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M Apr 2013
To empathize and sympathize
Rather than criticize and publicize
Issues that cause fissures in his foundations
Keeping him upright and safe from tribulations
Is so much more rare.

To listen and disengage
From all else but whoever is speaking so he has the stage
Will help release him from the cage
Of hopelessness, loneliness, and ridicule;
Doing so shows you care.

To comfort and support and love
Will demolish all fears and rise above
What bogs him down so far into his heart and mind
That he feels he is lost, he can't find
His breath, choked by a lack of air.

To provide and subside
All of your own problems, to let them slide
Even if momentarily, for another human being;
In doing so, you are growing, learning and seeing
That love and compassion were meant to share.
JDK Jan 2014
The violinist plays as the artist takes down his paintings.
Nothing sold today. His spiraling visions of figurative
meaning behind the sentimental moments that he can't forget
have failed to make an impact on the passers-by,
once again.
He drops meager change into the case
of the musician.

The human statue breaks her frozen form
to act out a five second tragedy as he
makes his way down the avenue;
free of charge.

His fanbase is of the kind that can only
sympathize. Endeared to him not through the way
he spreads his paint, but from his passionate speeches.
When he explains the reasons behind each minute element,
they can't help but to relate. How he reaches
to define every detail of what would otherwise be
just another memory.
Art is hard
Rhea Nadia Mar 2015
This is a man (Malcolm X) I believe gave our Black people confidence in times most needed. He extended common sense amongst scrambled minds and perspective to scholars who thought they had it figured out. His methods, must like a scientist. I'm speaking of the way he even compartmentalized subjects with much harmony and such fluidity. I respect the approaches he took to bind our Black people. I know that he held sincere compassion for the progress of our Black communities. This is why he weighs so heavy on us 50 years later. Probably heavier than ever, he resonates. He rises every time the consistent bullet of injustice pierces the flesh of our people. Each time one falls victim to ignorance or returns to the way they know better than to follow, Malcolm X is there. He is in our Black men, the rebellious hunger. The starvation and thirst will drive you to a point of discipline and control of self or the continuous massacre of dignity, pride and structure in the Black body. We are failing ourselves. We were once victims and for too long stayed that way. We are surely oppressed and have been for too long but we are not to feel sorry for ourselves. We are not to help the oppressor further press us down into our own graves. We are not victims anymore. We are not to allow others to sympathize for us. We are not the minority, they may say what they will. We have learned far too many lessons and we have had far too many teachers to continue letting this ignorance run through and destroy our beauty. Volumes of lectures, instructions - literally the key to rising is in our possession and we have failed generation after generation to seam our strengths and unlock what is already ours. We have been warned, it will not be an easy task nor a joyful journey. We will fight, we will bleed, we will not rest many nights, we will not look the same many years from now, we will not hold the same energy, we will not have the amount of time that we have at this very moment. The amount of time that we have to wake up, change and be better for those looking for answers 50 years from now. Like those before us, it is up to us to leave our words, power and visions as the foundation of inspiration, as the response for what our struggle has really meant and the love that has to be built to get us there. *

© 2015 Rhea Nadia
It will always feel like "Black History Month"
ln Dec 2015
Each time I try, I fall
Each time I heal, I hurt
Each time I understand, I forget
Each time I love, I hope

The ones who are hardest to love-need it the most,
The ones you think are unbreakable- can't sleep at night,
The ones you look up to- regret every single thing they've said or done
The ones you think are happy- went through hell to get there
The ones you think are confident- can't bear to look at their scars on a mirror
The ones you think are strong- it took them their whole life to lay a foundation

The ones who are hardest to love- love them anyway, it will be worth it
The ones you think are unbreakable- hold them when they break, don't sympathize, just hold them
The ones you look up to- listen to their stories, listen to what they've learnt and pick them up
The ones you think are happy- don't judge their reasons to be happy, it is only temporary
The ones you think are confident- look harder, analyze only the long sleeved shirts and sweaters they wear
The ones you think are strong- put in bricks and let them grow taller, don't question, just grow with them

Don't destruct, just love


If you have nothing to lose anyway, how hard can it be to just

Love?
Jessica Golich Oct 2014
Empathetic approaches toward visible emotion implicating restriction due to poverty-stricken conditions
Individuals subconsciously cultivating humility through the aching; elucidating the difficulties of day-to-day intricacies
All these tangible commodities can leave you in poverty; give of yourself to those experiencing less fortunate circumstances to truly win the lottery
Today, I am grateful for a plateful; this flavorful life testifies while I sympathize.
Pauline Morris Apr 2017
My heart is bleeding again
It will never mend
It will never heal
Into my sleep you steal
Giving dreams of you
How our friendship grew
Waking up to reality
Sorrow is a guarantee
I open my eyes
Sun doesn't sympathize
Winds don't care
Everywhere I look you're there
Life now so mundane
Heart bleeding once again

©Pauline Russell
Trevor Gates Jul 2013
The Obsidian Theater XV.



Welcome to my nightmare
Welcome to my show
The audience awaits your praise
And your stage light glow

My, my, it’s been too long.

