Part of me doesn’t want to write anymore (or is it anything?).
Am I just afraid to drag my emotions across this page?
My words tend to come back black and blue,
misunderstood from the most ridiculous points of view.

Should I end communications?
Though the shadows in my closet offer no verbal retaliations.
For better or worse, at least my ego’s not hurt
from a mad world’s projections.

But I don’t want to be the lonely one
hiding along the edge of the room,
surely looking broken to some,
while others wait for me to come undone.

Give me a minute and I’ll return to center ring.
Maybe it’s just the thought of a crowd that I find overwhelming.

Bruised and battered egos:
Retaliations –
Flaming tornadoes spiral up to stormy skies.
Mixed metaphors of caviar and custard
Maelstrom mightily around the mountains of Hell.

Trolling is appalling
And flaming burns.

Let go of that ego
Is my advice.

Be humble from the start.
No-one is great enough
To be beyond reproach
Or criticism.

Who cares how good or otherwise I am?
Who cares what anyone says
About my work?

I am what I am,
End of story.
To Describe what I am is fine:
See those metres, verses, rhymes
And metaphors.
Dismantle me if you wish,
But (please) put me back together.

No-one should stand in judgement,
Except maybe God,
With His bright wide wings.

So stop the abuse,
And sourceless insults.
Cease the condemnation,
Or stand to be IGNORED.

Paul Butters

Falling out of love again,
but not with whom I need to
my past obsession
has become nothing more
than my new addiction.
well, one of the many at least.

to recreate the situations,
is a cause forever lost.
to formulate retaliations,
leaves the souls of lovers lost.

holding fire in your heart,
burning brands upon your brain
a grudge of blood and tears and scars
the spark of which will still remain

as long as ashes are collected
and ember fanned alive  
the beast possesses reason,
a motive to survive.

I seek relief in my relations,
mostly trivial in nature,
from my newfound deprivation
of optimism for the future

I seek relief in my relations,
mostly trivial in nature,
from my newfound deprivation
of optimism for the future

no regard for heart of others
who tide me over while you're gone
leaving cracks, slow to recover
leaving faces in their palms

Its been two years since we were in it,
but maybe that was just a phase
the time has come to face forgiveness
and forget those better days.

I feel like:
I'm yelling
at a brick wall
with my hand
over my mouth

As if I were
to remove my hand
that it would make a
difference

but it wouldn't

You still wouldn't hear.
You would continue to
talk AT me in that
condescending tone

arguing with you
is superfluous
you just think you're right
arguing logically
with an illogical person
is illogical

and when you are
backed into a corner
you yell
and then claim
to be hurt

in an effort to gain
an apology
UNWARANTED

You stomp your feet
and slam things down
on the counter
like a five year old child
and expect me
to take you seriously

And when you walk
into that door
and accuse me of
the stupidest things
then expect me not to
"get an attitude"
it ****** me off to no end

That's why I shut off,
Mother.
That's why I don't talk to you.
When I tell you to leave me alone
because

I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT

it means that I don't want to hurt you
by saying these things
and that I love you,
but I hate dealing with the way
you handle situations that you don't like.

It's not fair to the other person
because you
Barrel through their retaliations
with senseless *******
that only makes sense to you

and if no apology comes,
you obsess until you come up
with this ******* conclusion
that is over-thought
and entirely untrue

I'm not pregnant, you idiot.
And just because I don't want to talk to you
doesn't make whatever is wrong ABOUT you
and don't make it about you.
because you do. all the ******* time.

You still treat me like I'm ten years old
and you have this assured power over me
you want to take back the presents you bought me?
fine. do it. I'm not materialistic, so all it proves is your
pettiness.

I wish you could hear the malice dripping in your tone
aimed specifically just to hurt me
thanks, Mom.
I appreciate it on my BREAK.
But it's not a break with you
******* at me 24/7.

I can't wait to go back to school and
be stressed out there instead.
At least I don't have to worry about
hostility when I'm in my own room.

And by the way, learn how to knock.

