or be they babies?  Here it's more with talking, psychedelic naturally!
Complete the creativity contract stingy stars stealin' popcorn RIPS, and I can feel it coming to me.  Groaning, rhyming with the rather outer despite the order AND GO! Build up, build up who wants a build up? Pause.
Groove to me my Ukraine tartar! Make no sense, make it so hard you can't understand where it or was she GOING, go, go, go! Membrane skin saturate thy kin with separating spin so I can't ******' breathe! Correct my sins or be you scared to talk to pins though they your friends. The tack is in to lift paper from she and she can't see.  Are you a man or a mouse or anthropomorphic spouse of any of these fleeing an-i-mals?!  I find in the mirror myself and beer to drown the pain or discomforting disdain I can't quite get it right anymore therefore goodbye all truly universally bleeding.  I say goodbye to my past and won't come to grip with it!  GRIP your children's ears but it is you who doesn't want to hear.  You cover their eyes because of the size of daybreak rise!  Rise to the occasional borderline street sign between

Inspired by Tool
I will explode into the stars, become all of them, but all in sparkle of another's eye
I can't rip this mind any further, or else it'll break and snap and slow-mo crack
May, may, may, may you starve, breathe, sink, rise, steep, leap, creep into my parallel like a feeling
Demented in this way due to you, the closest I'll ever get
Five years, apparently not enough to forget
Five years, without you
Five years, and you still break into my dreams
Five years
caught off guard
by yet another downpour
unprepared again
he could shelter
from the torrent
tormenting
and tempestuous
beneath the hung branches
of this laden tree
overreaching
beyond its means
but he knows
it cannot keep him dry
for as long as
he might need
from bough to branch
to leaf and bud
down the back of his neck
through layer upon layer
soon sodden and soiled
those discomforting drips
will expose that
which he didn't want
exposed
Isabella H Sep 2012
Parting my subtle fingers, touching the silky,mellifluous hair

Slowly moving beneath,

Placing my hand beside ,

Drawn to your marvelous, profiled, sculpted, jawline

Teasing fore play and kisses,

Without wasting hesitation,

Removing fabrics swinging in rage across the room,

Bare back and body,

Temperature rising,

Top to bottom,

As you harden and drenched,

Your rugged , tempestuous hands,

Throwing a weak influenced temptation,

Into a lustful haze, spinning  

An imitation on repeat,

The heat intoxicating , inflaming the bonds between our desires,

Penetrating  our virginity,

Throbbing in and outwards,

Notion the anguish and agony ,

Discomforting in moving surfaces,

I plead within your name ,

Carelessly tugging and hanging onto your body,

Arms flung around your waist,

As you angrily demanded more from me,

Ordering  to continue on wards,

The obsession grew expectantly,

A new form of  infatuation,

Thrusting relentlessly,

Earsplitting moaning,

Sensual whispers,

Piercing marks ****** ,

Licked,

A Sign of ownership,

Smacking grip below,

Letting go uncontrollably,

Reaching  into the endearing ******,

Seizure,

Absolute Bliss.
Trevor Gates Apr 2013
VII.


Welcome to tonight's program

We have a fabulous show for you.

I'm sure you'll all find it enjoyable

You might even find it

Amusing

Sad

Pretentious

Obnoxious

Daring

Moving

Captiva­ting

Disgusting

Beautiful

Miraculous

Upsetting

Discomforting­

Disgraceful

Delicious

Seductive

Frightening

Disturbing

It could be all of these and maybe none at all
But what is it when you examine each emotion listed above?

Take each word and run it through your head

Imagine everything in your life that is associated with each particular word

The events in your life that were frightening
That were beautiful
That were delicious
That were seductive

And what emotions were felt behind the events of each memory?

Ah yes what were the stories you personally saw unfold?

The times well spent

The days you regret

The nights you couldn't forget

The people you forsaken

The lives you ruined

The love that was lost

The identity that was regained

Has your life turned out to be what you thought it would be?

Are you proud? Content? Disappointed?

Think of that one thing you could do again.

Have it clear in your mind

Now forget it

There is no point trying to imagine what could have been when you can change what will be.

   There is a life ahead of you.
Whether your 18 or 48

There is still life ahead of you.

Quit trying to mend the past.  The past is all in memory, pictures and writing.
The past isn't there waiting for you.  The only thing that opens its hands to you is the future.

A future where you fall in love
A future where you travel to where you've always wanted to go
A future where the human imagination lets you float above worlds and compose impossible music.

Be the artist that paints a beautiful picture
Be the composer that conducts a glorious symphony
Be the writer that creates a literary masterpiece
Be the one human that understands life be accepting the fruits of imaginative longevity.
Flourish in the bath of simple joys
Walk through the park and appreciate the wonderment
The wonderment of how a bird is so content with just being a bird
Why can't we be content with just being ourselves?
Is there some other choice?
Is there some other version of us somewhere? The true self?
The true self is there.

Right there

In front of you

In the mirror

In the pool of water

In the significant other

In the sky

In the oil pastels

In the five stanza poem

In you.

With you

Around you

Forever

Before and after

Once you're here and once you're gone.

The breath of life.  


  
Thank you all.
Please everyone take a bow.  Rejoice!
We'd like to thank:  Christian Bale, Tommy Tutone, The Cure, Lipton Tea, Museum curators, Mark Millar, Arthur C. Clarke, Keith David, Slowdive, Gregg Araki, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elizabeth Taylor, Scott Pilgrim, Leather trench coats, Irish tweed hats, Technicolor dream coats, Mufasa, Rebekah Del Rio, Bruce Lee, Terrance Malik, Penelope Cruz, Selma Blair, Chopin, Orbit gum, Vlad the Impaler, five layer burritos and finally Howard shore for making this all possible.