[Walks across stage; light follows. Curtains pulled]

Where have all of you been?

[Audience laughter]

Oh, forgive me, that’s not the right question
To ask

Where have we been?

That’s more fitting


Where


Sipping Champagne with Bing Crosby among undead poets
With a casket made for two
“Brother can you spare a dime?”
He said,
“Lift me from this tribal paradigm.”

And

For many days I wandered the wilderness in the threads of
My carnivalesque grandfather
Ripping and tearing in the clinging trees
Hands of branches
Groping and pulling the garments off my body

In the middle of the Serbian wilderness was The Manor
Draped in dead trees and blackened ice

The valet stood at the gate in prime condition
Waiting

But for who?

“Why, you sir.” He told me, guiding me through the entrance, to the front door.

And inside were wonders to be held by the
muster of my weakened eyes

Ladybug dancers tossing their legs up to *****-tonk fanfare
Swirling magicians pulling rabbits and naked men from the shadows

Allegorical usurpers coated in a filmy residue of
Herzog dreams
And
Lynch fantasies

Perpetuated by my longing
My lost soul
My parched thirst
My growling stomach
My throbbing manhood
My forgotten affliction
And severed diction

A man slivering into the skin of a woman
A Lady donning the cowl of a man

Skins shivering with afterglow effects

And dreams woven by old witches with intestinal thread

It was eloquent darkness in the belly of the manor
Fit for a King of Devilish glamor

Brothers of Grimm
And
Sisters of Mercy

Told from the pages

From the books

Of frozen Gods
And forgotten Titans

These are the happenings of a great story
Fiction or not
You may tell it
And believe what you will

It doesn’t matter as long as it is strongly retold

From the lips of another

The wandering bard
Or
The pub crawling drunkard
To
The enamored *****
And
Bookworm report
It needs
To be shared
To others
Even impaired
To celebrate
Gasp
Giggle
Scare
Love
Soothe
Disrupt

My impeccable, capable
Hands-down sensational
Tour de force
Troupe
A la mode


Cherries on top of whipped screams and drinks
Juggling heads and animals over coals of fire
Give them a show
Give them a feat
Give them something to remember
Give them something to crawl back to
Give them a performance that will beckon the applause
For years to come
Show your audience
And readers love
And
Sorrow
The likes of which
Cannot be equaled
Or even compared to
Lesser
Congregations
Of silly-billy pud muffins
And their
Street-smart guff

Let the institution of your mind become a corporal being
Teasing and pleasing those eager and waiting eyes
Staring up at you with
Wanting
Drooling
Wanting
Begging
Wanting
Affections

Don’t you want to see a show worth seeing?

[Audience cheers; laughs and applauds]

Watch a movie worth seeing?

Read a book worth reading?

How do you come by this?

Create what you’ve always wanted to see, read, watch and say.

Those performers
Once peasants and beggars

Stood up from the grime and ridicule of the trash and rose above the
Plateau
To conquer their hearts

Look and see!

Those people balancing and singing with fluffy dogs
Magicians and warlocks summoning spirits to dance among stars
Poets on stage reading mixed words to nodding peers
Directors blocking actors on stage with unparalleled enthusiasm
All these creatures of the ubiquitous night
Gather and produce
The whim of their lives

But many of these masters
These

Unknowing

Are

The bus boys cleaning up after your meal
The mother alone at home with the kids
The unsociable man on the park bench
The frigid girl in the corner of the classroom
The nervous boy wandering the circus
The stern librarian in Brooklyn
The blogger in the studio apartment
The hard working abroad student on a farm
The homeless man cradling a dying dog
The celebrity chasing photographer
The undergraduate tutor
The ignored substitute teacher
The bullied Muslim student
The underprivileged south side coach
The Turkish cab driver


More and more

These warrior poets and victims to racial slurs
Commonwealth bigotry
Ghetto endorsements
Faulty criticisms

From hosting countries

And sheltered, over-privileged, disillusioned

Politicians

Bureaucrats

Religious figures

Dogs of War

Angels of retribution

Demons of industry

Ghosts of the hours and days past
To sympathize and cry for the world
Thrown into invisible and subtle chaos
Like an ocean littered with the blades of
Broken glass
The sludge toxic waste mixed in molten lava over craters of dead bodies
Or
The sand dust covering the thousands of bodies in the earth

So



What teams won the World Series?
Which movie star dates who?
What’s the latest trending diet?
What new pop sensation has been manufactured?
What new insult can talk show hosts say?
Is there someone new to blame for all the bad things in the world?

What are the things the media has told you?
And
The things it hasn’t?

