Forget me not

Nothing is clear cut,
or set in stone,
or arranged in such a way
as to be the end all truth.

At some point in your life
you will be told
that you should think
outside of the box,
but
there was never a box
to begin with.

There is conformity,
and there is anarchy.
There is a blending of the two.
There are rules
to keep people safe,
and there are rules
designed to make money
for those who make the
laws.
Some laws are put into place
for the greater good.
Other laws are established to
bleed the people dry.

There is a fine line
between Democracy and Death.
But you can not save people from themselves.
We are all responsible for our own lives.
Every decision we make
carries weight. Every choice we
are confronted with
impacts the overall value
of the life we are dealt.

You will be told
that life is valuable
even though it is not
in the greater scope
of what life really
means.
One life suddenly snuffed out
will only impact
the immediate lives
it has encountered. It
may cause a stir
for a period of time,
but humanity is fickle,
and will soon forget
the cause of death.
A new issue will arise,
the demons of our past
will be soon forgotten,
and something new will
fill the space
in the void
where that one life
existed.

We will find new causes,
and those causes will be
left behind for other causes.
We are fickle,
we are picky,
we are forgetful,
and we are lazy.

A new piece of
technology will
be introduced,
and whatever it was
that had us in its grip
will soon diminish.
A new piece of
news will grip the
Nation, and the
old soundbite
will quickly fade away
into obscurity.
Something we should
pay attention to
will be overshadowed
by an act of violence
that will make the world
tremble,
and we will move on
to bigger, better things.

An environmental crises
will wane and fade
into an endless
war that can never
be won.

But never mind
all that,
how about the
new movie
that is making
the rounds?
Are you going
to go
see it?
Can we talk about
that for the next
few weeks
while people die
for lost causes?

just for a second

the mind machine
is indifferent
to the play of
the physical.
it matters not
that the Earth
rumbles
with war cries.

a tiny leaf
lay prone.

what we were once
is never so certain,
never so firm
that it cannot be
taken away
through forgetfulness.

what we become
is a matter of purpose.

we let go of
the tiny nothings
that tie us down
in order to become
what we must.

dreams fall away
              effortlessly.

no child
ever said,
"I want to be
     a slave to
  a system
that wants to
      destroy me
for gain."

     there is a breath,
     and another.
     a sigh,
     then another.
     a love,
     and then it's over.
     for every death
     is dire intention,
     dragging the last of you
     away
     until all that remains
     is the very thing
     you fear the most.

and suddenly you
are no longer who
you once were. you
have been replaced with
a modern facsimile of that
which you thought you would
become.

all the dreams
                wash away.

there's nothing more
to hold firm.
just a small frown
where a smile once
emerged, and
nothing more.

a tiny leaf
lay prone
in a puddle
of water,
clear as
the light
of the morning
sun,
above a ripple
like time
standing still
if only
for a second.

and the end
stumbles upon us
so slowly
that it quickens
the pulse
as the blade
dips further
and falls
as a razor
across the neck
of our own undoing.

so dreams
         are wished away,
                   and nothing more.

a tiny leaf
lay prone.

What she Saw

She sensed herself in the mirror,

but the image wasn’t her own.

The face was smooth

and

young,

but foreign, misplaced, wrong.

She had seen herself before,

had counted each of the lashes

which closed like a trap over her eyes.

She had watched her mouth tense countless

times without revealing too much

of herself.

But this woman was a stranger.

She splashed some water onto

her face

and let the droplets descend

along her

cheeks.

Still, the reflection did not waver.

The young girl was there,

gazing back through

those traps set to lids,

a dark red

before the mascara smeared.

She was pale.

She knew nothing of the world

that held her.

She knew nothing of herself

or anything else that had came along

through the years

like shards from the mirror,

reflecting the stains in her eyes.

But the image stood firm.

At her center was

someone who knew,

someone who had seen

their fair share

and failed to shake it off

like so many others had done

before her.