Goodnight and God bless!
brandychanning Nov 2023
the sol and solitude
scalpel~dissect layers of tissue,
marrows of nuclei separate,
the warming is discomforting

dismayed and dissuaded,
cannot be in two places,
either/or/or simultaneous,
my centerpiece is a-kilter

wavering and waving,
my balance is mis-weighted,
teetering and tottering, in a land
lightly and thickly discriminating

between bodies and disembodiment
I am neither
I am both,
therefore,
I am invisible
to eyes that are shut by
obstructions of
willful
blindness
Black eyes, blue heart, green hands, yellow soul
Girls in white dresses, who dip their face in blood
Bear themselves with a hellish grace.
Forked roads never lead to the correct destination
Following the angels of hell leads to nothing but the abyss
Gorging myself on beauty, I see the white sky
Flogging myself with duty, I see my heart go by
Burning myself with nothing, I stare into her eyes
And I feel like I'm dying, like I am death,
Like it's in me, like it is soaking through me
And I can't breath, or look away.
This is my life, and I have to live it. Even though everyday I'm handed a black rose.
I feel like I've been shot through the heart to many times to name.

They are times I feel like my life is repeating itself,
Things that make me sad,
Disgusted,
Keep happening,
In various ways,
Over again.
What am I to do?
It hurts my heart to think of you,
yet you're always right at the front of my mind,
right along with the discomforting thoughts.
What am I to do?
bleh Jan 2016
(not a poem i guess but eh)




Space keeps falling to the sides. I try to concentrate, - I mean, I make a token effort every now and again,- but concentration, fixation is always in terms of something external, something I'm not sure I can deal with.  I roll over and go back to sleep.



'Where's the flour?'
'Where you left it.'
'Which is where?'
'On the table. What you want it for anyway?'
'Which table?'
'Haha. The generic maple with the ugly-*** spandrels. What are you making?'
'You think we could afford that? Nah, it's like, faux-pine or some ****. And like muffins.'
'Oh good, there's banan's that need using up'
'No no, like, other muffins. Crumpets and such. Got any golden syrup?'
'I think there's some maple.'
'No, it's like, ply, I swear.'



I haven't moved in days. I need to. He'll come eventually and I don't want him to see me like this. Plus, I need to locate that smell. I can't have guests over with it here. I'm just not sure where it is though. I  feel like it's on my left arm when I’m in the middle of the room, but off to the right everywhere else. It's.. acerbic, but fermenting, like vegetables on the onset of rot but not quite there yet. Not that I know; I haven't moved in days. I don't want to smell it again. Also garlic, definitely garlic.



We visited the inland sea the other day. The hundred years since last time hadn't changed it one bit. The beached clay was brittle under the midday sun, and the cracking footsteps fragmented it into a hundred hexagons.
               'I hear a strain of the pathogen is airborne. It's only a matter of time now'
A group of tourists park up by the shore. A child holds out their arms and runs in small circles.



The corridor keeps flashing. And maybe spinning. It's hard to tell, the colour change starts at a different point each time and there's no discernible rhythm to it. You keep pacing up and down. I feel self conscious that you want to leave, but then again, you did show up unannounced. You shake the snowglobe disinterestedly. The fragments burn like molten static.
'Stop that. I feel like I’m vomiting spiders.'
'You're being dramatic.'
'None the less.'
'Don't worry; you'll get through it. The world is transitioning, and this is just motion sickness.'
'I know that, I didn't say I was worried, I said I wanted it to stop.'

'sorry'



We'd always go for a walk at night if we felt we needed to talk. It was an unwritten rule. The veil of amber filter let our more timid thoughts breath in the nebulous darkness. Stark daylight was always too suffocatingly real, and that was the one thing we were never allowed to be; real. You'd always talk superficially if we discussed personal matters. That day you did a one-third spin clockwise and faced my side, and talked grandeloquently, hammed up like on a stage. You gave an embarrassed smile and blew a kiss for the invisible audience. I always felt jealous of those nothings, those non-existent beings, that got to figure into your world.



'Christ it's warm today. I can't think.'
'so don't bother.'
I spin in the chair. Whooosh. Whooosh.



It's the end of a 6 hour shift. A customer, a mother in her odd thirties, was angry that a sale item was out of stock, like sale items always are: She'd only gone out of her way to shop at this store because of the advertised deal, and we had taken time out of her busy schedule under false pretence. Her child stared at the ground intensely, his eyes watering. I tried to imagine the situation through his eyes, to try and ground myself; to remain both present, but stable. She insisted on speaking to the manager. It's a relief really; He's a skeevy ****, but he at least knows when the customers are just there to start ****, and responds accordingly. He comes over, asks what the problem is. It turns out I entered the code wrong and the item was still available after all. He gets one from out the back, handles the transaction, says have a nice day and apologises for me and everything, and I just stand there blankly; I’d had the graveyard shift the night before and honestly I’m beyond feeling right now, but when she mutters 'dumb *****' as she turns away a tight feeling still twists in my gut anyway.
I come home and leave the door hanging open framed in the setting sun and just drop my bags in the hallway. You're in the kitchen, hunched over a workbench eating out of a mug.
'Whatcha having?'
'Cornflakes.'
'….Cornflakes?'
'Yep.' you pivot as I approach. 'corn..flakes.' you hold out the packet.
'coooornfllllakkkkkkkeeeessssss' I start laughing.
'coooornfllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakes'
we chorus the term in groaning monotone, and I grab the packet out your hand and throw it down and violently stomp it into the ground with every non-energy I have left. You just laugh and egg me on, repeating 'cornflakes! Cornflakes!' in crescendo, ostinato. The satisfaction of each crunch gives me the drive to smash them further, and corn dust spills out of the pulverised cardboard and gets everywhere. In the end I’m panting, my face is a mess of tears, and I collapse over onto it and just roll, bathing in the glorious fragments of reconstituted mulch.