It’s a
Bitter sweet symphony

A
Crucible for the faceless grins
Pointing fingers everywhere but themselves


Let’s leave the worries to our kids
I’m sure they’ll figure it out.
Allow me to thank my esteemed colleagues: Meryl Streep’s skeleton, Freddie Mercury’s ghost, Doc Hammer, George C. Scott, Doctor Emmett Brown, Marty McFly, Easter Eggs, internet message board administrators, Robert Redford, Aviator sunglasses, Don Cheadle, The Coen Brothers, the Dukes of Hazzard, Billy *** Thorton, Hammerfall, Saxon, Klaxons, Lou Reed, Spike Jonze, Michael Gondry, Guts, Son Goku, Tinkerball ***** force, the Die Nasties, The Iron Maidens, Judas Priestess, The Runaways
And many more I simply don’t have time to mention.

Now Get out of my theater.
Leia R May 2017
i sympathize

i empathize

i want to be euthanized


l.r.
good luck to everyone. may the odds be ever in your favour

( i haven't even read or seen the hunger games )
Locksley Hall

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn:
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.

'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.--

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.

And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,
Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,
As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.

And she turn'd--her ***** shaken with a sudden storm of sighs--
All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes--

Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong";
Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long."

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,
And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips.

O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!
O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!

Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!

Is it well to wish thee happy?--having known me--to decline
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!

Yet it shall be; thou shalt lower to his level day by day,
What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay.

As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

What is this? his eyes are heavy; think not they are glazed with wine.
Go to him, it is thy duty, kiss him, take his hand in thine.

It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought:
Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand--
Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand!

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace,
Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule!
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool!

Well--'t is well that I should bluster!--Hadst thou less unworthy proved--
Would to God--for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?
I will pluck it from my *****, tho' my heart be at the root.

Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come
As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home.

Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind?
Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?

I remember one that perish'd; sweetly did she speak and move;
Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?
No--she never loved me truly; love is love for evermore.

Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,
To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whisper'd by the phantom years,
And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.
Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy rest again.

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry.
'T is a purer life than thine, a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

Baby lips will laugh me down; my latest rival brings thee rest.
Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.

O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.
Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two.

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.

"They were dangerous guides the feelings--she herself was not exempt--
Truly, she herself had suffer'd"--Perish in thy self-contempt!

Overlive it--lower yet--be happy! wherefore should I care?
I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?
Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow.
I have but an angry fancy; what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground,
When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels,
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.
Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,
When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,
Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men:

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

So I triumph'd ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry,
Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;

Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint:
Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point:

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher,
Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire.

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,
Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's?

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,
Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.

Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn,
They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn:

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string?
I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.

Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain--
Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine,
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine--

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd,--
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.

Or to burst all links of habit--there to wander far away,
On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.

Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,
Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag;

Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree--
Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind,
In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.

There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing space;
I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.

Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run,
Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks,
Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books--

Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild,
But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.

I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains,
Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!

Mated with a squalid savage--what to me were sun or clime?
I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time--

I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,
Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon!

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range,
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day;
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun:
Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun.

O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set.
Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet.

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall!
Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.

Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt,
Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow;
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.
annie Sep 2015
the bottomless pit within
fills me to the brim
but i’m still so empty

a sky full of stars
or an elevator
packed with hot bodies
it doesn’t matter
the nights are still lonely

the people i loosely call friends
always tell me i’m never alone
i try to tell them
my self-reliance is not the problem
but we’re not even reading
the same book

keep your thoughts to yourself
do not speak to me
do not sympathize
i am desperate
but not for your acceptance

let me be as i’ve been
it will always be this way
i’m used to the empty feeling
nothing gold can stay

i can’t speak for frost
i can’t confirm his notion
i’ve never held anything golden
other than you

but my palms
they weren’t large enough
and my heart
dedicated to you
too many of its beats

i scare everyone away
and those who don’t run
i push until they walk
i don’t want company
unless it’s yours
and i will never have that

i try to fill your shadow
but nothing is so priceless
alcohol makes me mourn
sleep does not console

violent silence
it pushes me to the ledge
the thoughts beckon
we’ve been through this before
why do i hesitate
Tea Nov 2013
Dear middle class friend
You have to know that I love you and know we come from difference
I am thank full for your existence and teaching me how to blend in
Find myself inside the lines of a different class
you take the time to teach me how I should act
You come from power I come from poverty
But I can mask, just change my cloths and vocabulary
Im educated and observant
Subservient to what you say
Speaking of your problems
How you hate the rain
How you over booked yourself
Should you go to the yurt or to the football game?
Not trying to undermine
To lessen your distress
Or infer you have a mistress
That money isn’t happiness
Just remember when you talk to me
You are forgetting who I am
Because of how I dress
Disguise myself to well I guess
Remember
I just found a place to live
Food is hard to find
My parents split
My siblings flail
Cancers killing someone else…
And you forget
That money isn’t mine
And I am short on time
My problems are different
I just can’t relate
I have never seen a yurt
Or seen a football game
Or been on stage
I don’t know what to say
Dear middle class companion
Thanks for offering to stand in
When I want to complain
But don’t feel bad
And take my hand
I try to feed me again.
I don’t need fixing, or sad eyes
Just try to sympathize
I know you don’t understand
We come from difference
I hope for acceptance
Maybe understaning
But I don’t know how to say
Ill never care as much as you
About such silly things.
Samantha Louise Dec 2013
Boy:
baby don't cry
I didn't mean to,
please sympathize
You mean the world to me
I'd hate to see us die
You're so perfect
but I can see it in your eyes
You don't want me anymore,
and I'm not surprised

