Funny little thing is she,
She laughs at lightning in the storm.
And what most would see as torture,
She inflicts with pride and is not scared.
Her skin is sharp like broken glass,
And through her lover’s skin she tore.

Through her safest home she tore.
Stupid little girl is she.
They try to mend her broken glass
But the edges cause destruction of a storm.
Please don’t run, don’t be scared,
Don’t be a part of her torture.

Running love is her only torture,
Not pain that through her heart tore.
Distance leaves her crying scared,
Unable to control the fear in her.
Maybe she is the rain in the storm,
Shattering passing window glass.

Maybe she doesn’t mind the glass,
She doesn’t think this is torture.
And maybe it’s not a storm,
But a hurricane she tore
Out of her skin. She
Is no longer scared.

The distance does not make her scared.
Her skin is no longer broken glass.
Alive little girl is she.
Nothing more will be her torture.
She doesn’t need the lover she tore.
No longer does she hide from the storm.

Not sunny skies, but no more storm.
Not yet calm, but at least not scared.
Not yet healed, but not torn.
Maybe cracked, but not broken glass.
Some discomfort, but it doesn’t feel like torture.
Strong little girl is she.

Screaming insanely she tore herself out of this storm.
No one will say “she’s gonna lose it”. Because she somehow she is not scared.
It’s a mystery how she fixed her glass, or how she can still tolerate the torture.

Hell is not made of fire.

A lot of people believe that hell is a world covered in flames, with heat that sears through your very being, scorches your soul, and inflicts terrible agony. They say Hell is a place for fiery torment, where fire is a vicious serpent that winds through your existence and seeks to quench every feeling except anguish, but at the same time refusing to let you be conquered by nothingness, keeping you wide-awake so you can feel every blistering sensation.

They're wrong.

Hell doesn't look the same for everyone else. Hell is a multi-faced mirror with countless reflections caging you inside the hollow of a diamond so you can see the glaring facets you refuse to look at. Hell is not always a place; sometimes it's a feeling, sometimes it's an event--sometimes it's a person.

Hell shows itself not only in death. Hell is everywhere--it's just somewhere around the corner of the street, hiding its face behind a newspaper, waiting for you to make the wrong choices. It's just somewhere behind you, an invisible fiend watching your every step, waiting for you to stumble. And once you do, it will laugh at you. You won't hear its sinister laughter, nor would you notice the subtle shift of the ground beneath your feet.

The odds are no longer in your favor.

Hell is cold. Hell is calculating. Hell is terrorizing.

Hell is reaching inside yourself, searching your heart, trying to find out how you really feel--but ending up finding nothing. Hell is opening your mouth to scream but nothing comes out because there is nothing left inside. Hell is the immovable boulder weighing down on your chest, it is the desperate need for the ability to cry, it is the panic and anguish that comes when you realize you can't.

Hell is watching him with his perfect hair and perfect eyes and perfect smile, knowing he isn't even aware of your plain existence. Hell is realizing for the first time that unrequited love is not as romantic as people say. Hell is waiting, waiting, waiting for something you know won't come. Hell is finally getting the nerve to say 'I love you' but only receiving silence in return. Hell is laughing it all away and saying it's nothing, I understand why, all the while wishing you could run to someplace where you can cry and scream without being heard. Hell is falling in love.

Hell is the red mark on your record, the frowns on your parents' faces, the pitying looks on your friends' expressions. Hell is the star you failed to reach, the shaking heads, the consoling pats on your back. Hell is the mocking laughter ringing in your ears even after they've long ended. Hell is the condescending voices echoing from somewhere in the back of your mind, reminding you who you were, who you've been, and who you are now. Hell is laughing at you. Hell is disappointment. Hell is trying and trying over and over and never succeeding. Hell is failure.

Hell is building your life with damning patience, with meticulous thoroughness, with painstaking care, and having it all knocked down to the ground. Hell is desperation, hopelessness. Hell is the blooming rose standing amidst a bed of withered blossoms. It's the touching beauty of life at its most exquisite, the surging anticipation, the reckless triumph, and the next day when you look for the rose you only find a withered stalk. Hell is hope.

Hell is the silent night torn apart by raging screams and flying furniture. Hell is the deafening wail of a child accompanying every insult, every furious, careless word that escapes your mouth. Hell is the empty threat he took as a promise. Hell is holding his hand and realizing it's no longer as comfortable as it used to be. Hell is the sadness weighing on your apartment, so palpable you could wrap your fingers around it and try to snap it--but you can't, because hell is already there. Hell is the silence, the eternal quiet screaming in your ears, as you pack your suitcase, as you stuff in old photographs trapped behind the cracked glass of their picture frames. It's the painful need to sit still and concentrate on breathing because you suddenly forgot how to. It's looking around you, seeing the stripped bed, the empty closet, the unsettling dust floating along the light filtering through the misted windows. Hell is falling out of love.