'They say another ice age is coming.'
'They also say we'll be swallowed by the sun'
'well, it's true.'
'Yeah, but which'll happen first? I need to know to dress accordingly.'
'Tunnel's up ahead'
'I know, I see it.'
I deliberately swerve to the side and speed up, changing back at the last moment.
'You know I hate it when you do that.'
'What, don't you wanna die together with me? Here and now? Immortalised, as if our existences actually meant something?'
'like Diana and the nameless chauffeur?'
'******* exactly.'
We step out onto the hill, frozen **** tufts breaking underfoot. It's cold as hell but the skies glittering. You get out the telescope you borrowed off your rich *** sister.
'I think that's Jupiter over there.'
'Pfft, Jupiter.'
'What?'
'What's the blankest space you can find?'
'Hmm.. that way?'
You point it in that direction. 'Look'
I stare into it, but it's hard to keep focus while shaking from the cold. You keep adjusting and asking ,’See anything?', eventually some hazy distortion comes into view.
'See, no matter where you look, there's always something there.' You're trying to sound eloquent. 'Even when it seems like you're drowning in nothing.'
I stand back. 'That's terrifying. I feel sick.' I try to breathe but it's shaky and shallow. I stare into the ground, but I can still feel it; the blaze of the myriad innumerable heavens burn into me. Their judging gaze pierces through me and tears me to shreds.  



'You know, I think I read that Spinoza thought that consciousness is manifest in the ability of finite beings to continue persisting in and of their own will over time.'
'Doesn't that make a toaster more conscious than us?'
'Yeah, you don't say.'



We were twelve and at the department store. It was strange. I'd never taken the bus by myself to just hang out in town before. I always feel disorientated and light-headed in crowds so it had a strangeness; waves of apprehension cushioned by the homogeneity of it. one can be truly alone in a crowd; floating in a sea of otherness, where each gaze is no longer a signification of anything, but a warm static. We were among the aisles of a department store, in the toys and tacky house ornament section. Like, the junk you buy children and grandparents for their birthday. **** that you'd only attribute to people whom have no discernible qualities of their own. We were looking at snow globes. We kept trying to shake them violently enough so that the scene framed within would become entirely lost to the fog; it always felt so disappointing when clarity returned and things re-became what they were. I remember saying, 'I wonder if it tastes like real snow', I don't remember, It was stupid, I don't know why I said it, it sounded cool in my head. But you responded, that I remember, by taking the thing and smashing it against the concrete floor, and pouring out all the fragments into our hands. We tried them together and coughed and choked in laugher. It tasted awful, entirely unsurprisingly. On a rush you stuck one in your pocket, grabbed my hand, and we promptly left the store, and my heart was palpitating, it felt like all the rules, all the natural laws that had prefigured my world were crumbling, and I was terrified, trapped in the gaze of my mothers look of disappointment when we'd be inevitably caught, somehow watching me from its potential future, and I'd no longer be allowed to visit you but it was okay because I was here with you now in this moment and we were alone in this faceless mechanical place crumbling around us, and when we left, and no sirens buzzed, I felt sick with excitement at the unbounded possibility present in everything in every second. I cringe thinking back on it, and feel ashamed at finding such meaning, feeling such unabashed wholesale virtue in indiscriminate destruction, but sometimes, sometimes I still shake that snowglobe as hard as I can, till everything determinate is lost in haze, and I still feel a wave of comfort wash over me.



‘We’ve been walking for ages. you know where we’re going, right?’
‘It’s just up ahead. I swear’
‘You swear?’

‘I mean, I’ve only been there once before myself.’
‘****. This way?’
‘Wait-‘
‘What?’
‘Huh. Nothing. Sorry, I thought I heard a car coming.’


‘I think that’s the ocean?’
‘But.. aren’t we heading inland?’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah, I swear.’



We're in your room. Your reading on your bed and I'm in the swivelly chair by the desk, pretending to work, but really we're just chatting, talking about.. something. Whatever. It was probably stupid, laughing at our own jokes, as always, catchphrases repeated till they loose all meaning. It's been a long day and honestly we're both too tired for coherence by this point, but the lack of effort lends the air an easy comfortability. But then suddenly.. Suddenly you stare into my eyes as if you're looking at me and it's somehow different, an intense gaze that I can't escape, as if you somehow found something located there, something fixed in those abyssal pupils. The feeling is overwhelming and terrifying. I am grounded, ripped into the prison of being and frozen static like a dumb animal transfixed in headlights: I am outside myself facing in, and I’m falling away. I pull you in and kiss you to escape; now, it is your touch that is fixed, your smell, your taste, and I breath a sigh of reprieve. You hold my back as I fall into you. I lace my fingers through the buttons in your shirt and feel the faint pulse of your flickering heartbeat. At once an ever-changing epiphenomena, and a calming rhythmic certainty. I vacantly tug at the buttons and your expression changes, gone is the feeling of suffocating questioning, but one of transfixed observation. Your touch is not a reaching out into something, but a continuation of yourself; I am an instrument of your lust, an extension. Holding me in your arm, you nervously run your hand down from my nape and trace my bra from the strap over the line of my breast. The lightness of your touch is a painful tickling and I push myself into you further, my thighs wrapping around yours. Your touch shoots a burning into me, not painful, but like glowing kindling, or the warmth of a blanket; an immanence, a retreat. I let my mind go blank and we continue; you fumble with my bra as I fumble with your belt. We're both shaking but too far gone to notice, too distant to care. The dry freeze of the night air contrasts your damp heat. You clasp me as you trace your hand under my skirt and I feel your arm brush my thigh. I tremble slightly at the sharp coldness of the damp cotton coming unstuck. After a stretching moment of awkward liminality, I feel you pass into me. It's a burning smoothness, distilled liquor. The rubber is an alien feeling, and for some reason I imagine myself as a giant balloon; a malleable featureless surface, filled with emptiness. I feel myself through the threshold of your presence and I am afraid; I am a boundary which encompasses nothing, and by your passing through I fear that I will be pierced; I will burst and out will flow an obsidian wind that will wither you to nothing, but it will keep coming, an endless torrent that will subsume the world and turn everything to desert, and the only way to save you is to keep it bound up as tight as I possibly can till my heart feels like burning metal, and I feel my tears land on my hand tightly clasping your shoulder. You ask through wavering breaths if I want to stop, but I shake my head; if you left now I would be caught and torn open; no, instead I subsume your undulations into myself; till the rhythm is as oceanic noise; a surface rolling located miles above a lightless motionless centre.



