.

if i stay

i am just alone

but if i go

i am alone

because i chose

.

~ @pocketfullofpoesies

V.E.W.

You act like you love me while shoveling dirt behind me.

It must’ve been crooked endeavors, or treasures so blinding.

Whatever your reason, the end result, forever dying.

Can’t face Truth, so adieu to you, for ever lying.

Eternity IS Truth, a view, forever riding.

Believe me not, then why are you forever hiding?

No matter, which letter you choose, I will be eyeing.

Correct Decisions, Corrected Vision, to give you 20/20 views, in this dimension.

And little did I mention… nah, let me just get back to what I was saying before I forget again.

Doing something stupid shouldn’t put you in the news.

They seem to love chaos, just might get em extra views.

Drowning in your sorrows doesn’t get rid of your blues.

Swimming in denial doesn’t mean you made it through.

And it takes more than a mile, to walk in some else’s shoes.

Keeping someone under doesn’t make you stand higher.

You would think I was preachin, I’m just waiting on my choir.

If it’s ‘enough to hold us over’ why are we at the bottom then.

When the tables turn, you’ll be mad that I toppled em.

I was down and out and dirt you threw, right along with them.

No I don’t want to kick it, get your feet up, off my ottoman.

I know I’m the shh, shoo fly, don’t bother me again.

You gon’ believe me next time when I count down from 10.

Got too many strikes like you cast out by Elohim.

Just an OutKast, Hey Y'all, that’s from me to them.

I guarantee you don’t want me to begin again.

So give more life, more love, to your fellow man..

- Joseph Shawn Johnson ♠️

☆ 3:43PM July 15th, 2020 ☆

Love yourself the way you want to be loved reason world wouldn’t love you the way you want.

And as the aching branches sigh

For the way the world once was

I fear we cannot see the forest

For the trees–

–but this is a trick question.

The forest and its trees are

Long, long gone–

Cut down and painted white

For perfect picket fences

And popsicle sticks.

Untitled (2020) via @lend-your-lungs-to-me

My heads a wash with confusion, I worry about if something is going to go wrong, or if its going to be alright. Money, being in debt or being solvent, and just how these things will effect my fragile mind set.

Then Mr conscience, steps forwards with he’s version of what you could do, if things don’t go the way you think they should.

“you don’t have to pay or even worry about the trouble your in” ? “he said” to your worried thought, inside your head,

“you can’t go to jail for being in debt, or for that matter, if you stop paying your mortgage. Even if they try to, they can’t make you do anythink you don’t want to do!” “What do you mean by that ask his thoughts”?

’ Well said conscience’ ‘you can always take a Rope, from under the stairs and swing it around the branch of a tree, and hang yourself? then nobody gets anything’ . “But thought answered” but then I’ll be dead. Yes said conscience 'but you would not owe anybody anything". So what are you worrying about, if you just let it keep running around in your head. it won’t get out, so no worries!

This is the modern life, that our young people have to look forwards to in the future. A young person in Ireland today, can’t and will be able to own or afford to buy their own house or rent a home. As they can’t get a loan from a bank, or they can’t get a mortgage, because house prices are either too high for thee young people, so they can’t get a good job, or one that will qualify them for a mortgage loan, in any of the national banks if they have not been working for long enough where are young people supposed to go to make money you have to have a job to have a job means you have to be employed but there is not enough industry to get a job that pays enough money the young people still want to get married and have children and families of their own but the government of this country do not see what the Young people see that their parents underpaid and can’t afford to the upkeep of mortgages on the houses where they were reared.

In the Know, In the Now - Bruce Adler

I like making lists

Poetry and to-dos and everything in between

Because it is literally one step at a time

No pressure on my mind

We take it as we go

So then it naturally flows

And helps my heart and soul grow

Poison only tastes like poison until you’ve swallowed it

————————————————-

I recall my lover as a winter firefly forgetting its own silhouette,

Fed with stories of midsummer ivies and stinging wild thorns,

Of wildflowers blooming alongside the rainwashed sidewalks.

He carries a strangled ballad underneath his skin,

A broken tune drowning in its own grey skies

And the more I seek, the further it hides;

A piece of heaven tucked beneath the devil’s artwork

A muse well suited for my quaint poetry.

I am often told that my poems seem lonely,

for I tend to write about a love beyond my reach

for I write about a love who chooses a pretty face over me in a heartbeat.

But don’t we all fall as slaves in our own set of miseries

so in mine, I let art play my saviour.

My lover carries my heart in his hands,

I let him play with my heartbeat

while I watch him skillfully tangle my caffeine stained capillaries with his cold, slender fingers

And after as a set of unheared ugly cries and

a series of shallow breaths escape my lips-

I hear him weep with blood spattered hands

For he now realises that my words have only wished for a home for his broken ballad

everytime he went for a new face over me;

For he now knew that poison only tastes like poison until you’ve swallowed it.