I could go on about hell forever, and I would never be able to enumerate all of them because there can only be so many words that can describe hell, and there are too many people in this world who see different kinds of hell. I cannot accurately define hell, I don't know much about it. I cannot claim to have seen hell, because I've never been to a place like it before.

But I know that hell is cold.

Because hell is not always made of fire.

Laughing and laughing, your mind a never ending joke of insanity.
           Laughing for jokes, laughing for tragedies,
laughing simply because life is full of horrors.

Scars and laughter,
        Your life is described in two words, scars and laughter. Wanna know    how I got these scars? Laughter, insanity, a fathers drunken rampage, all            feasible reasons as to the origin of scars.

         Sinister twisted laughter of darkened rooms,
Laughing and laughing,
           laughing for tragedies, laughing for horrors.
Why are you laughing? Horrors of the world, corrupted men elicit mirth.

Insanity,
           Scars,
      Scars and laughter,
Whose scars?        The scars of the insane man whose laughter haunts
the dreams of men, women, and children.
          Laughing and laughing, why does he have scars?
Scars, a permanent smile for a face too serious.

      Laughing and laughing, laughing for tragedies, laughing for horrors,
Tragedies strike, who’s to blame? The insane man, his mind a never-   ending joke of madness.
      Laughing for jokes, jokes of the corrupt, laughing for tragedies, lost  lives of the innocent, laughing for horrors, horrors he himself inflicts upon   men, women, and children.

Scars, permanent scars,
     Laughing for horrors, horrors he himself has encountered, a psychotic rampage,
             How did he get those scars? His permanent smile, Was it for   laughter? Not laughter, but a lack thereof, only to find the hilarity too late    as his face is marred by his permanent smile.  

       Laughing and laughing, scars and laughter, twisted mind of a psychotic jester,

scars from the question:

why…
            ..so…
                      .serious.

Ants crawl across this floor we’ve fallen on before
Crawling away from painful light meant for death
It takes time and height to view this bitter facsimile
Of the life that was when our legs shortened and
We carried righteous angst in disaffected thoraxes

We lived such a life chased by light unrepentant.
So it went with soldiers straying and fraying
Under the stress of the chase by cruel illumination
While those on the scent of something sweeter
Managed to stay out of the heat and find salvation

Truly miraculous things are these
that have no future but cocoon just the same
poor souls that should be outshined by time
find reprieve enough to shield timid bodies
long enough to find their own legs stilting

No feat of glory to any still around
But to those scattered by the wayside
These hulking creatures are visions of
Promise, a promise that one’s own feeble feelers
May one day cast out into oblivion and latch onto
The stuff dreams are made of and close their eyes
With open mouths for serums of wonderland

Such a shame then, when the hopeful
Can’t be afforded the lofty visions
Of their grindstone nose counterparts
And the wayside entraps them in whorish
Promises of paid-for pleasure

But life digresses while the underbelly
Digests the stumblers of chance
So we have you and me, and the world
Feeling inadequate legs stripped bare
So superior parts could be strapped on

This machination of imagination
Is how we get by that heat of life
What once incinerated futures
Inflicts faint unseen blisters--
Reminders of humility rising

At long last our earth-drawn eyes
Draw level with this glass half empty
But magnified with the intention of more,
More, more, more, colors filling prisms across the sky
Gaining beauty and color from the heat of long ago

But who would care about the minute minutes
Of suffering felt by those not bold or quick enough
When compared to this veritable Monet
Blessed with the gift of chasing pasts away
To be replaced with this gilded new day.

So it goes and so it must be in the minds
Still intact, kindled not hindered by the heat

                             ...

Towering over this glass of possibility,
Our focus is intent, not missing a thing
You and me, and the world all focus
On this contrived concoction of color
Bewitching that betwixt reason and love

All our eyes and all our thoughts
Gather power by the hour
Drawn from this pool of glory
Not a thought dropped into
This wishing well

While we sate our psyches
From this languishing pool
We forget how the same spark
That defined us, as we grew above the fray
Is now returned earthward

Isn’t it entertaining to contemplate
Life in the context of those wretches
Blessed to have the power of immediacy
While we sit serially still, no purpose
But to make these poor ants run.

Can I just write a poem that says "**** the police"
for every single line
for every single stanza
and leave it at that?

Because I'm imagining his next victim, because there will be a next one,
and how she will feel when she finds out that he had my former report
on his private police record, accessible only by certain police.

I want to scream, but the metal chain he put around my throat to choke me because
"ha ha you like that, right?" after I had already said no
is still there, so nothing can come out of my mouth,
except I've been screaming as loud as I can for so long;

One year and I'm still not free.

His body weight is still crushing me, still heavy; the bruises on my body still felt every day, my body a museum of decaying loss and my mind a perfect video recording that plays on repeat whenever I just
want
some
sleep;

Nightmares I wake from and can't wake from.