Girl:
Baby I'm through with all of your lies
I'm sick and torn down of being hypnotized
You make me feel like every things alright
when it's all just ****** up, I don't even want to try
I've finally given up
I've been driven through some rough
patches on the ground
and now I'm nowhere's to be found

Together:
Some relationships come
some relationships go
but where do we stand?
we don't even know.
It's like I'm attached to you still
but my mind is sterile
And my heart is fragile
and I'm broken like a vase
So scattered all over the place
impossible to fix
Robin Dale Aug 2012
she's six-foot, two inches tall
and blonde in a see-through-gloves kinda way
she's oddly shaped - okay, she's THIN
but she's really oddly shaped and don't argue
a french accent - I think it's mostly put-on, I mean
she's been here what, 5 years now                 but

he's always petting me when she's around
as if to sympathize, "so she's incredible, don't feel bad"
and I swore yesterday he gave me  the
"i'm not attracted to her" look

The thing isn't that she's french, and blonde, and thin
and the thing isn't that he sees it
The thing is that I haven't been accessible lately
(pretending to be asleep
not paying attention, really)

The thing isn't that I forgot how to fix what's broken
or that I don't know HOW
The thing that really bothers me is
I don't even think I want to try
Sam Lylin Aug 2018
They ask me who I want to be
I ask them what is wrong with me?
They say to be like others are
You can't become a faulty star
There's no way that you'll get that far
Be a doctor, be a nurse
Be a dentist, drive a hearse
A poet? please, you can't do worse
You can't make money just with verse

They ask me how I sympathize
With tear-stained faces, bloodshot eyes
Those who struggle with goodbyes
And quiet ones who analyze
Or far too much, apologize
They ask me how I am so wise

I say that I just talk to them
Find the lovely, hidden gem
But first, I say, I don't condemn
You are you and I am me
That is all we have to be
If we strive to be much more
We fight our own internal war
Don't be something for another's sake
Learn to dream when you're awake
Remember you're your own snowflake

They ask me
What makes you happy?
I answer short of patience
And just a little snappy

I say that sometimes nothing can
Like leaping out of fire
Just to land in the pan
I feel just as permanent
As lines in the sand
Hurting on the inside
I just don't understand

And other times I feel fine
As if the sun remembered
How to shine
It's like depression just forgot
How to poison every thought
Or pull my fragile heartstrings taut
And shatter every dream I sought

But I don't say this all out loud
In front of one big jeering crowd
Or with friends or all alone
Or even when I'm safe at home
I look into their eyes and say
Don't worry, friend, I'll be okay
cringemaster Nov 2014
He is a tree swaying in a snowstorm in late autumn
A not-so-evergreen, with browning-red streaks all over his limbs.
Pushed around by the winds of the storm,
gasping for air and yearning for sun to give him the strength to stand,
only receiving more stress and pressure from sharp seasonal winds that seem to exist solely to shorten his year-round life.
Lack of oxygen and too many cuts leave pink, brown and yellow leaves on his limbs,
making him look out out of place among the rest.
The rest that evidently either don't care or just forget
that he once looked like them, acted like them, felt like them, but no more.
Of course there are always those that love the different ones,
sympathize, empathize, and emphasize the fact that beauty can exist in what is not conventionally beautiful.
But even the warmth from these good souls will often be diminished and become soulless when winter comes around.
A time in which one watches, with notches for eyes,
as the red and yellow and purple blotches that the select and wonderful few once loved decay and drain away.
He looks dead.
He acts dead.
He feels dead.
So he believes he is, indeed, dead.
And consequently, so does the rest of the world;
as it is a universal truth, it seems, that the way someone looks, and acts, and feels, determines what they are.
A fallacy; one that has caused the downfall and tragedy of humans and trees alike since the first man spoke and the first plant bloomed.
If a person is gone, it is best to forget and bury them, and if a tree looks dead, it is best to cut and burn it.
Of course, most trees tend to either stay green or spring back to life
after the dark days of winter, flourishing in the dog days of summer,
but every year it is a tree's biggest fear that he will be one of the black tragic few
who do not come back, due to being overshadowed by taller, fresher, better trees
that mother nature had more meticulously pruned.
No, his fear grew that he would never bloom,
he was one of the lesser ones,
outgrown and outmatched by those evergreens and ever-okays that needed less sun and love to carry on
intentionally blocking light from him, leaving only a few sadly relatable meek rays that cut through
the sharp pines like an even sharper knife.
They would shine down on him like a spotlight, or even better, a laser beam capable of lifting him up,
severing his roots to his past and bringing him up to face the public eye,
exposed and vulnerable to the judgement of his scraggly twigs for arms and thick trunk, leafless, better yet lifeless, a thing to behold in a depressingly pathetic light in the middle of the forest,
isolated and alone among a crowd of superiors, allowing any random passerby on a hike to look down on him in pity, as they learn what it is like to see something slowly, carefully, inevitably,