- Bidisha

Picture via weheartit

It’s okay

I have artificial tears

For when I can’t find any real reason to cry

Está bien

Tengo lágrimas artificiales

Para cuando no encuentre ningún motivo real por que llorar

The world has a tendency to make very simple things much too difficult; our minds have a tendency to complicate beautiful things. Love was never meant to be, nor should it be, difficult or complicated; you either do or you don’t. We say things like “it’s not the right time,” to prevent us, or rather, out of fear or denial, but the truth is, if it’s the wrong person, it’ll never be the right time. We are always too busy with other things if we do not care enough, and life only becomes more hectic, never less. I’m a firm believer that there is no such thing as “right person, wrong time,” for no one is static, humans are not meant to be. People only have time for something if they are willing to make time for it. Don’t give your time to someone who is unwilling to give you theirs.

Furthermore, you are allowed to change, and you are supposed to. It is why people grow apart, then together again, or why they grow together, then apart again, so don’t expect forever; appreciate the serendipity of two paths that were able to come together for a bit, if only for a transient bit of time.

-V.I.P.P.

a spark is the start

to an end of ashes

a sliver of scarlet

among thirty slashes

the maze in a journey

that never ends

the stories of you

in the twists and the bends

and at least you’re aware

that it isn’t a dream

but maybe that’s worse

than reality seems

.

i wish i were clearer

the last time we spoke

but i don’t need to mend

the heart that you broke

i’ll just grow a new one

to replace the old

and filter the blood

you once had on hold

i’m starting to think

there exists many ways

to bypass the tricks

that my mind plays

by letting the sinking

black holes of my heart

burn through emotion

and quickly restart

it’s a much colder way

to get over things

in place of the pain

that a broken heart brings

.

I count the stars

with you on my mind.

I’m fading away….

But I hope to survive.

I’m falling apart.

I hear the sound,

of a breaking heart.

I reach out, but there’s never anything to hold onto.

I guess I’ll be gone very soon too.

What am I?

Broken promises tangled around my heart.

I’ve been a mess, I’d like to say.

Giving in to my thoughts,

I’m fading away.

I don’t even know what I am and what I’m not.

I’m gone too.

There’s a knife in my back and I’m hurting too.

I hope you remember me, I really hope you do.

Because I miss you,

I really do.

~A.T Quinston

It’s crazy how our conversations never really ended, while we rarely have anything to talk about now. Time changes people. I can’t sleep. Our past is choking me.

It’s been a hard year for us all. No

One foresaw these circumstances.

And no one thought illness could

Ever endure here- like this. As if

Pandemics only exist within fiction

Novels, or history textbooks. Now

Our society has fallen to its knees

And no god is giving way to all of

Our pleas for permission to ease

Our way back into normalcy. We

All want to escape to the beach.

We want a summer beneath the

Burning, blinding sun- instead of

The ceiling fans that constantly

Run while we’re all at home. All

Suffering through a level of lonely

No other generation can hone.

*

Bless all of our hearts for their

Pounding, all of our fingertips

For their reaching. Bless all of

This lonely, this never-ending.

May we hold our loved ones

Soon. May this summer bend

To bloom. May this illness give

In, and quit. And may we all

Become stronger for it.

*

Pen

“The beauty of love when it newly blooms and perfumes everything with its flowers is an amazing sight to behold, but please remember, even as the flowers bloom, they must die to give forth to fruit. They teach us the lesson that sometimes certain things have to give way to new ones that may not be the same kind of beauty, but whose sustenance is a whole other kind of beautiful.”

e.v.e.

Snippets

1. An abandoned curtain lies before me, hiding the beautiful unreal mirror world. Her tiny crevices, let’s me see through into the shiny bright light. The curtain looks at me helplessly, in vain. She implores the winds, to come to her rescue. She has always been ignored.

2. I look at you helplessly, neither you nor I know what is wrong with me.

3. Your eyes are an opaque window, not allowing my words to leap into your mind’s understanding, craving for it.

4. My heart skips a beat, falling out for you, maybe you hold it, maybe you trash it out.

5. My heart lies on the ground beneath you, writhing with the scars, unable to breath. Seeping its way into the earth, it finds it way out to me.

@writeundertheinfluence

@writerscreed

MEMORY OF A DREAM

I recall the days of old

vividly as any tale retold

memories on a freight train

reliving good old times again

I was very young but not childish

I had been vastly naive, not foolish

grown, but not arrogant nor defiant

small in stature but inner self, a giant

a miracle child planted within a dream

a fore runner, fiery feet of the sunbeam

romancing with nature, little things alive

abundantly gifted with much more to give

All that I have and have called my own

returning it to nurture seeds I have sown

there were times I stumbled over the hill

getting up, learned to do as heaven wills

every day I learn to listen, be as a slayer

be silent, be still, till I become my prayer

I’d tumbled down a misty spiral stairway

envisioned an empty throne far far away

I was transported there to bow each day

wake up, same as I was every other day

©Johnny J P Lee

16 July 2020

Photos Credit J. P. Lee

There’s a restless place in my head,

I do not know where to go,

Why were we given a mind

We fail to control?

Sparkandashes