I think one of the hardest days of my life was when I got my **** kit.
I mean- you know- other than the actual ****.
I developed a stutter that day.
I blame myself.
I blame. I -I- I blame myself.
But I can't!

All of the "no's" that I said to him didn't matter, the police said;
everything non consensual didn't count;
it was only the one coerced "yes" that counted;

Scared for my life but, **** the police, right?

And all the times that I said to the police "yes" that I was *****,
collapse and boom like a bomb on deaf ears of police that tell me that,
"maybe you just regretted having *** with him."

Or how about when they rolled their eyes when they learned that I met him on tinder?
I gave them a smile and answered that yes, that's true, because what else was I supposed to do but tell the truth?

Or the first thing they said to me was "so then you had a few drinks..."
Well no, sir, that's not what happned, at all.

See, there have been multiple levels of injustice here and I thought I was doing the right thing to heal.

In my partial hospitalization program that I went to for PTSD,
that I got from my ******,
I learned that the "right" thing to do was to seek help right away after a traumatic incident so that it doesn't lead to lifelong suffering;
Quick help leads to a faster recovery,
and I've always wanted to do the right thing:

Like getting him arrested for ****** me.

But the police don't listen even when your body has been confiscated, graffiti marked by your ******,
and the police tell you coldly to just seek counseling because, after all,
you "consented,"
and that your ****** isn't a ****** in the eyes of the law.
A ****** isn't a ****** but is a ****** and he's going free.
I did the right thing but I'm still stuck night after night, waking up crying;
I wonder who will be next, and that person's weight is added on top of me;
The gallery of bruises he inflicts will just continue, and I wonder where on snapchat will they be next?

“poetry choose you for us to sheaf through and find love among your words” (Pradip)

did you think that I forgot your message,
which is more than mere message, more a significant missive,
****** upon my shoulders, again, even more, a mission,
an owner’s responsibility that I choose to herein bare,
but a charge, too onerous, too awesome, to willingly bear

what skilled knowledge of this in my possess is narrow based,
more gained by loss or absence, or even conspicuous struggle,
than any vast success, thus, to be viewed with skepticism,
rather than any glory gained through a vanquisher’s scepter

more and better have essayed and assayed the
requisite sheafs that may give forth results useful to yourself,
this itinerant investigator’s ramblings are not to be deemed trustworthy or investable

that poetry hath chosen me, if correct, woe-betide me
this be more curse than blessing, for the secrecy of love
yields not its clear and present insights to my declining sight

the sheafs of which you speak so numerous
that a whole lifetime such engaged could not dent its
maidenhood and here do I both confess, here I do plead guilty
to trying and to failing, and in the confines of words,
honestly advance to all the proposition that I know nothing

to recognize and diagnose the symptoms almost too easy,
thus I designated myself foolishly as onlylovepoetry,
but recognition does not yield easy the cure of real cognition

nearing midnight and it is easier to pen than to sleep,
even a dreamless sleep, the great restorative,
make not the pen mightier than the wounds love inflicts;
both my scars and my many smooth, unused unpierced skin patches
speak only of the abscesses of true trials and
the too long absences of emotions that make
life unbearable, bearable and the happy exhaustion of near misses,
the try in try, try again

finding love in words a fool’s errand, though words offer us
seduction and definitions to our errant emotions, words
are just words and by definition, a hallmark of failure,
a precursor to cursing failings

only this I know, that to make love occur, do not hope to
stumble into it, or to find or mine its riches, for it requires of you,
both somber preparation and wild optimism,
and this contradiction controversy so inherently embedded,
will provoke more pain infusions and more poetry in
a human chain that came from the smithy new and yet, nearly broken

pay attention to thy surroundings and thy attitude and altitude
love is above ground though deep buried, the mystery scent
so faint it missed by most, myself a chief of mistaken mistook

meanwhile the pile of sheaves grows deeper and despairing

what I thought I knew I mistook and what I thought I felt,
well, let it suffice to say love can n’ere be found in thought
but lives in deed and actions and happy disbelief

put down the pen, gown thyself in coats of many riotous colors,
banish ‘never’ and ‘hope’ from thy lexicon, and begin with a smile always a smile as you walk the streets as if to say
open open says me, open sesame and let the
good works begin, for having found your captains of the muses,
your Calliope, your rosebud, lucky you,
you will need not write another word


11:37pm  January 14

I'm into masochism
Yes masochism because I get enjoyment from my pain
My pain that bleeds with emense rage through my passion for you
Making me see through what I believe is real so I push through it
Remove it with what is seen as invisible walls constantly drawin me into you
Yup ladies and gents I'm into masochism
I'm willing to subject myself to this type of torture because I believe there is something on this horizon that will make me buy into what is in the crystal ball
Fortune telling
"Fortunate to have you boy I'm so glad your in my world...rest assure as the sky gets blue blessed the day..."
That I found you
You glowed as a bold man so I couldn't stand to not say anything
So I said LET FREEDOM RING
Marched right over with words so convincing
Martin said " I HAVE A DREAM!"
Dreams of you
But it's a constant battle tryna break through
So the untold vulnerabilities continue to be unsaid
Laying in a bed of unspoken words that I know are there cuz I see them in your eyes every time I look at you
So yes people of this blessed universe I announce I'm into masochism
I guess you can call me a *******
One that inflicts conscience pain that moves along my spine moving to my nervous system that moved throughout my body so I feel you all over
So it's not over...