The pale green lamplight flickers. A nausea, tepid, but understated. The sentience of moss; an almost motionless drone, but the sense of unfolding. The corridor seems larger than it once was. Blank reflections harrowing accusations, mechanically indifferent but piercing; an alarm clocks wail. I lie still, I lie still. The buzzing repeats. I lie still. I am flowing, seeping through floorboards into the pores of the earth, into colonies of worms and I am lost and free, a motion, a multiplicity, pure form without the anxious drudgery of parts; pure alimentary canal, pure Elysium absolution. The flickering quickens and gets brighter. A pulsating light, a strobe, a beat frequency wavering behind vision. The liquid earth, saturated by light, hardens and dissolves. And 'I' am lost among the ruins, a vague memory of a sentiment. A nostalgic grief, an asphyxiated longing. I reach out to you desperately in the drag of the undertow, but you are the chalk of faded bones; cast to the winds centuries prior. A thousand years pass of blanket darkness, and a unitary bell rings. The flotsam batters against the temple gates. Debris collects in cracks, and my pieces are among them. I cling to retention, and return. I am cold sweat outlining the floorboards, the feeling of clenching before vomiting, repeated endlessly.



A few weeks after, turning off an avenue onto the main road, I see you. You're crossing, coming this way. It was bound to happen eventually. I bite back the moisture forming in my eyes and try to remain faceless. You suddenly change your trajectory, and hit the side of a car. It honks at you and you dodge around it. I allow a bitter smile to myself; the fact I can cause you such disorientating discomfit indicates I still mean something to you. Even if it's just a discomforting anxiousness, something beyond the boundary to be avoided, I have causal powers, extension; I can see my flicker of presence in you even now, even if I cannot for the life of me find it within myself. You run around and I walk straight. It's empowering; I can remain fixed, even if the torrent of the world flows around me. At that moment, I feel the indubitable strength to persevere. I am stronger than this world; I am stronger than you. But then, just as suddenly, the feeling folds upon itself and is gone. I felt solidified, just now, by the fact that I was the one that remained in this random encounter. I won, you lost. but Won how? With the ability to pretend that I can exist alone, in a world that means nothing to me? The ability to maintain a solid spectral façade, when underneath, scratching away under the skin, I contain nothing? To continue terrifies me. Knowing that I have the strength to continue terrifies me. That last thing I ever intended was to outlive you. I feel the world drain away from me, and yet I remain, left standing, alone, in a of realm of perpetual nothing.  



I feel sick

a hundred years pass in the cavity of the desert. Merchants make trade off raided materials and makeshift weapons. A library is burned. A soldier, wanders freely. An insect buzzes around his face. He darts about the place in annoyance, but it remains. He can't shake it. He closes his eyes. It's still there

I feel sick

the sun burns bright arrhythmic  clicking.  A late twenties couple go clothes shopping, however the child is hungry and will have none of it. Lunch is suggested. They are jocular about the decision, but feel an uneasiness about the indulgence. The air is saturated and dries
Poetic justice, I suppose.
She imposed a thought within me, a repetition,
A groove upon which this melody plays,
A soft saxophone timbre eskimo kissing with the cochlea lashes.

Every face passing in alleys and sidewalks is a puzzle box shifting,
Incoherent until its cubes turn into her face again.
The city within me says she is anew, and this cube does not shift to the same old solution,
But the earth in my soul sprouts vines beneath its bustling feet, and the vines twist into her visage.

My words are phantoms, and I speak them to the newest beautiful stranger,
Each stranger more beautiful than the last, more comforting and satisfying,
But the nucleus of those scattered electrons, those uncertain ghosts finished by a period,
Is the tattoo upon my recollection, my favorite neon puzzle box.

I wait in the ambiguous, discomforting silence for a day she will be solved.
Moriah Harrod Aug 2012
In her shadow you hid and bade your time, all the while looking like something she could love.
Yet she only saw you in the dark, playing the part of something she could love.
The day she found a flashlight and struck your moths askew was the day she sent you spiraling to the ground.
Do you know, oh do you know, what you did to her?

Now you jump from window to window, seeking the shelter of the darkness when she blinks.
You’re scared of imperfection in her thoughts, yet tomorrow you’ll see you’re as imperfect as it gets.
You tricked her into thinking you could help her with it all and she saw.
She sent you scurrying back to the shadows to dissolve calm widows there.

But she’s scared you’ll worm your way back to her brain-- you’re already planting seeds of relapse there.
So she swore to someone more faithful than you that what you are will not infect her brain anymore.
She was tolerant, let you bend her backbone, now she’s rigid, standing straight as stone.
She isn’t breaking and won’t bend for you anymore.

This someone she swore on everything to will do what it takes to make sure you’re gone.
So stay away, we don’t need your discomforting stare ruining our dreams anymore.
murf Feb 2016
Oh! A spark!
Better let the wind blow
Better not let this THING glow

For once it glows
It glows for a while
Slowly,
It gets difficult to survive
Who's choking who?
Nobody knows!
Killing it equally,
Faster then we built

It's like the cold steel now
Discomforting to touch,
Unbearable to handle.
Now, in the dark,
How do we light the candle?

Oh! A spark!
Better not let the wind blow
Better let this THING glow
Red Bergan Apr 2015
The darker your eyes glow,
The more of the second you; you show.

A mask to hide the beast,
Ugly and mean.
Defined by those slaughtered,
By its talons.

A fierce darkness,
Blinded by only rage.
Discomforting agony,
To one so caged.

Those who look upon thy beast,
Exeunt!
External bleeding can occur.
If you anger the darkness.

A fierce creature,
Blinded by rage.
Become one with the fallen,
The fallen inside its cage.
Timothy Brown Apr 2013
12
6+6
7+5
8+4
9+3
10+2
11+1
12

Seems simple enough.
Reality was like a *****
film. Beaten and touched
by the sins of a woman corrupt.