Not saying I'm mad
Just saying that I've had
Enough of the *******
You continue to rule ****
Feeding on my young soul
Make off with self control

And where is my brother?!
The fact that I can't speak to my mother
I'm so afraid she'll discover
All this time I never actually... Recovered

But all feelings aside
Or what's left of them, subdivide
My once constant retaliations, are now merely implied
Moreover, You kidnapped my soul and continue to preside.

A million years of karmic debts,
an ancient timeless place
where jabs and hurts and familial retaliations
swirl like witches hats and brooms
in a dust storm of drama,
and I just get to be.

My tears bow down to me,
humble servants
in my quest
for compassion
for those lost
in the fragments of their existence.

Let us concede

that hatred had

a really big year

Riding a seemingly endless
winning streak

fueled by mutual fear

and a sense of dread

that by next news cycle
any one of us
could end up dead

Constant retaliations
leave us seeking isolation

behind walls of false insulation

Treating the symptoms
without curing the disease
simply delays
the body's demise

If we are to survive

we gotta realize

we are one species

one humanity

sharing the same planet

for a limited time

No one country

No one ideology

No one theology

No one person

is better than the next

Peace will only come
to this troubled blue speck

with mutual respect

and global equality

As a child I struggled many a time
With notions of rights and wrongs,
Searching in the voice of parents
Through approval and scolding
Lessons to identify misconducts.

As an adolescent I began to challenge
Conventional behaviours striving
To find my peers’ admiration, long
Considerations over good and evil
To become someone deserving high regards.

Entering adulthood I withdrew from the gaze
Of others as no one knew who I was and who
I intended to grow into, making my own rules,
Relying on instincts to drive, religious
And philosophical reflections to call mine.

Now that I am half way through I realise
Each and every human being stores
In the depths of its consciousness a truth
No mask can hide and no one can deny.
Keys to the glorification of humankind,

Being faithful to oneself by living
In the light of love, contagiously spreading
The energy of kindness, getting rid of lacerating
Desires of vengeance, retaliations for our own
Frustrations, based on illogical self-contempt.

As I ponder on justice I have ceased to dwell,
Eye for an eye or turn the other cheek,
As the illuminated essence within me
Inevitably resolve to peace. No revenge serves
Any purpose if not that of perpetrating evil

To the detriment of humanity as a whole.

Like Custer
I’m flustered
By native invasions
Retaliations
On white savior
Salvations
Creation stories
Far less gory
Than mine
Shiny finer things I
Glorify
They decline
The divine to them is
What I chop down to spend
And what I comprehend
Merely land to be tended
They savagely fight to death
To defend it
No war declaration
Nor forced relocation
Or rampant contagion
Ensures subjugation
No integration
Or assimilation
Will ever equate them
As part of our nation
Expanding its greatness
From city to sea
So their choices are leave
Or accept the treaty
Bend the Wounded Knee
Come quietly
And relinquish
Their rain-dancing,
Flame-trancing
Visions
Extinguished
In favor of Manifest
Destiny’s best
Blessed Western
Exceptionalism’s
Excess
Steering clear
Of inferior
Cultures we fear
As we pave new frontiers
Atop their
Trails of Tears

i would like to
say i have breathed
a little since then but
I have been holding
it, a gust of wind
bubbled inside,
lots of quips
and retaliations
scenarios that
God is letting me
whittle because I can
and i am hoping that
soon a sense of peace
will overtake me because
seeing you rebound, straight
off the backboard, hurt a
little, and all I could do
was replay your sly
dip over your shoulder
a coors pressed into your chin
saying hi like i(t) was nothing
and maybe it was.

Acute adenoidal hypertrophy cannot be of bees, slim tactics, tokens
shaved of serrations, nor chroma key screens of greenish adorations
that steer saints to tomes prizing kingly privilege from high stations
where-from hangers-on & thin mistresses sally forth lezzy relations
in sight of cruel Niger beauties flowering in ******* miscegenations
with Comancheria's Comanches who burn from demon usurpations
flowin' rearward to proto-Comanchee versus Shoshonee retaliations
that form habits that contribute to jammed ***** for gay Caucasians
in clinics for handsome Mexicans of Africani-gendered persuasions
I sliced my right hand heel on a soup can causin' deep abrasions the morning of Wednesday, 15 March 2017, sparin' my ****, grey shins