die.
A sappy (hah, a pun, **** me) poem I jotted down a few minutes after a thing went down. It's not perfect, but since it was written out of such extreme emotion I don't want to change it too much other than pruning it for grammar and spelling errors I might've made while writing in an overwhelmingly panicked haste (god forbid I ever write something good when I'm not going through pain). I hope you like it, cause I don't. Also, a message to my friend Becca: don't give up over this winter. I know life always ***** around this time for everyone and the personal stuff you go through makes that even more amplified, but I'll always be here for you to talk to, and I'll help as much as an emotionally unstable and depressed teenager possibly can :p Seriously though, if there's ever anything troubling you, I'll do my best to at least make it a little easier. I don't know what it is about you, but I care so much about you and I'd hate to see you get hurt or feel as bad as you have in the past. Stay strong :)
Cedric McClester Apr 2015
By: Cedric McClester

Your secret’s out
Now everybody knows
He gave you that rock
Like we first supposed
So model it
Come on and strike a pose
But maybe first
Straighten out your clothes

Let me pick a contentious bone
You can tell a diamond - from a ***** stone
And we’re not dumb enough to be deceived
So your account was never believed

I sympathize with you
I know that truth hurts
Now you’re about to get
Your just desserts
See that’s what sometimes happens
To you flirts
When showin’ off what’s underneath
Your skirts

Let me pick a contentious bone
You can tell a diamond - from a ***** stone
And we’re not dumb enough to be deceived
So your account was never believed

You went to the Hague
To testify but lied
The version that you told
By others was denied
And even those who wanna
Be on your side
Know the truth was sumthin
You never applied

Let me pick a contentious bone
You can tell a diamond - from a ***** stone
And we’re not dumb enough to be deceived
So your account was never believed

It’s too late for the truth
The damage has been done
To your tattered image
Now you don’t have one
But that’s what you deserve
If the truth be told
Cuz justice must be served
And it’s best served cold

You went to the Hague
To testify but lied
The version that you told
By others was denied
And even those who wanna
Be on your side
Know the truth was sumthin
You never applied

Let me pick a contentious bone
You can tell a diamond - from a ***** stone
And we’re not dumb enough to be deceived
So your account was never believed



(c) Copyright 2015, Cedric McClester.  All rights reserved.
A ***** Stone was inspired by a famous super model/actress, who is known to be difficult.  It's a true story.
Mariah Feb 2015
I don't need you
no not anymore
your true colors are dark as coal
and you're colder than ever
the truth is, is I would have done anything for you
now I sympathize you, your style of life
it's clear you can't comprehend that you can't survive feeding off of someone's own self worth
you can't take that from someone just so you can feel once again
mvvenkataraman Apr 2010
I see the body there
Their agonies all share
And express that they care
The death they could not bear
They curse the Air
Saying leaving is unfair
They feel that loss is a nightmare
They pray for God to repair
To cremate the body they prepare
They sympathize with the body's pair
To treat the body as God they dare
All hearts the sad scenes tear
Time to stay they generously spare
Such sympathy was very rare
This I can strongly declare
My pains were to all fall of hair
About my pitiable plight all were aware
O- Human beings- Please be beware
During my living you all gave a scare
Now love you kindly wear
Not knowing I went where

When I was available
I found living impossible
Though I was capable
My problems were incurable
The World was responsible
For making my life unmanageable
I was facing severe trouble
But the World was not helpfully reliable
For my downfall, World was liable
They made my life terrible
Though my condition was horrible
And I looked meek and pitiable
They found me to live unsuitable
My credentials were to them doubtable
My peace was just like that lootable
Though my malady was treatable
They made it appear formidable
In spite of my actions being laudable
They commented that I was insensible
After end, I am to all of them agreeable
O- Human beings- You are incorrigible.


M V VENKATARAMAN
The World commits mistakes, Giving lots of aches, One's heart it breaks,
After end amends it makes, But before that God takes, End puts for agonies brakes.
Morgan Mercury Jan 2018
I woke up at midnight
and remembered the nights we would fall asleep beside each other.
Now I'm alone and in a different city.
Now I am accompanied by the moon.  

I knew change was bound to come,
but I didn't know how hard it would hit me.
I understand that this wasn't easy for you,
and I sympathize.
I was selfish to wish for you to stay,
and I apologize.
But now I know that just because you're miles away
doesn't mean we won't meet again sometime in spring.

Our summer smiles once glowed so bright,
I swore that the stars didn't stand a chance.
We were young and spinning, spinning
I swore that our souls couldn't sit still.

I recognize that roses and daisies
blossom differently.
I just wish someone would have told me that
before winter set in.