Too poor to play.
Mom was getting high,
so I joined a play
to stay away
from the fists and verbal abuse of the day.
No lunch money.
Mom was getting high,
So I left for school at 6 A
M. Yes Ma'am, I was dropped off I would lie
everyday.
No, Sir, It's ok I already ate" I would lie
everyday
Tim, wanna come over and play?
*No I have to go home and get slapped and and screamed at when my mom isn't screaming some strange man's name...I mean...I have homework to do."

Straight F's. Never attempted a page.
Too busy learning what goes well with sage
And how to calm my rage
The singe of my skin let my emotions disengage.

Every time the levees were going to break
Just crawl into my hiding place
Heat up a paper clip
and all that was inside would slake.

10 years later I am covered in scars
Hundreds, head to toe, all over my fleshy bars.

They are much more difficult to see.
However they are still embarrassing
Thus the long sleeves and I always wear jeans
irregardless of how hot or discomforting.

One day I want new scars, head to toe
tattoos to tell a new story.
of how I escaped the blues
I never really did but it sounds nice.
WBC Day 4. I know this isn't my usual style but I had to just do. Somethings you have to let out.

The writing prompt for this piece was: You’re at work and you print something personal (and sensitive). Unfortunately, you’ve sent it to the wrong printer and, by the time you realize it, somebody else has already scooped it up.

© April 28th, 2013 by Timothy Brown. All rights reserved
SELORM DEKU Feb 2015
This poem is not a poem
This poem may be meaningless,
Weightless yet worth reading
This poem lacks vocabulary
It holds nothing unique of poetic essence.
But carries simple words of a message
A message that seeks a place to land
Traveling within the walls of a heart.
Imprisoned, Ignored, Tortured.
Violently cracking the bricks of its cage
A message fighting for its own freedom
Seeking a break through.
A message desirous of overcoming solitary confinement
The message wants to meet others.
But others seem to have no message for this message.
This message refuses to quit fighting to escape the ******* of a home in one heart.
It hopes to locate its friend in another heart.
Futile journeys this message have walked.This night the message is discomforting.
It fights with vigour for escape.
I was up late on my bed
The same bed that puts me to sleep
The bed that invites me to rest
The bed that convinces me to forget unfinished task and rest
The bed with the magic to infect with the virus of forgetfulness for a moment
Is the same bed making me remember the message’s violence
Dreaming wild dreams and thinking wild thoughts
Opened-eye dreams
Plenty dreams
All about one figure.
When will be sleep time?
Having communion in my mind with you
I see you close though you are afar off.
In my heart I hear a voice singing your name.
The song wasn’t harmoniously great but lyrically strong.
The lyrics of the song preach truth.
It says I love you.
I fight against the thoughts with all strength
I knew I would lose the fight.
Nothing in my hands I bring.
Simply to your heart I come
Holding love in my heart.
Love looking for a place in your love
It’s homeless love
Homeless yet not hopeless
Hopeful for a place in your heart.
At your heart’s door I keep sounding the same words of old
I love you.
http://selormcharles.blogspot.com/
Dedicated to the lady I admire secretly

SPECIAL THANKS TO:
1. RICHARD RYE YAO BAKU
2. ABIGAIL FORSON ALISON
Pallavi Goswami Jul 2016
Broken relationships unlike broken bones
don't make noise when they crack,
neither do they shriek out of an unbearable pain.
Their sequence of suffering is different,
beginning at heart with
a discomforting pain at the edges,
moving towards its center and strangle,
spilling the torment from eyes


Broken relationships unlike broken bones
cannot be healed with a plaster cast
or feel better if put to rest.
Though, they unknowingly do repose-
anticipate healing,
which is only a woeful void,
filling back with stronger protests
and irrevocable agony .

But once broken,they all are same
splintered and dejected,
desperate to gather but feeble
seeking refuge in the days of healing.

And once repaired, they are no different,
cracks heal but scars remain,
like trophies screaming the struggle.
Forgotten pain stays nestled in disguised hidings,
longing to come back with a slightest wrench.


Be careful!

-Pallavi
Spencer Smith May 2018
I speak my mind,
And I'm rewarded with blank stares.
"You're too young to not feel fine!"
Yet I wake up every day to despair.

I feel my hands trembling.
I see their confusion.
They aren't understanding.
They yell at me to come back in unison.

I'm only Thirteen,
And I feel as if I have the weight of the world,
Weighing down on me.
Suffocating me, blocking out all my words.

I write with my blood,
I've watched my arms be drained,
They see my cuts,
And ask me how it happened.

They think I'm too young to feel pain,
But I have it in Spades.
I can't tell them how it happened, so I run into the rain,
Panting, exhausted, and lost, just looking for somewhere to stay.

They don't understand,
Your just a kid,
Are you mad?
Just because I'm young doesn't stop pain from digging a pit for me.

I crawl into the pit every time,
Knowing it's the only peace I'll ever have,
Even if it is discomforting.
They see me suffer in silence, with a confused look, they'll never understand such a young soul to be tormented like this.
Nat Lipstadt Aug 5
~a unconscious commissioned poem~

<>

La Lumière est une Dame d'honneur

advantage Frenchies,
everything sounds
better in their language,
we readily concede

we make do
with those tongues
whose fluidity
clothes & coats,
those,  we are
best at
confessing in

first light this morning
was emasculated, in thickened
first fog, eerie, discomforting,
but yet, mine alone to utilize,
and make discomfiture into
a poem of coffee and cream,
stirring within, colored dreams

Lady Light finally arrives,
descending on a staircase
from heaven, radiating all
with patience, the animals
all, proclaiming in a thousand
tongues, their thanks, their
love, for everything breathing
understand best she is the source
of creation, reanimation, and a
sharing, unsparing, birth mother
to animate and inanimate, and
the death father to all we & us,
guide to our ultimate end

the waiting is most interesting,
for indeed, there is honor within,
as I compose, the sunrises to the
precise angle to bar my vision,
power to blind and enlighten,
how can this be, but it is so,
my bones warmed, suggest I
do not complain, accepting with
no exception for this is the power
source to us all, and humility is
the key to acceptance & understanding

is this poem, is this the missive,
me~my, intended, to write,
know not,
for the words leech from my skin,
in format uncolored, uncontrolled
by mine minuscule impoverished
compost of senses, morals and my
compote of cells that are products
of a thousand prior generations

morphed into a mess of me,
as of yet, purpose hidden,
undisclosed, perhaps my
reasoning is unseasoned,
my presumption of purpose,
is just a fool’s ridiculousness

