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I always said you’d break up with me,
(not seeing the power words have over us.)
Within seven months, before May grew pregnant,
you were gone.
You did not leave me as I feared, but you did not bypass my words,
which took over my tears and the gulps and swallows;
regenerating fresh saliva, to form more words, soon lost by the invisible hands on my cell phone,
misdirecting time so that the time spent with you went from now to then.

I spoke what I felt, what I thought to be utterly true
Because how could you love someone crumbling on the outside
and oozing with hot tar pain on the inside?
How could you love me?

You didn’t, you never said it, but I grew incapable of avoiding that metaphorical heart concept:

My heart dictated my hands that formed meals and massages and meltdowns.
You weathered my compulsions and the storms that overtook my countenance and threw you so far from my shore that even swimming to reach me took your patience and your prowess.

But you found a way. You always did. Every week, for months,
from a time when we melded egg white, egg yolk, to a time when oil and water tried in vain to caress.
I was your girl, and you answered my every problem with a solution,
And your eyes sought the truth in mine and we formed our own.
Us two, forever never and then.
not misunderstanding or deflecting
misdirecting or rejecting the facts
not one to deny when I'm wounded
confounded, just one to drown it in hot wax
created in a crucible and tipped back
****** down like coffee that's jet black
what you gave me to swallow
i forgive but can't forget that
This is an anthem of the silent
did you hear that?
I forgive you what you did but can't forget that.
Comes to pass my picture of the Middle East
(one minute and twenty one seconds of television news,
          much less than I had thought)
is an inaccurate representation of people
and the individuality of their experience.

How does one measure the merit of
I am offended?

If all I know are snapshots, misdirecting
the issue, changing path to digest murdered cartoonists
killed with Allah in mind
          (another misdirection)
and I am not outraged.

Sadness manifests as thick fog
blocking artificial light, splitting the rays,
opening up and flexing, the truth as is,
the sole truth we must attain;
          we are slow, dying creatures.
Inborn freedoms dissolve.

Did Salman Rushdie beg forgiveness for
images of his head book-ending a spear,
or did he die a little in secret?

Suppose I am a rouser marching the streets of
New York City, a gold pendant of two
          falling towers adorning
my chest-cave, Je Suis etched into my forehead
(black felt-tip).

Do you defend me?
Relish in your torment of words?

Will you bury the fire in your belly
for sake of freedom?
Dedicated to Dr. Clifford-Napoleone, for teaching me no reality rises above any other.
Nolan Higgins Apr 2016
there is a whole bunch of steps,
maybe more than you can handle,
but you can't stop climbing
because That's The Way It Is.

the first floor is labeled BIRTH.
it's covered with sweet smelling blood,
you roll in the blood until you've ****** enough nourishment from your mother, then you begin to stumble.

the second floor is labeled TIKE
and this floor is fun.
the walls are covered in bicycles and scabs, grass stains and ketchup, and you don't tire of climbing the stairs this floor holds.

the third floor is called MIDDLE SCHOOL and you experience anxiety for the first time. climbing the stairs begins to feel like a chore but at the end of each flight you are rewarded with letter grades and a feel or two up a skirt.

the fourth floor is called HIGH SCHOOL and it smells like beer and vaginal excrement and you spend half your time crying and the other half doing homework and yet you somehow manage to remain Hopeful.

the fifth staircase us called GAP YEAR and it's reminiscent of the second flight of stairs except now you have Privelage to go along with your Responsibility. These stairs smell like your favorite lake and magic mushrooms and Monty Python. They feel fulfilling yet wasteful, encompassing yet misdirecting.

attentive reader, I just signed up for college 600 miles away from home, I know the next staircase is called College and it smells like beer, but I know nothing else. Wish me luck, please, I think I'll need it.
I'm a frightened little boy who's scared, lost, and confused
Wanting desperately to feel protected from
Nightmares haunting when awake; Unable to stop the abuse
Wish my savior would descend down from above

Mommy please why won't you save me; Anything you want I'll do
Fiercely needing, almost bleeding, to be loved
Didn't mean to misbehave and promise I'll be better too
Daddy please don't scream, get mad and start to shove

"Good times" merely cover up; Create a shadow for the truth
******* stories lull the mind, becoming numb
Ticking time bomb, no surprise when like a powder keg you blew
Striking blows just like a boxer with no gloves

Planted problems rising up are stemming from and grow into
Epic beanstalks much like Jack thought he wished of
Same result from fabled tale except there is no golden goose
Just the giant who refuses to give up

Trembling fear I have inside can't overcome; I lack the tools
Chains me down; These shackles I'm forever cuffed
In a war against myself where it is destined that I loose
Broke and battered, insides shattered into dust

Banished from the realm of life to Fortress of my Solitude
Daily robot the appearances keep up
A magician misdirecting and forever hide from you
All the pain and shame within me that I clutch

Needed partner, what I'm lacking; Information is not news
Someone that I could be close to is enough
Life is empty, without feeling; Like a poet with no muse
Left here rotting; Man of Steel has turned to rust
Written: February 12, 2018

All rights reserved.
Nicole Potter Oct 2013
Flow freely into the minds that hate
        Some things go wrong
How long must we wait?
        Until we all get along

Flow freely into the minds that hate
        Cannot make change without comprehension.
All this misfortune we still create,
        Causing harm, taking lives and misdirecting tension.