We're all on different paths now
We all have gone and moved away.
Who knows where we will be in a year from now.
It's just that these passed summers haven't felt the same.
McKenna M Mar 2013
I am a shell
of a gaping hole
I cannot feel
any emotion

and I want to
I really want to
but I cannot tell anyone
I cannot tell anymore

I want to be loved
I want to be in love
but I can't imagine
anyone having the misfortune
to be
stuck
with
me

I mean why would they want to be?
anyway I have nothing to offer
I can't cook I can't clean
I cannot sympathize

I am just so alone
In a world full of people
who would love to try and understand
the vast and incomplete ramblings of my
overworked, depressed and shattered mind
that I want to just tear out of my skull with a cheese grater because **why woN'T IT JUST SHUT UP
Claire Elizabeth Apr 2013
Yeah
I totally understand
When you delete all of
My social networking sites
Yeah
I completely sympathize
When you go all overprotective
Parent on my ***
Yeah
It's a shame
When I defy your rule so
I can fit into the nest of popular
Yeah
I utterly hate it
When nothing goes your way
And your children misbehave
Yeah
I despise it too
When people lie
Kind of like I am doing right
At
This
Moment
Yeah
I know I am faking understanding
But I won't for long
AB Jul 2016
The world seems apathetic to
The agonies of those who live
In remote countries; deaf to
The cries that scorch the weeping wind.

It’s time that we open our eyes
& understand that terror happens
On every corner of the map,
Not simply nations close to home.

It’s time that we open our hearts
& learn to sympathize with all
Casualties of disaster,
Regardless of their differences.

It’s time that we open our minds
& realize solutions for
The suffering are well within
Our reach, but only if we want them.

The human race can overcome anything,
But only if we stand together as one.

A prayer to Baghdad;
A prayer to Istanbul;
A prayer to Jeddah;
A prayer to Dhaka.

And anywhere I may have missed.
Though the message is a bit "cliche," it's something I think we should keep reminding ourselves of none-the-less.
Vince Chul'Theg Nov 2013
I guess I feel threatened by your strength
I guess I feel threatened by your beauty
I build brick layers between us.

What is that?

She ushered me to that golden path of sacred
My hands seek but grasp not
But there is something there to be taken
Why the blinders?
Why the stammer?

I have never been so confused
‘Olobeouch,’ the Yapese say
A tangling predicament worth
Unraveling with a fine-tooth
Bamboo comb

What about awareness
Emotional terror both by day
And by night
The subtle insidious kind
Calm waves of sad

Inertia creeps

What is that?

How do I heal when--
(and thanks for putting words to it, Rudy):
When it feels like the arms of my
Clock have arthritis?

Ship wreck on the wrong shore

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My feelings for you have grown needlessly ornate
Yours for me, simple

Sullivan says:
Friendship is underrated
Because of its inherent
Ability to be so earthen
So organic
And, thus
Conceptualized
Less

So why have I built
Nonsensical negativity?
Self-sabotage

What is that?
I’m not that guy.

I told you:
“I want so much more of you than I need”
I didn’t know at the time that I got it twisted

Maybe:
I need you more than I want to admit

Love the one you’re with

I idealized, romanticized the **** out of you
Before I even came back

I shot myself
Big toe on rifle trigger

A nice distraction from more
Pressing issues?

What is that?

I thought I was alone
But you reminded me
I am not

I can’t tell you how much that means to me

Those words:
Struck match
In a dark room

I’ve not let anyone acknowledge or
Sympathize with my lingering ache
Much less help anyone understand it

What is that?
I’m not that guy
I’ve never been that guy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

­
I let news of:
Thousands killed by super typhoon
Refugee birth
******* hunter casualty
Child victim of AIDS
Remind me that my pain is small

Pretending that that news is
Good enough to build perspective
And deal with pain
When it isn’t

“We accept the love we think we deserve”
I guess I thought I didn’t deserve you
Thank you for reminding me that that is
Not Truth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~­~~~

Ask me unprovoked questions
By the sea, under a tree
Whisper me stardust

Because one day I want to say:
Love me for the man I’ve become
Not the man I was

I touch the tip of your nose
Madeline Nov 2012
i used to think -
how disloyal,
and slovenly,
and unjust of you.

the great king loved you!

but i understand, now, what it's like,
to belong so totally with someone -
your arthur and
my sweetheart -
and to want someone so much that it makes your whole body hurt -
your lancelot and
my agony.

nine tenths of my heart is yours,
but the other part
is his through and through,
and it's going to be this way, always.