Lady Light smiles kindly on my
rambunctious ilreasoning,
for I just one of billions come,
gone, and rebirthed in chains
of endless possibilities, two
words permanently paired,
conjoined, and though the
light has now risen to heights
to totally absolve my sight,
can no longer track what
is being written, accepting my
temporally blindness with grace,
even with solace, and-bid you
adieu, adieu, (bye~bye)
so musically,
until relief will
honor me with its presents…

and I can contemplate my
foolishness once more…
and the letting…
of the
Lady’s light
of
honor illuminating
(even me)


<>
commissioned by Pradip

7:35 am
in the sunroom where
the intersection of all light
illuminates all kinds

<>

music:
To Try for the Sun, Song by Donovan
Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In by Fifth Dimesion
8/5/2024
Sum It Jan 2014
The horizon deemed to turn black from blue pleaded with its faith by disposing all its secret in orange hue and cry. Aghast by the spectacle, I felt very discomforting breeze trying to peek inside me. Should I let it?
No! i felt involuntary resistance build inside me.The stare of the imploring horizon filled my sentiments with gush of paranoia. I closed my eyes, right then and there. As I opened my eyes slowly after saturation of my daunting breath, I was surrounded by black despair. And the moon still shined with its borrowed light just to display its caged dark hare. There were no stars that day, I  pulled them down to makes uncountable amount of wishes.

What faith decreed for horizon have been my own reflection.
kale Mar 2021
My father always ate with the large fork.
that fork is discomforting for my small hands,
but it perfectly fits his rugged hands.

My mother and I always ate with the small forks.
Our hands were small, delicate.
But it perfectly fits our tender hands.

The utensils were always separated,
little cupboards and drawers,
although all the forks went to the same drawer.

As I set the table for tonight’s meal,
there was no small fork left for me.
Awkwardly, I ate in stillness with the large fork.
In this miniature, blank, dwelling.
lol
Andrew Shoemaker Feb 2014
Melting in time,
    Frozen in an image.
      Devastated by my own disposition,
               Dying.
I have seen my soul melt in my own,
             in my own.
    with Concrete bones, It Suffers.
        I comfort myself,
                discomforting others.
    Parasites exist.
     They have never existed.
       I put them In me,
      They have Never existed.
This was written years ago.
Canaan Massie Dec 2012
When I envision pain,
I do not see myself nor my past.
I see white walls,
Strange people,
And odd, complicated machines.
I see a flash of red,
A pool of purple,
And a poisonous green.
My pain is not mine.
Your pain is mine.

It kills me to see,
That you and I are the same,
Yet you went through so much more,
And I, nothing.
Yet, there you are.
"Fixed,"
And I still malfunctioning from time to time,
With no socket wrench or duct tape in sight.
I still see the flashes from time to time.
Not the red or purple or green.
But the flashes of my old self.
The me that comes out when I'm not with you.
And it's weird that today,
Was the first time I've ever seen these,
When I was with you.
It was discomforting.
To know that you're not completely steel.
That I can still be reached.
To know I'm still broken,
Even with my force field to protect me,
And my super glue to keep me together.

I pray that I never again,
Have to endure your pain.
To see those white walls,
To hear your muffled voice on the phone.
To know that you are a stranger,
Yet less strange than your surroundings.
To know that I will not see you,
For at least a week,
And be completely helpless about it.

I changed my mind.
And my prayers.
I pray that I can endure,
Every bit of your pain,
So that you don't have to.
I pray that I remind myself everyday,
Of that flash of red,
That pool of purple,
And that poisonous green.
So that I can learn to forget to feel the pain,
And simply endure.
I can't figure out how to say what I want to say. But this is what came out.
Bus Poet Stop Jun 2015
a lumpy bumpy proletariat hardness has harnessed, hitched and stitched itself into my abdomen.

with the precision measuring instrument, Eye calculate with my fingers its latitude and longitude, using my belly button (half insy, half outsy) as a reference point.

a few days after Eye quite accidentally encountered said lump (for Eye am not in the habit generally of belly rubbing), a slight discomforting sensation joined in to make sure I was never not going to forget it's
invasive presence.

soon Eye shall do a doctor's visitation, who will ummm and hmmm, before sending me downward and inward to a
"S p e c i a l i s t."

I am sorta quite pleased with new adventure,for it encourages fantasy in the most heart wrenching, delicioso tragic manner.

Then along comes the Sunday NY Times, in a piece entitled "Imagining the Lives of Others" just how difficult it is for someone to truly put themselves in the shoes of someone else.

"There are certain limits, however, to how far we can go. The philosopher Laurie Paul, in her book “Transformative Experience,” argues that it’s impossible to actually imagine what it would be like to have certain deeply significant experiences, such as becoming a parent, changing your religion or fighting a war. The same lack of access applies to our understanding of others. If I can’t know what it would be like for me to fight in a war, how can I expect to understand what it was like for someone else to have fought in a war? If I can’t understand what it would be like to become poor, how can I know what it’s like for someone else to be poor?"

The solution?

"One approach is to go ahead and actually have the experience."

ahh. So I shall, until the certainty of unobtainable uncertainty is formally declared, the mind is free to roam about the cabin of life, imagining various and vainglorious dramatic outcomes.

More strange, if it is the worst, I shall be happily relieved by the knowledge that I can plan around a certain mental scheme...what a gift that is, knowing how to allocate a scarce resource well.

