For the first time ever; I truly do not care
    if you, him, or her wished me a happy birthday;
But, I wouldn’t mind if you did. Though it is fair;
    I am one of the lesser friends; I am a boring play;

A play so fake; I am of made up characters,
    Sometimes I am the flattering villain in smiles,
And at times I am a copy of the Westerners,
    At others, I am gullible, yet I never am;

I pretend to be; but I am miles away,
    For interesting I am not; so funny at least be,
Says my brain; for maybe they will remember,
    That my birthday was today; It is an endless plea:

I always remember and prepare pages of wishes,
    For almost everyone, but all I get is 4 days late
One liners sent out of guilt; to stop the guilty itches,
    Not out of care, love, or from genuine friendly state;

I deserve it; for again; I am merely a boring play;
   A paradoxical headache of weird introverts,
And annoying extroverts; I barely even weigh,
    To a normal person; I am made of endless alerts;

Alerted, focused, attentive; all on your acceptance;
    I am what I feel you want me to be; a nice man,
A racist gangster, a diplomatic figure; I am resemblance,
    I resemble everything I see in you and scan;

I am stardust that was never meant to shine,
    I am a thread; intertwined as I feel pleases,
I am a road with temporary signs; I am grapes;
    For you I squeeze myself into juice; or ferment

Into wine; I am a fake play where you write scripts,
    I submit, because all I cared about is receiving,
A birthday wish. On that one day in the entire year;
     I do not want even want gifts; because when you don't,

I feel like I am ceasing to exist; slowly deceasing
    from everything that we were: teenagers ambitious,
WhatsApp stickers collectors, School runaways,
    Kids deceiving; it feels like I am dead; for the dead

Do not receive birthday wishes; I feel peerless;
    A white beans *** lidless, a body complete limbless,
A walking sickness, a moving flesh in stillness,
    unpardoned by my faux and obvious silliness.
  
I do not care about not getting birthday wishes;
         But I cannot not overthink what it means.

Career politicians, who cluck
as they strut with an impotent pluck
make me sick with the season
befouling all reason:
they're less of a **** than a cuck.

That gobbler and turkey-neck Mitch
makes me furious—so mad that I twitch.
He obstructs every battle
while jiggling his wattle;
unpardoned, unworthy (but rich).

The patrician political class
is a party that speaks through its ***.
They are lacking in guts
with no ifs, ands, or buts
but I swear: they produce enough gas.



HAPPY THANXGIVING, Fellow Poets☺

Memories

How you linger
Stinging and staining
Remaining and reminding
Of the binding ties
The blinding highs
And lows so steep
Blows so deep
Reaping, creeping
Leaping from tower tops
Falling, flailing to the crops below
Knot on the head
Ears pick up knocking
Arms blocking
Stocking on locks
Rocking on the floor
Poor boy
Never had a dream
Bereave him and leave him the keys
Heaves up blood
Studded in his cellar
Paler than snow
No glow, so low

Woe
Lament for him
Repent for him
Resentment was not meant for him
Sent to the wrong address
Tested and regressed
Restless and directionless
Ingestion of confession became
Nestled, cottled
Modeled and bottled
Startled and shocked
Hardened, unpardoned
Parted like the Red Sea
Like the Red blood  
Running down like tears in those
Red eyes
Ready to cry like those
Fed eyes
Ready for demise like those
Dead eyes
Don't be surprised

And what a soul could know
How the memories linger

Stick to whatever,
She told me.
Get it wrong, right
Or do not.
Flee to your scarier
Shelter,
One that is easy
To spot.
Drink wines
From glasses
Of doubt,
Worship your
Local canons.
Stretch them
Within and without,
Stan the unpardoned
Of lords.

Having it all
Given to you,
Acting completely
Exposed,
Trophies in pain
Excruciate you:
None of them **** you,
Suppose.

They wring my neck like rubber, and it’s harmless,
They say, as I’m writhing on the ground,
Throat crushed,
Chest heaving,
Mouth a fountain dripping wine.

A testament to sins chosen by those
Never condemned
And though it isn’t fair,
There is a reason that they are not the ones
Dead on a cross

They would not die for our sins; no, they live for them.
And the wine we spill, from every artery, alcohol
Burning, turning
Our insides to rock,
They drink to have a good time.

To a God that isn’t there I pray while the others listen in,
And they whisper their pities,
But I have not asked them
and they cannot provide an answer to an question nonexistent
They can only wait, and watch

The day they find wine in pools on the dirt,
Perhaps they’ll find it in themselves to look up
And see that the face of that God,
The one to which I pray and to which they spit empty confessions,
Is not there,
Or perhaps just does not care

Perhaps they will fall to their knees as wine drips down their own chins,
Finally, finally they will understand what it means to bleed
Catching the wine in their hands as it run off my fingertips they cry,
Not because they wish for me to be whole again
But because they know I will linger.
A stain.
A testament to their unpardoned confessions,
Their plea for innocence where they deserve none.

Or perhaps,
They will take pleasure in knowing
That the nails they chose to drive into my hands finally cracked bone.

Wildflowers grasped in their hands,
Eyes expectant, waiting still—
Resplendent, she, in pearls and lace,
Crystals veiling iron will.

Upon a stallion, proud she gazed,
The cliffs below—waves, hungry, wild—
A dreamer young, her heart betrayed,
By guilt unpardoned, yet beguiled.

To marry love, the soul must pay,
An execution—hope undone.
Laudanum soothes the troubled night,
But daylight sees what grief has spun.

Rumors drift like soft exhale,
Tinkling laughter—shadows hide.
A sparrow leapt from trembling hands,
Defiant, boundless, unallied.

Death does not part, though life divides—
Choices, wounds that dare reveal.
Do we hurt to feel what’s real,
Or punish what we cannot heal?

Her fingers danced on shadowed skin,
Curtains swayed in darkness shared.
Together sought, together lost,
Unpredictable, love dared.

It is of no consequence, they said,
A black sheep wanders where none see.
Yet whispers linger, soft as waves—
A love alive, though never free.

i reached out and touched him
watched as he crumbled
as the grey and rusty sandstone
once steep palisade, humbled
by the winds of dark moon blown
by the crashing waves of centuries,
beleaguered, soul lay by my feet,
swamped by painful memories
as if praying for defeat
whimpering and helpless
waves of cruel deceit
had his light dimmed.

to save him i knew
i'd have to reach within
kindle anew
the flame, 'neath calloused skin
scarred and hardened
by whips and word,
by wounds unpardoned,
by cries unheard,
extinguished by the flippant
the abuse intermittent
festering and rankling
his essence strangling
but i could only loosen
the snake round his neck
he had to see the human
beneath the wreck on deck.

I am sad and unpardoned,
Of the burden that I choose to carry.