i may love you all i like but
i cannot escape him.
Bryan J Powers Nov 2010
I walk around everyday lost in the past, like reading a ******* history book trying to learn of people from the past. I can never understand how other people think. No matter how hard you try and find the solutions for other peoples problems and honesty and sinceraly want to help them. Whether it is for love, money, friendship, or simply wanting to do the right thing. And even when we do our very best to help and get hurt in the process, for some reason we always come back for more as if the pain inside of us is blinded by the new distraction of you will. I call it that because 9 times out of 10 it seems that the people you are trying to help act as if they want it but then run when it is given. We jump blindly of cliffs to our own doom. We do it so ******* willingly that it becomes second nature.We do our best to protect those we care about or want to care about and the world has a way of saying go **** yourself. And when we take that plunge we hit the ground landing on jagged rocks fragementing into a million pieces. And as time goes on our minds and hearts pick up whats left and piece back together into what we lie to ourselves and call a new and better person. But it is exactly that, we are not a new or better person we are just more learned on the fact that not everything in life is free and the very sad fact that you will cry by yourself far more times than you will laugh with the one you care about. You will learn that there is no perfect relationship, there is no such thing as a soul mate. These are fantasies and dreams we make in our minds so that we can have some glimmer of hope that not everything is lost. That not everything we do in our lives will bring pain and confusion to our lives. So again we decive oursleves. Nothing ever good happens to its too late. We make a million mistakes in the process of trying to do one good thing. Those odds are proven time and time again. And it is not until a friend lays out our  mistakes and can sympathize with them do we realize how stupid we have been and like a collision of truth slams into us and wrecks our whole ****** day. Draining us of our last drop of blood, pulling that last fragment of care from our hearts which is already in a million pieces on the floor as the world walks on past crushing the fragments beneath the wieght of the past and it becomes harder and harder to ever believe that anything will get better with time, people never change, they are what they are, and no matter how much you may be willing to change for them...the sad truth is you will never change, and they will never accept you if you do.
Prodigy May 2015
I wish I could take the pain away.
I wish I could shoulder your burden,
your heartbreak,
your tears.
I wish I could protect you with my cold heart,
my emotionless void,
my stoic mind.
I wish I could take away your pain,
your sorrow,
your longing.
I want to help you to recover
to let go
to rebuild.
I want to tell you that you’ll be fine,
you’ll move on,
you’ll be happy again.
I want you to know I’m sincere,
I’m honest,
I’m hopeful.

But I can’t.

I’ve never been in your shoes;
I can’t imagine how it feels to lose
your world,
your heart,
your everything.

I’ve never felt this way;
I can’t understand what it means when you say
you loved her,
you need her,
you’d marry her.

I’ve never been rejected;
I can’t comprehend how it affected
your life,
your mind,
your future.

I can’t sympathize;
I’ve never been there.
But I can be there now,
for you.
I will stay by your side,
let you cry.
I will stay up all night,
let you talk.
And I will stay with you,
let you heal.

I may not understand, but I’ll be there.
I’ll always be there.
went to see my doctor
and he told me to lose weight
I said " you must be joking"
"I'm feeling really great!"
He reached down to my shoes
And he then untied my laces
"Now, Mr. Turner, tie them up"
"And don't make funny faces"
"I want to hear your breathing"
"As you try to tie them up"
"It'll will be quite exhausting"
"And you'll feel like throwing uP"
I said "Doc, you must be joking"
"of your test I have no fear"
But as I bent on over
My feet both disappeared
I said "What is that thing there?"
"It's blocking out my view"
He said "that large obstruction"
"is your tummy, that thing's you!"
I stood on up and there it was
My god, that thing was large
I'd bet if I went swimming
I'd be mistaken for a barge!
"Can you do your belt up?'"
"Get it to the second hole?"
I told the doc "No Problem"
"That's a realistic goal"
I undid my belt and gave a tug
I then pulled and I fiddled
But in the end I just liooked like
A balloon squeezed in the middle
He said "This isn't safe for you"
"It's not good for your heart"
"So I would say a diet and some exercise"
" is what you need to start"
"It's not  a quick solution"
"You must change the way you live"
"For you won't get any better"
"If you are aftaid to give"
He measured me and took my weight
And he did my BMI
He said "You need to make this change"
"or else, you're gonna die!"
There it was in black and white
He didn't sugar coat a thing
I either did what I was told
Or I'd hear the Angels sing.
I said, "OK, you 've got me"
"I'll commit to what you ask"
"You've scared me lots, now tell me when"
"We get started on this task"
"I can give you tools to help get fit"
"But it all is up to you"
"Just eat right and go slowly"
"And soon you'll see your shoes!"
He said there's many plans out
that can help you lose it fast
But, you didn't put in on real  quick
So, the results  will not last
I went home and I researched"
Atkins, Raw Food, Jenny Craig
I knew I could lose 50 pounds
If I just cut off one leg.
I could hobble around on crutches
Until I got a new one made
I'd be right in that fit zone
I would not be afraid,
But a voice way back inside me
Said, 'you pillock...do what's right"
"You didn't put it on quick"
"And you won't lose it overnight"
So, I changed what I was eating
No more fried foods and no bread
For I didn't want to wake up
And find out I was dead
I've exercised a little
I even went out for a jog
And I thought I moved quite swiftly
Till, I was past by an obese dog
I thought "you need some help boy"
I sympathize with you
I bet you can't see four feet
While I just can't see two!
I did weights  inside the basement
Watched dvds on my big screen
I've tried yoga and pilates
I've even danced a bit to Queen
So far there not much difference
But my energy is good
I keep on eating chocolate
I'm not trying like I could
I went back to the doctor
To follow up with him
And I knew that my achievement
was going to be dim
He said "good news, you're down a pound"
Just keep sticking to the plan
I said that it was difficult
But I'd do what I can
He said it may be just a pound
And I bet that didn't hurt
I didn't tell him I looked thinner
Because I'd worn a bigger shirt
So, here I am still trying
Of weight loss, there's no news
But if I look in the hall closet
At least I see my shoes!
tomsout001 Mar 2013
Germantown is (basically) where I work! In fact, it's part of the county I live in (Montgomery). I think a lot of the outage has been restored up there but I could be wrong. I live in Bethesda but am staying in Rockville right now and there are a ton of trees down where I live that is probably hindering the restoration effort.