Eye will stop here, until mine eyes can see this clearer; here, until the
*bus stops for the poet...
or the poet's bus stops...
lovely Nov 2014
Your entire existence is a storm.
You don't just walk into a room casually,
No, your every footstep thunders, I can distinctly tell yours apart from others as you carry yourself with the most confident stride.
When you speak, its like you're starting a spark in me, a wild fire that seems to only be caused by the most delicate strand of powerful lightning.
A day with out your presence is discomforting, its like that saying "rain on my parade."
I need you.
Francie Lynch Jan 2017
Daddy held me in his arms
Once, when I was five;
He wasn't one to embrace,
To clap and say well-done.

To hear him speak two words
Was volumes from someone
Who tsked and rolled,
But never scolded
His daughters and his sons.

In his hold, so foreign,
He made his assumption,
That I was content to be held,
Though squirming for the ground.

For me it wasn't soothing,
He never was inviting,
His demeanor so discomforting,
He never did it again;
Not that I could tell;
And yet the security
Never diminished
From arms that once held me.
Allania Berkey Jun 2016
It was a beautiful, and warm Monday afternoon.
Physically, the world felt in place
The sphere around her bore in serenity and tranquility
Except her mind.

She laid her body carelessly in a bed of a thousand lilacs,
Dawdled by thoughts
She was unready to explore her surroundings
But the world craved her undying attention
Unfocused, discomforted, content
The wind fleeted swiftly through her hair,
While the lilacs obscured her of pollen

She could hear everything, but simultaneously, nothing at all.
Too much or too little, it never seemed to be enough.
Just as she laid her head back on to the bed of lilacs
The wind danced in ******, tempting heed of her

It was a charming afternoon
Most would say,
But her mind danced along the brass of the wind,
rather than attending in curiosity  

Once again she laid her body back onto the bed of lilacs
Trying to comfort her discomforting thoughts
Finally
It was quite and her mind now felt at ease

Carefully, she listened to the wind
She didn’t miss a beat
The rhythm felt smooth—natural
Chills struck down her spin as the wind tackled through her tangled hair
Ironically, she felt at peace

A sudden shadow casted above her undistributed body
The lilacs comforted her in a way that her bed could not
The wind started to silence itself
Composure diminished from the realm of her thoughts

Quietly, she listened to the raspy and familiar voice that would not stop humming
In a chuckle he asked, “why are you laying in a bed of flowers?”
He didn’t even notice that they were lilacs
Flustered by his sudden appearance, she opened her eyes and realized that it was time to leave the garden
She stared at him for a moment before she actually responded
With a slight nervous laugh, she responded honestly “I don’t really know.”
Dazed and confused, she gathered her strength to stand up “It’s been a while...”
But before she could even finish her sentence,
The brassy wind started to chime
“Want to go grab some coffee?” he nervously said.
Michael Humbert Mar 2015
I've stopped trying to see the logic in any of this
What logic is there in looping a reel of moments so devastating I have to literally shake my head
(As if the attempt at giving myself a mild concussion will rid me of your visage?)

I can't escape. My only solace is between another's legs.
My longing for your skin is matched only by my desire to **** something beautiful just to get you out of my head.
Is it wrong that I feel this disequilibrium otherwise?
Something just feels constantly off.
I can feel it in my bones
Like a storm you anticipate
But all you sense is discomforting quiet

I was never the sort to waste energy on hopeless things, until I became one,
Until I realized that I no longer remember feeling satisfied on my own

I'm a prisoner in my own head
A hostage to a heart run amok
And I just wish I knew
How to break free
olajide ojedokun Aug 2015
Elections have come and gone
And we've all said baba
Praying within the confines of our heart that we've not enthroned another usurper
Hoping that joy and comfort will not once more elude our grasp
Our taste bud has long been wetted by empty reforms and unfulfilled promises
By the politivians, judisharers and the legislooters Parading the runway of power
Displaying their naivity in running a nation in a manner so amazing and discomforting
It makes the thought of paradise less appealing
But now
The rulers are leaving the scene for the leaders to come in
And the people are getting more conscious of the power we wield in unity
We've gathered our brooms and we've entrusted it in your hands
Believing that you'll lay the foundation of a better nation
Baba now that you are there
Let the focus on the food we eat be more important than that our vehicles consume
Baba now that you're there
Let the national cake be the lot of every citizen and not selected elites locking around the corridors of power
Baba now that you're there
Let me be proud to die for my country
Without being fearful of how my family will survive
Baba now that you're there
Let me be able to display my identity in another land without fear of interrogation or prejudice
Baba now that you're there
Let progress, excellence and success be the right of every citizen regardless of their tribe, religion or background
Baba now that you're there
Let there be change.
#change #Nigeria
Poetic T Jun 2014
Blue angels surround us,
To take away the pain.
Help always given to those in need
The poorly never turned away.

We lie in beds silence surrounds,
Voices spoken quietly,
Not to wake others around.

Wheels heard in the distance,
Clanging around,
Anticipation from the hungry,
As food is distributed out.

Those not on solids,
Mushroom soup,
orange juice given out.

Relief given to ease those in pain,
Soothing the aches of whom had surgery,
To numb any discomforting pain.

Blue angels walk the halls,
Just a touch of a button away,
They do there jobs professionally,
Looking after those who are in there care.

For those lying in there beds,
The nurses are there blue angels
They walk around their ward,
Because they really do care.
smallhands Sep 2016
why don't you just stay awhile?
the mundane will go by faster with you
yeah, we forget good won't majority-trump all
save just you and I
didn't we have this conversation before?
that is why de ja vu has been gnawing at me-
it really is discomforting
nevermind that, just stay awhile
help **** time while holding my hand

-c.j.
xy Mar 2018
A sensation to which nothing can compare,
Rebel like behaviour lightens life up like a flare.
Little things which bring us solace during any crisis,
Little things that ruin us, these are all of our vices.