You sure have a way with moisture.
Your ability to make me cry
From my eyes, from my lips
From my heart, from my hips
Never ceases to amaze me.
As the rain commences outside of my window,
You create a storm inside my bed.
And as you hold me tightly afterward,
You create a storm in my head.
Where the thunder triggers passion,
And the lightning strikes down doubt,
Where the hail inflicts pain,
And where no umbrella can help.
In a puddle somewhere near,
There’s a reflection of us two.
And with every sweet rain drop,
I lose a piece of you.

what frightens me in the world today
is that nobody knows
nobody is aware
people are suffering

everywhere

what frightens me in the world today
success in unreachable
nobody is ever happy
we are trapped behind our faults


bring us to the times where
generosity wasn't a surprise
where soft souls walked into our lives
just to simply bring a smile

where in this world today shall we look for happiness
where can we find a path where humility bridges over
the pain
suffering
anguish
loneliness
hunger
death
and the broken hearts of this world

we need to rise up in this new year
bring upon change that inflicts joy
a simple smile

let our resolutions not be for OUR own good
but for the good of OUR surroundings, our neighbors, our enemies

for when you learn to love and wish for the better of your enemies
i believe in that time, you can truly find peace

It is a smile on the turpitude of scorching sun that inflicts on us
A harbinger from the kingdom of heaven.

Descending from above -soothing ,dancing ,sizzling mizzling and  torrential at times,
Sluicing down the earth bed ,end to end, wherever it touches.

It has power to sustain this world
It has the power to raze this world
It has the power to ornament this world
It made this abode a rarest one in the matrix of the whole universe
From past to present, ever and forever.

It is  a presence felt as long as the earth is green,the sun shines,
The ocean whirls and the moon chuckles,
Be it called -the clouds,rain ,life or water
All in one the manifestation of the other.
A benediction from the Soul Supreme
To which we all owe our existence.