Flow freely into the minds that hate
         These false institutions keep the system 'balanced'
Using us all as free pawns and bait,
         Somehow ensuring each breath is silenced.

Flow freely into the minds that hate
        Take a step forward and scream for losses
Too many to count, all preventable, just the selfish human gait.
        Look around, open eyes wide shut, who are the real bosses?

Flow freely into the minds that hate.
        All this time spent reading, analyzing, just wasted away
Just a creative excuse, all it's done is placate
        Talk about humanity, pleading for 'other', yet in the system they fade today.

Flow freely into the minds that hate
        We're not playing with plastic, metal, or things intangible
Each person has life, agency and a Heart Beat to relate.
       Must halt before time runs out, before humanity becomes a true cannibal.

Flow freely into the minds that hate
        Cannot understand without delving within
Must step up, do anything to motivate
       Do not step back, embrace what is foreign

Flow freely into the minds that hate
        Must acknowledge; accept it has existence.
Ignorance is not Fate.
      Just hold on, one more push, all that is needed is constant persistence.

Flow freely into the minds that hate
        Flow freely into the minds that hate
                Flow freely into the minds that hate.

**Oct 2, 2013
Ralph E Peck Dec 2011
Keepers of the time hold the harps, and pluck the strings,
Sending the resonance of the future forward, and back
In the listeners ear, plotting every move, filling
The voids and molding, shaping, creating the destiny.

The sounds first pure, then impure, a learned amateur
Taking the expected mistakes in playing new notes,
Leading, guiding, misdirecting, sounds so close
To perfection, so close to tragedy.

Keepers of the time hold the harps, each listener
Discerning the tones and changes, the falling of a key,
The breaking of a crescendo, winds swept with music;
The calm of the pianissimo, direction to the end.
Manas Feb 2015
You'd be pretty lucky,
if you caught my eyes
staring back into yours.
I'd like to tell you a good reason,
weave a tale of heartwarming lies,
Alas, there's no story behind my evasive eyes.

I nod when I mean to scream 'yes'
To every whim you have.
I smile when I mean to laugh.
I compliment you with the most beautiful of words,
In my silence, I hope you hear me say.
I was born a misdirecting sign-post,
hoping to lead you the right way.


If you'd know me, I'd like to believe,
You'd fall in love with me.
Indefinitely. Instantly.
But in this infinitesimally small moment
that we share,
In an obnoxiously loud world that we stay,
That little space between us is all it takes
For all that is unsaid to lose its way.

If you'd know me, I'd like to believe,
You'd fall in love with me.
Instantly. Indefinitely.
If you'd give me a while,
You could hear, you could see.
You'd know how hopelessly in love I am,
as inarticulate as my thoughts may be.
But with the years it has learned,
This stupid, hopeless heart of mine.
That it simply does not have the luxury of time.
JM Nov 2012
I realized the other night,

as I stood
screaming
at my son,

that I was breaking
our hearts.

I walked away
as soon as  I saw
the line
in the distance.

The line that
I will never cross.

I walked away
and felt my fathers fist
across my face.

I spared my
precious boy
the terror of
being beaten
by the man
he wants to grow
up and be just like.

I walked away
when I saw
the tears well up
in his innocent eyes
and the confusion
contorting his face,
when I heard some
frustrated father
misdirecting his own
anger and confusion
towards an undeserving
child and realized the
******* father was me.

I heard my father screaming at his woman about having a kid who would do "whatever the **** I tell him to if you hit him hard enough" and realizing that kid was me. I remember a part of me withered when I heard this.

He was right.
My father conditioned me
to take a beating.
He taught me how to
shut the **** up
and do what the **** I am told.
He taught me not to question his orders,
even when I knew they were wrong.
He taught me obedience
by beating me.
He taught me submission
by leaving me no other choice.

He taught me how to be broken.

I learned my lessons well.
I let people push me around because that was my place.
I let people get over on me because I didn't want to confront them.
I lost my girls to other guys because I was weak and scared.
I got passed up for promotions because I was hesitant and indecisive.

How do you forgive someone for conditioning you to be a failure?