At the end a cigarette burns my finger tips,
And this is when my heart truly skips.
My escape is over, feels as though in a trice,
Discomforting to think we fell in love with our vice.
Anthony Sep 2019
As assured as the setting of the sun
and the ascension of Luna on high.
They return like hyenas of the savanna,
their malicious voices chittering and tittering.
Venomous with each inflection of their tongues,
squealing in impish delight as their words seep through.
Discomforting the soft covers draped over my exhausted form.
They are a primordial presence.
I know them all too well.
These treacherous phantoms of the past.
Old memories arisen back from the watery depths of consciousness,
brought forth to assail this aggrieved mind of mine
and drown me in the deluge of grief and sorrow.
Not unlike a vessel amidst the raging tempest of the sea,
I must bear this unwanted squall and wait out the storm.
Uttering only this silent hymn borne upon my heart.
Grant me silence.
Oh grant me peace.
Dispel this dirge they have woven
and so grant me
sleep.
july hearne Aug 2021
he was the kind of guy who would have willfully participated
in the ****** of Sylvia Likens, and very much have enjoyed the interaction with the rest of the gang while doing so.

he is still that kind of guy,
just a lot older now
too good for most things
and all the women who now hate him
for all the discomforting memories he had left them with.

his mom had been a nurse
and now his sister was too
perhaps whatever woman he was with was too,

his mother loved him, how could she not,
she had been a nurse,
so he was absolutely sure that masks, social distancing, and mandated vaccines were how it should be.
anyone who didn't know these things was too embarrassing for him.
his mom told him so.

at the age of 44, he still had the exact same job he had had for the past twenty years. he was too good to do anything else other than making deliveries to restaurants, which were all requiring vaccine passports for dine in and perhaps soon delivery.

most of him felt very important
every time he unloaded his delivery van
or posted on twitter or instagram

or wrote about how many of those woman had deeply loved him
even though they were not worthy of his importance
and could never be

he was too desirable for them
and they needed to learn that
so he had taken the time to teach them that
long ago, they needed to learn
so he had taken the time to teach them that
if they had been worth remembering, he would still find a way to continue teaching them that.

life had been good lately, he made $95 CAD
on a baseball card trade, he was a good person
who had a lot to offer the world and only deserved
the most smoking hot of non-throwaway women
when there were so many throwaway women who needed to learn

he knew what all the good music and writing was
and knew when something wasn't worth listening to or worth reading, jack ketchum's **** was certainly no good, he knew it,
all the fun girls knew it too,
he knew a lot, so he taught.

he was a good person with a good life and smart with his baseball card investment strategies, he didn't need an undesirable life
he had good advice to give to baseball, football, hockey, and soccer leagues
it was easy to make all these excellent observations

as a good person,
he reached over for his smokin hot queenshit
earlier this very night,
kissed the nape of queenshit's sweet, whip-smart neck
and fondled queenshit's girl ****

while listening to the queen's vaccinated breathing
tomorrow he would make a youtube playlist for queenshit
that included drunken one off's he had recorded with his band 15 years ago
then, one of them would make an interesting, important dinner
they would both eat and talk about.
*David Bowie - 'Tis a Pity She Was a ***** [Audio]
martin challis Oct 2014
In this room at four a.m. where the universe sometimes meets, I cram some thinking time into the stillness that does not occur at any other part of the day. A wall clock scratchily taps its one-tone metronome in a time signature discomforting to noisy thinkers.

My quiet contemplation is possessed with a version of unkindness, arising out of unsteady dreams. In the most recent frame; invading forces stay out of sight to threaten as the unknown enemy. We burn candles for those who plead the safety of our dwelling. But suspicion becomes our ally and neighbours are offered no solace.

I notice a small moth as it circles a candle avidly craving the feast of light. I think of those who have struggled with a near-death experience. I’m told the dying enter a beautiful light when called to begin passage from this world to the next. Does the small moth feel the same sense of awe as it prepares to feed the candle?

The lifeless screens of television and computer, (sometimes channeling the universe into this quiet room) hold their square black mouths agape, but offer nothing more than mute obedience. The only living pixel in this room is worshipped by the fervent wing of a moth: and is unaware of being a metaphor.

I hear at distance, the first bus for the morning passing by, it is mostly empty of the silent ones it will carry later in the day. I wonder how many of today’s travellers will have been awake at this time, pondering fate and future in the shelter of an urban meditation.

The early hours of the morning, I’m told, are when most passengers depart for the next world as they sip or gasp a last breath.

Slipping by and above me, some adventurous souls are carried by a hot-air balloon: the rushing light and sound of the gas-flame is a jet of life which heats and sustains the commercial moon as it drifts by in close orbit. The balloon then changes metaphor and mimics sunrise.

Perhaps moth and balloon and empty screens are pre-cursors for all that is to come today: all that is furtive, all that is futile, all that pretends omniscience, all that is agape, all that is sufficient for those of us who assume we will live on and on and on. And for those of us who repeat each day secure, content and satisfied: completely taken by all the fuss and noise of living for successfulness.


MChallis 2005/2014
JM Jan 2016
Dear Campbell,
. . .
Watching a family member waste away is a horrifying experience.
Knowing that I could do little to help my little brother was almost as crippling as watching the same young man strike our mother.
Knowing that I would be subjected to the same treatment was also discomforting.
Having people tell me all the horrible things he had done was never comforting.
Watching my car window shatter due to a fist and a family dispute made me realize that things were getting out of hand.
Looking up to talk to my own brother was as odd as speaking formally to a new born.
But the worst thing that I ever did was nothing.

I'm sorry Campbell, I feel as though I failed you as an older brother, I was both intimidated by your size and scared of my own brother rejecting my advice that would have been provided only for your betterment. I know that I am a failure in most facets of life but it pains me most to know that I could never set an good example. You excelled in all the sports that we played together and were always better at enchanting the hearts of young girls. I just wish I had a way to go back and do things right. I wish I could do something to help you, because in reality all I did was encourage you with every ride to a trap and in all my participation of your antics. This is mostly an apology that you will never see because you are locked away in a rehab. You seem to be getting better. I hope you do not revert to your old ways when you get out, I hope you don't run with the same crew of kids and get caught up in the same illegal activities.
I'm sorry that I wasn't good enough for you.
It seems like I'm not good enough for anyone.
But if you ever need help in any way, shape or form know that I will be only a call away.

Love,
Your brother

— The End —