By D.R.Mohanty

the day after his cousin died, he stuck his hand onto the hot frying pan when his mother wasn’t looking. she cried rivers all the way to the emergency room and the only thing he could say when she asked why he did it is “I touched her last. I touched her last”
the doctor came into the sterile room and said he lost three out of five fingerprints on his right hand, but he would be okay and so would his shaking mother. the boy had hugged his bright-eyed cousin before she shot herself and I think the bullet hit him too
let’s not tiptoe around coffee-stained details, that boy didn’t grow up to be an inspirational anti-suicide activist. he put up defense mechanisms and lined his entire body with barbed wire, and he’s been piercing people with his touch ever since
truth be told, I loved that burn marked boy, I did
but he threw me to the wolves when I got too close and maybe he felt guilty about sending me to the bottomless darkness he lived in or maybe he still can’t forget the way his cousin kissed him on the cheek before she put ammunition to her head, but I saw him at the gun store on the corner two weeks ago
it still hasn’t sunk in that he followed the exact path his cousin did that destroyed him when she was seventeen and he was only ten. he walked in her blood-traced footsteps all the way to the end of his existence, didn’t he?
he bought the gun, he loaded it
he probably started a note
do you think he started a note?
how many times do you think he’s tried to write it in the past seven years, broken pencil ends and the smell of tired lead
how many times do you think he tried to write it on Sunday? Sunday is God’s day, right? that’s what he always says to me
said
it’s a past tense
that’s what he always said.
I wonder how many pieces of notebook paper he crumbled up before he decided that his final words weren’t good enough to be seen by the people he was leaving alone on Earth
he always said he wanted to fly and I wonder if they can fly up there like all of the stories say when they talk about angels and I wonder if he can actually fly now
I wish that I could see those scribbled lines on discarded pieces of paper just so I could know why he did it
but maybe I’m lying to myself
maybe I already know why he did it
I knew it the day he said he couldn’t take it
the day everyone told him to stop being so overdramatic and grow up and be a man
I remember the exclamation points at the ends of his sentences like lines and flashing lights that screamed “help me”
the days his smile would say everything’s okay but his eyes looked like he was already dead
I wonder what his eyes will look like now
I wonder if he’ll still be the simple kind of beautiful when he’s in a coffin
what do you think his mother will pick out?
she always loved that red shirt
but he hates it
he likes blue
he liked blue
he liked a lot of things
he liked running and baseball and 3am movies and math and sometimes English and never science and most of all, he liked self destruction
I wonder if he gets to see her, if there is an afterlife like all of the Christian books he studied tell of
I wonder if she would tell him that there was never anything he could have done to save her back then
I wonder if he would regret letting himself float away that night
I wonder,
was there anything I could have done to save him?
why didn’t I?
I saw it
I saw the scars that were a little newer than the ones I had memorized before
I saw the sadness in his eyes on Friday
why didn’t I do anything?
but…I did
I asked
I asked him if he was okay
“I’m fine”
“I’m great”
“I’m happier than i’ve ever been. It’s okay. I promise. I’ll never go back to that bad place. I just have to keep my head up and keep going, I’m amazing lately”
exaggerations
false truths
lying through his teeth
I always know when he lies because his smile gets a little too wide, too artificial, and he can’t look me in the eyes unless he’s telling the truth
but he’s never going to look me in the eyes again
do you think it hurt?
do you think it was instant?
I wonder if the hurt made him happy like it used to when he scratched lines into his skin and ran until he collapsed
I don’t know if it actually made him happy
he thinks he deserves the pain he inflicts on himself
a sadistic self destruction is what he thinks he deserves
thinks?
is it thought?
this hurts
turning every present tense into a past tense feels like someone stabbed me in the chest
or maybe even shot me
how funny is that?
not at all
maybe a little ironic
the police will investigate the blood stains on the hardwood floor his father installed back when he was half sober and they’ll write down every scuff they see and they’ll have a sketch artist draw the green eyed boy who offed himself
he’s just a statistic to them
just another case
just another rotting body that they get paid to sign a death certificate for
they don’t know him
they don’t know where his scars came from
they don’t know that his dad gets angry when he drinks, and he drinks a lot
they don’t know his little brother
they don’t know what style he writes his paragraphs in
they don’t know him at all
he’s so much more than just a casualty
a casualty to suicide
another number that the hotlines can use to try to get money to save teens with razor blades and sad thoughts
another percentage
BUT HE’S NOT A PERCENTAGE
HE NEVER WAS
how would he feel about this?
he loved math
he was good at it
how would he feel about being another tick mark on some scientific research paper about the risks of drugs and alcohol and falling in love and teenage suicide deaths
falling in love
did I fall in love?
can you be in love with someone who is dead?
someone whose heart has stopped beating
maybe his heart stopped beating a long time ago
right with his cousin’s
did I mention that I saw him Saturday?
he was in the batting cage when I took my sister to the park right beside it
we talked and he said he was great
but I watched the news today
the news, can you believe that?
I only watched it because I had a terrible feeling in my stomach as soon as I woke up early Sunday morning
it’s Tuesday now and the police issued a report and my mother brought your mother a casserole and a bottle of wine
the police told us what happened with blank stares into the TV cameras
you died early Sunday morning
in the middle of the night
you always loved 3AM things
I saw you at 7 that night at those batting cages
I asked you what was wrong
you said you were okay
I knew you were lying and you were bleeding internally and I was scared you would fall into pieces of skin and broken boy right before my eyes
I put my hand on your shoulder and asked again
you didn’t look me in the eyes
you never did
you never will now
never again
you said you were so happy
your eyes pleaded for help, didn’t they?
I hugged you
it seems like a dream now
I hugged you and told you to stay safe
and then I left you alone in that batting cage
and I had no idea you were still planning your demise
more police reports
the news is informative
that’s what my grandpa always says
your parents were out of town
your parents were at a family reunion a state away
one you didn’t want to go to
phone records show that you didn’t call anyone after 10AM on Saturday, the robot officers in blue repeat
oh my God
I’m not supposed to use the Lord’s name in vain, that’s what you always said
that’s what your cousin taught you when you were eight
but you aren’t here anymore to correct me
I’m watching the news with shaking hands and I think I might break into sad molecules right here
because I know my bad feeling was right
the pit in my stomach wasn’t lying
God,
I did it
I held the broken boy before he shot himself in the head because he wanted to be sure that this time he would actually die, unlike the time he slit his wrists on his bedroom floor
it’s true,
I touched him last

tears
silence
confusion
words that descibe the aftermath of hearing the news
a boy and a woman
a brother and a mother
gone
at the hand of the eldest son
a victim himself, of a poisoned mind, trapped in his own body, forced to watch the destruction the dark side inflicts
when is the change coming; no more lives at the mercy of a mental illness they got doing what they loved
i have the will and i can find a way, their deaths will not be in vain
he deserves to be here, to make it to eighteen, to make it to his graduation
they deserved more time than they were given and they will be a driving force for saving countless lives beyond the horizon
rest easy

Black Flags are flowing
In the news;
inked in
or Not
The pulp slashes
Across my seared consciousness:

What say my heart for those
Who perish?
What Say My Heart
For Those Who Cry?

Peevishly My Heart responds,
in ****** Tears,
As in a nightmare:

Weep all the tears
For the Motherless Children,
Weep All the Tears
For The Buried Child...