How do I reconcile loving my father for the frail human that he is and hating him for the vile and abusive monster that he was?

When I saw the look on my sons face I wondered briefly if that was how I used to look when my father was berating me.

Right before fist hit face.

How the **** could he hit me with that look of fear and confusion and conflicting feelings on my face that must have registered somewhere in his drunken mind.

I can't help but think
it must have been devastating
for him,
somehow, someway.

He stopped apologizing for the beatings and
I stopped thinking
I didn't deserve them.

All of these thoughts and feelings passed
through my brain in a split second
and I turned away from my son.

My precious son.

My reason for existing.

My everything.

I turned away from his tear
stained face and sat down to cry
for a while myself.

I knew that I had caused some damage.
I thought back to all those times I sat crying in my room as a kid and wondered what would have made me feel better at the time, besides the obvious of not just having my *** kicked by a grown man.

42 years
of  gnawing pain
and frustration
and fear
and silence
and tears
and rage
and crushing loneliness
and shame

and fear and fear and fear

walked up the steps to
where a ******* 12 year old boy
sat alone.

42 years
of  breaking
the cycles of abuse and addiction
walked up the stairs and
spent the next hour
healing what I had damaged
in two minutes.


Later that night,
as I lay in bed questioning
every ******* decision I have ever made,
again,
I heard some sort of noise that startled me.

I leaped out of bed and took a quick route through the place to see what the noise was.
I never did find out what caused it but I called up to the boy quietly and asked if he heard it.
It appears he had been awake as well and had been rattling around in his own thoughts.

My boy had been thinking about death.

He was realizing the eventual imminence
of our own mortality and the weight of that thought was
crushing.
I was there for him, though.
I was able to put his mind at ease.
We talked of death, and life, and God, and philosophy
and we had a wonderful conversation
together sitting in his darkened room.

His small hand in mine, we healed each other.
While grating gusts and gales of Winter’s winds
Mourn with a deaf’ning dirge till Spring begins,
Intently and contentiously they’ll look
For that moral compass found in the book
of such lovingly constructed wording
Of whose heart’s thoughts in our minds are painting
Their reflection to grow within our hearts;
Like wisdom to child, their parent imparts.
He transcends any cultural chasm
To reach all hearts before his phantasm.
Clarity of faith by which we can walk
Decanting the love but keeping the cork
As a stopper to stop the willing draining
To those wilfully closed eyes rejecting.

The burring and whirring takes us to task
In battle, futile for the facile mask;
The mask to mask the vacuous content
With razzle-dazzle detracting repent.
Low weaponry the opposition draws
On his ***, so preys on our many flaws.
The things at which he cannot be the best,
Hopeless to attempt, so drags down the rest.
The strength from these words is for us to draw
To fortify the truth and shroud our flaw
From the eyes and lies of the wicked one;
Weakening us ‘till easily undone.

Never must we, so never shall we yield
Lest we gamble that love that we all wield.
The love that is him, not given by whim,
Can and will be found in amongst this din
Of the towns and cities keeping alive
The corrupt, capital world of the lies.
Dangling the bogus carrot of pleasure;
Misdirecting us all from the treasure
Of something more real spiritually
than anything that’s found posthumously.

For when time grows old, all corners explored,
All things have been sold and all has been bought.
When all has been said and all has been done
With nothing unpainted, ev’rything sung,
All’s been invented, no lines left to write,
No mountain to climb, no evil to fight,
No path left untried, no words left to talk,
No niche unoccupied, no roads to walk.
To surpass anything, where is the hope?
Upon past achievements we will still dote.

All religions, legions and ligaments
Feel full force of their own eradicant.
Once blinded by their own faithful binding
They’ll begin to prove its own unwinding.
Then reluctant eyes open up to see
Their stubbornness was based on fallacy.
By this time now all chances will be spent.
Choices made by those who will now regret
Not seeing what’s evident for all sight
But those whose hearts and eyes they kept shut tight.
Regret will abound for the truth not found.
Eternity in Hades and the ground
Is the only future for the many
Who chase that carrot dangling for jenny.

Ambiguity of a single word
Begs contextual study of the broad.
Only then can a justification
Substantiate their stubborn rejection.
What will fill the void where once there was truth?
Ostensibly only eternal ruth,
Curtailed by the one whose ultimatum
Can be found in that book of verbatim.
The book written to escape the scapegrace
Our only grace and our only solace.

Those grating gusts part, exposing a path
A path enough wide for many a rath,
But the wind which once blew for all idols
Has changed its direction toward idylls.
Softly but certainly the air makes change.
With grating now gone, systems rearrange.
Where one and one equal much more than two,
Longer is forever if it’s just you.
Love is the only, the all, and ever,
The one currency we’ll grow together.

Amen.

— The End —