Large sized shoes, like Mens Shoes Size 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 are very hard to find in retail stores. I know, my 15 yr old son wears a size 14 shoe already, and I'm anticipating them to continue growing for a few more years. He plays all kinds of sports and we have resorted to only ordering shoes online because we can never find his size in stores.

We also found one a few weeks ago. If you have any concerns about your own health or the health of your child, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional. Please review the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use before using this site.

A good quality pair of swimming shorts is made lightweight allowing you freedom of movement. It should also be engineered well to prevent the annoying air bubble that can get trapped in a pair of shorts when jumping in the water. It also should dry very quickly so that when after a break from swimming, they will not be dripping wet, leaving puddles everywhere.

We buy toys for (babyandyUSA-March-11) children and families in need during the holidays. I want dd to understand that, while we have worked hard for all the things we have, we are also very fortunate to have good jobs and that we sacrifice some things to have others. are lucky to have a beautiful house, food on the table, a healthy family and so much more.

Ever since I been pregnant, I haven been able to go to bed at night without onion http://www.tomsoutletus.net Toms Shoes Sale rings. Is this a normal craving? ~Depends on what you doing with them. Do I have to have a baby shower? ~Not if you change the baby diaper very quickly. Okay, my bestfriend is getting married. She doesn't want to just go to the court house (not active member, so temple is NOT an option) It's her first marriage and tomsoutletus she want a real wedding. Now, before you laugh at that number, she is -borrowing the dress-between me (being a bridesmade too) and my other friend, pictures will be free- Her boss is making her flowers, she just has to pay for the flowers-She's going to use the LDS church (so no reception hall fee) -My MIL is making her cake.

A light lunch which includes such things as beer, *** punch, tequila shots, fresh fruit and a Mexican buffet lunch or sandwiches is served before the ship drops anchor. Everyone then dons masks and fins and jumps in for a wonderful afternoon of snorkeling along the pristine reef. Underwater cameras (my Pentax digital is AWESOME) are strongly recommended and can be purchased at the marina gift shop in case you forgot to bring one along..

Well, I sympathize with everything that each of you has said. There are so many levels to being a working mom and losing your job. I'm still just weeks into all this but every day is a struggle. Now regularly attracted in all the assortment, Timberland Hunter wellies Socket which have a totally special orange coloured coloration option Timberland Boots for the four corners. I need all the orange colored. If you have any concerns about your own health or the health of your child, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional..  2013-03-12.
John F McCullagh Oct 2013
The first taste of Fall
made the young sapling fret.
“My leaves, once were green,
Now the cold turns them red.”
“Now look, how they fall,
How they clutter the ground.
and now I’m bare naked
My leaves are all down!”


I sympathize tree, really, I do.
I once had a full head of hair
much like you.
First it went grey
when it used to be brown.
Then I, too, got denuded
And now sport a bare crown.
But you, by this Spring,
Will be back in your glory,
But the hair I once had?
That’s a much different story.
Ann M Johnson Jan 2020
Sensitive  

   I am just sensitive enough to cry to a sad song  

   I am just sensitive enough to sing along to a song that touches my heart

   I am just sensitive enough to cry while watching a Hallmark movie  

  I am just sensitive enough to listen to other’s troubles and either empathize or sympathize with them  

  I am just sensitive enough to be a shoulder to cry on

  I am just sensitive enough to be a good friend  

  I am just strong enough to not feel like apologizing for being sensitive because it is a part of who I am

I am hoping that you are sensitive enough to except my sensitivity as part of my unique character and personality.
My poet friends feel free to comment and/or offer feedback.
As always I appreciate you all.
Lauren Smith Aug 2012
Aren’t we both brothers in the breed of Cain?
You should be able to sympathize with this pain, right?
Or maybe, by now, my mask has rendered me unrecognizable.
And yours too.
We’d probably walk right past each other in the streets.
We’ve probably walked right past each other in the streets and never knew.
Shari Forman Feb 2013
Baby o' baby come home to me,
Let me cure you of your misery.
Let me help you to find your way,
Let me help you from this day.
Baby o' baby, How I sympathize for you,
How I love you, It's true.
Let me ponder about your ways,
O', the good o'l days.
Baby o' baby, how I long for you,
Baby o' baby, do not be so blue.
Let us start anew,
With o' so much to do.
Come home at last,
To never again worry about your past.
Your ways have vanished long ago,
Baby o' baby you have to go.
Baby o' baby help me to know,
That you are alright, here and fro.
Baby o' baby, come home to me,
Where you long to be cured and gracefully set free.

— The End —