Weep For Yourself, And Not Without Shame,
Weep For  Humanity And
Mankind
As it Slowly Dies...

Weep for Those
Whose Vibrant
Life You Adore.

Weep Not For The Cruelly Weak
Who, Knowingly,
inflicts
such
Inordinate pain.

J Eduardo Ramos©

Dry the water from your eyes, leave these dreams behind,
There is no thing here for you, but the haunting ghosts in your mind.
      The ocean may be sparkling in the sun, yet the ship is sinking,
      Shattered down in the deep, where the beams are never winking.

So please, my dearest one, do not let yourself devour.
They will cause only pain, these dreams of yours so flowered.
     The oleander may be a beauty evergreen, yet its blood so deadly,
      Makes your heart stop pounding, turning it cold and heavy.

Make your dreams a different kind, like the ones that never fade,
Because yours are turning grey, and will forever remain unmade.
       The fire may be an alluring saviour, yet demanding are its licks,
       Leaving every soul in ashes, ruthless destruction it inflicts.

Dreams like these were never meant for a heart like yours,
So pour out your reveries, and close the tempting doors.
       His wine may be sweet on your tounge, yet it will leave you drained,
       And bitter is the aftertaste, wishing you had abstained.

A cigarette that promises
to satisfy but turns to ash,

A nicotine addiction that
promises to be harmless
but inflicts damage,

Lungs that promise to help you breathe
but leave you gasping for air,

An "I'll always be here" that
"is never there"

A gardener that never waters his rose,
and so the rose dies without proper care.

What cruel force keeps lovers apart --
Why must each tread a separate path?
Preordained they should never meet . . .
What arbiter inflicts such wrath?  

Two lives hurled into misery,
Two hearts nailed to the same cross;
Never to savor  love's banquet,
They're condemned to feed off life's dross

Spring faintly smiled on these two hearts
As dreams absorbed their youthful hours;
Although  nurtured like tender plants
They yielded naught but withered flowers

Each new day held a ray of Hope,
Dispelling  impatience and doubt;
They kept watch as the flame burned bright . . .
Till finally, their tears put it out

Two hearts dying slow painful deaths,
Each cloaked in its own crimson shroud;
One heart dies, crying silently,
The other sobs its pain aloud

Two lonely hearts ever dreaming
They might stroll Love's Garden one day;
Now resigned, they no longer dream --
Sadly, on Death's threshold they lay

So come forth and ring the death knell --
Come lay your bouquets at their feet;
Mourn if you will such tragedies
While asking  "Why didn't they meet?"

A sudden surge tears through the underbrush
A tumbling tackle of growling fur
A cornered coyote attacked by my two dogs

I stand and watch
Like it's some nature show
More horrible in real life

Strange how long it takes
A good twenty minutes
They must edit those shows

He is wounded, wants only to escape
My dogs refuse, synchronously circle
One hundred and eighty degrees apart

He knows nothing of degrees
He cannot watch them both
So always, one unseen
Dives in to wound him more

Unlike him, I can -
Watch the whole show
From a safe distance

I do

Twenty minutes is an eternity
Death does not come easy

There are breaks
Like rounds in a prize fight
A minute or two for everyone to rest

He lies there in the middle
My dogs nearby
Everyone relaxed and panting
Like friends on a hot afternoon

Perhaps they’ll let him go
He tries but, no.
They continue the carnage

He inflicts a few wounds of his own
But the outcome is now becoming clear

Knowing this, he whines and begs
Like a pup crying for his mother
My dogs do not care

I keep watching

Finally it’s over
He lies there, mouth wide open
Showing his beautiful white teeth
Eyes wide open, showing what I have no wish to see again
His life flashing before his eyes
And mine

The whole time, I just stood there
Did nothing to assist the ****
or stop the violence
Remained on the safe sidelines
A ****** of violence

Only when it's safe do I approach
I take his picture
What was it the aborigines said?
“No pictures -
Your pictures steal our soul”

But I insist
I take the pictures
I steal the souls

His and mine

Cliff Perkins
September 13, 2016

I turn on my heel
in the blinding darkness,
feet tingling over the warm night sand,
only for the dark to be pierced
by the shining light from the illuminating moon
onto the land.

And below it, the murky waters
mimicking the sky above
In all its dark, sapphire glory.

The sea’s bipolarity inflicts,
as it sways and swishes,
gently hitting against the eroded rocks betwixt,
before stilling momentarily and resuming its dance.

I step forward from the ticklish golden grains,
interrupting the perfection of the sea in front,
slicing through its peaceful layer,
its mood changes: it roars, it shakes.

But I continue, carefully diminishing the ocean surface,
killing it with every step I move forward,
going deeper into its place of sanctuary and refuge.

And then its fury comes into action,
trapping me in its freezing grasp;
I’m stuck, unable to move.
Its revenge is coming, it is inescapable.

Then it happens, by a split second,
the icy depths, now conjugated with the once-still surface,
to make a prison, inescapable, unnegotiable.

Leaping, jumping, pushing me underneath its shallow exterior,
I scream a noiseless scream, lungs burning with misery.
The melancholy is true, inevitable.
There is nothing I can do, but calm underneath the covering.

I am going to die.

But I wake up,
in my bed, though in a cold sweat.
“It was a doomed dream,”
but no, it was not.

For though I may have not drowned
physically and ******,
I am already dead,
emotionally and mentally.

And as I walk through the shattered glass of Consequence,
I see that it may have just been better off as a reality,
for my world is already drowning me,
but this time, the sea, the tormentor
doesn’t have this much magnificence and beauty.

And I battle it every day,
listen to its insulting notions,
back and forth, back and forth.

It doesn’t understand
what I have to go through.
the constant demand of society
is enough to want me to bid adieu.

“What the hell is wrong with you?
You’re a piece of dirt,
no matter how hard I rub off the stain,
it just never comes off, it always grew.
That stupid stain is you.”

Yet I still must go through it,
non-stop, every second of my conflicting life,
not a single moment of peace,
not even in my sleep.

As I walk through the burning abyss of Memory,
I am bombarded by the bleeding wounds,
not yet healed, fresh and open,
and it hurts, the pain is unbearable.

The fighting doesn’t stop,
I’m told that I’m hated,
worthless, unneeded,
“Go, leave, go die,” it stated.

I must battle with my mind.
I must carnage with myself.
And it’s not going to ever end.

I’m better off going to the cemetery.

Because this is the world I must endure.

1087

We miss a Kinsman more
When warranted to see
Than when withheld of Oceans
From possibility

A Furlong than a League
Inflicts a pricklier pain,
Till We, who smiled at Pyrenees—
Of Parishes, complain.

Unleash the soul
from the shackles
of debilitating forces
which leaves us
gasping for breath
the wound
barbed wires
in a tight hold
inflicts many wounds
draining us
everyday, of life
there is a purpose
to life
whose meaning
eludes us
until we free ourselves
from the reality
we have created

yellow city, black sky
massive architecture, flickering liquid
glass oceans along
the cold canyons of San Francisco
wavering illusion upon reality
disfigured sideshow reflections
of disembodied achievement
trapped in themselves,
our selves
no longer nourished by the roots,
a hunger imposed upon the planet
like a suffocating blanket that people
pave over and **** on
until it's buried so deep
that even the heart has trouble breathing,
trouble beating out its rhythm;
a musical act of joy now stuttering
along like a gasping survivor
straggling across the ruins of Pompeii
crying out for what? help? no,
the end of suffering, a swift death
instead of the long parasitic drawl
that man so eagerly inflicts
upon the earth, himself
claiming the Kingdom
for the eternal barbarian, deep in the veins
coursing through the apparatus
which creaks beneath the weight of our guilt
and stultifies in the monstrosity of our ignorance,
yet it continues to run,
as if to see how far we'll go,
as if life were merely an experiment to see
how spectacularly
it could end

I grab my controller...
and it's on.
A release from not only myself
and the torture I endure
but a release from this world
and the pain it inflicts.
Like a lioness, stalking her prey,
I am prepared
and ready...
As the world fades to grey,
and the sweat drips down my face...
I know.. It's game on.
No matter what I play
No matter who I am with
I will be victorious.

**Gamer Legion

Domestic violence, I feel it in your silence,
I see the pain in your eyes, hearing the torture in your cries.

Bruises, broken bones your half dead,
he battered you so badly there's scars on your head, with the feeling of dread.

To weak to fight his strength, you'd go to any length,
to break free run from this bully, he don't love you in his heart not truly or fully.

Excuses are running out, you have to get out
U can hear him coming, you get the urge to start running.

You freeze he grabs you by the hair,
pleading with him to stop, in this rage he doesn't care.

Another punch in the face, he throws you around,
too young to pick you up off of the ground.

He says he didn't mean it, i wish you could of seen it
from the beginning, he's got a hold of you he thinks he's winning.

walking on egg shells living in this hell,
too afraid to speak out, there's no one you can tell.

He rapes you batters you inflicts all this pain,
stripped you of your dignity, makes you feel insane.

Domestic violence, break your silence
fight back your strong, what he's doing is wrong.

"Seriously? --you can join a club for that..."

There's a organization / a group / someone
created and dubbed
"Bureau" ...
--for poets, who's art is poetry...
who's passions flow within the blood
the written, the spoken, the ephemeral
"Word"
            the beautiful disasters, the contradictions
which is our providence:
                      humanity aside/besides/
inside Life...
Now all the times awaken - the wide asleep,
still behind the blindly
following / believing
                    their sweet nothings ...
The Bureau makes them official
the authority on Blah blah blah...

(And now the poem. A piece created by-- FishSparrow DreamKing...)


ON POETRY / ABOUT LOVE--YOU



mad-haired alchemist
having mixed two tinctures
wrongly
             such liquids
exploding
whilst hypothesized
unremarkable through the myopia
of every day lies
faces intimate with the thickest book
make out session
with the obtuse / research
a scientific version on finding a clue
the alchemy of madness
       telling who to be / how to be whom
or what to feel when in or out of moods

when poetry is life,
then it is life and love of it that
is absolute truth
the science of awakenings and you...
and the rest of you too.

........

A bureau, hmph
an organization dismissing the muses
and the breath
that we devour

a study on the facets
and romances
with life
              written art works
               spoken odysseys

magnanimous numbness of verbs

magic of lustrous *******
of star crossed
tempests
          evermore a ravenous
soul
Poetry

need not secret societies
or bureaus ...
nor research to categorize or label
with crisis without identity
****** or existential ...
"To be or not to be?" -- the answer is To Be, always to be... just because life is beautiful and awfully wonderful


The heart is only
a lonely hunter
if love were not its prey

to feel free
and truly alive
is the honest purpose

of the written
and the spoken

of poetry
of art  
of happiness

words
dancing the night away
in sonnet streets


who do we endeavor to example

when it is our own pen that must bleed
the maddening truths
that needs combustion
the foreplay of time / life whispering in italics
beautifully
breaking down

laughter's tintinnabulations
all the world
all the life        
            our Oyster...

But seriously tho'
what the dealio...?

when I want to hear
a fearless something
soaked
in the sensual
and is real

so good
the words       bleed    rain
beaus / utter not
those words not words but
but make our kiss
immortal
electric
             the heart's inner watercolor -murals
from the emotions the art  the dreams
intermingling

touching prose of roses
its scent a ghost
thick in the recollection
of farewells

the experiences we parallel
all in literature's Sistine gusto ...
somehow

communication
erected from **** tube boxes
and artifice waves of wide webs

the slang   jive  
secret languages whined
signs and pics
                      depicts / inflicts these times

slays the joy
and lovely words
of tiding  
of wise sayings      you say
with Monet expressions

" you're a lovely day "

ignite me
         (the) Beloved / the songs
the sun
a face of love
a glow


Do you feel me?

* lub dub   lub dub  lub dub*



haiku sonnet odyssey
poetry
that is Life...
                         Today's lesson - (seriously)
                         go learn to fly
                                                  a kite.

He makes me want to write my sentences properly.

He makes me want to type my 'I's correctly.

Because of him, I shall capitalise the letter because to him, I am big and I am important.

I am worthy of being an 'I' in comparison to an 'i'.

Because of him, I want to write poetry that rhymes.

For he fits into my ink and it pulses through his veins, I can see through the surface of his skin and he belongs to me.

I want my sentences to accurately show
the rhythm and life that he inflicts on my own.

Because of him, I want my words to bounce with my heartbeat.

I am, I am, I am.

Because of him, I am no longer on borrowed time.

Because of him, I want write poems with anaphora.

Because he is the beginning of every thought, every line. Every second, every time.

His lines are repeated but he is fresh and new.

Because of him, I do not cower
                           it is only when I am singing in the shower
that I remember the times
I would idly sit in the greying water
and imagine them walking in on my body
which would be as cold and lifeless as it was in the inside for so long

But now, I see light
and no, it's not that light that you reach for because i - no I, am no longer longing for that desperate release of death.

Because of him, I no longer scratch my fingernails along the walls of the day
grasping onto it
and scared of the one to come.

Because of him, I eagerly await the sunrise counting down the amount of sleeps until I am sleeping in his security.

Bombs are going off
All over the world
People are fighting
Dying every second
Every minute someone
Else passes away because
Of war and hate and pride
Bombs go off in the night
They go off during the day
Snatching life in their wake
Leaving nothing but a hole
In the ground as they wound
The Earth and wound each
Other as bullets fly over head
Not always finding their target
But always leaving damage
Somewhere as the fly along
Carnage and destruction and
Hatred all over the world
The world needs a healing
She is weary of the wounds
That bombs and bullets and
Man inflicts on the Earth and
Even to each other in the
Advancement of war and
Anger and hatred and greed
Propagating death and disease
Destroying the Earth and her
Children as well and leaving
People without a place to stay
Without a home as they wonder
The globe wondering how they
Are going to feed themselves
And their families when they
Have been violently torn away
From everything they know
Because of war and what has
Been claimed that was never
Meant to be taken in the first
Place to begin with and staking
Claim on the land and on the
Hearts and will of the people
That just happen to be there
At the time just trying to live
Their lives their way until
Bombs fly over head and
Death finds them like a
Thief taking everything
They have ever known
Forever changing them
And the world around them
We need a healing and the
Earth needs a rest from all
Of these bombs and wars
And bullets that tear through
Our mother's heart as she
Watches her children destroy
Needlessly for no good reason