That woman there, she pointed,

could be tempted. She could be

hurt, damaged, broken beyond

repair.

I am not that woman, she said.

She had thrown off the man in her life

like an old rag

too dirty to wash.

She threw him away

in the same way

he threw her aside

and trampled that last part

of her that remained

pure.

The feeling of loss never came,

just the reflection of a young girl

that forced her to stare back at herself.

It’s a symptom, she said, nothing more.

I’m sick and it will only be a matter of time before

I’m well again.

Being ill taunted her.

She could feel the nausea like poison,

feel the heart race a little faster

with just a memory,

with the flash of an image

of the way he smiled,

or how he would hold her

so close that

the tension

melted

like wax along a rose colored

candle she only lit for him.

A small breath of laughter,

and he vanished,

but the girl in the mirror

remained,

droplets of water

drying

in the reflection

of a pool

she knelt beside,

hoping to rinse away the hurt

that was caused by the man

who took her innocence

away.

The mirror of water rippled away

with a touch from

the same finger

she used to point

at him in accusation

when she caught him

with that other girl

who looked just

like the reflection

she was staring at 

right now.

where we lose humanity

there are those
who are radicalized
by cheap smiles
and designer suits.

their colors show
when their hate
is sparked
through anger and fear.

they fear others
like them,
those who may
do harm with bitter
     intention,
with misplaced
scrutiny,
with dire intent.

radicals are all
the same.
they use images of terror
to herd the masses.

they use flowery tongues
to misrepresent the truth.

they hide as common men
with a common goals,
and claim a common enemy.

they are the spark that
sets the fire
that rages in the hearts
of little men.

they become tyrants,
and millions
fall
by their foolish
endeavors.

percentages

there are
approximately
283 million
guns
in the United States.
less than 1%
of those guns
have committed
mass murder.
85%
of the mass
homicides
are committed
by men.
100% of men
rely on oxygen
to survive.
12 + 6 = 18
there are 318.9 million
people in the United States.
1 in 3 American households
own guns.
25% of Americans acknowledged
they were superstitious.
3% of murders are committed
with legally purchased guns.
14.5% of Americans live
below the poverty line.
approximately 34% of Americans
18 years or older have a college
education.
1.3% of all deaths in
the United States
are related to guns.
there 30,800 fatal car crashes each year
on American roadways.
there are 11,208 deaths a year
by gun related homicide.
15,206 people die
every year from poisoning.
5,800 deaths a year are work related.
1 + 1 = 3

watch it walk slowly

   no one wants to visit
              the harsh reality
      that the days
                     are slipping away
               and there might not be
                        enough time
                   to make time for time.

it is always tomorrow
                        or the next day,
         feeding the minutes away
                for just one more moment,
         another chance to get it down,
                                       get it done.
but it all falls apart
                           and what was most important
                    gets pushed aside
            for what needs to happen now.

an endless,
                   circular motion,
                                              coming back
                       upon itself.

crazy, bark-eyed men shuffling along
to the music that plays in their own
rattling heads, looking for a few more
minutes to drum up a symphony, but
the orchestra never arrives.

no one wants to visit the harsh reality
that you truly die alone, and all the
friends in the world can't bring you
down that winding road.

so we wait,
                   shaking off the sand,
              and it gathers
                              @ our feet
           only to restrict our movements
                     more and more.

                              but nobody listens,
                                      and the flowers
                                      get cast aside

                                    for bigger,
                                              better
                                                    guns.

legal junkies

there's this thing
called oil.
it is becoming so scarce
that we are using
more expensive ways
to extract it from
the Earth.

it is not only used
to fuel
the vast majority
of our vehicles,
but also to provide
energy to nearly
every region of our planet.
plastics, pharmaceuticals,
hygiene products, clothing,
industrial additives...
the list goes on and on.

we create wars to
secure more of this precious
elixir because
we are becoming desperate.
we destabilize the Earth's
surface to extract much less of
this resource just to keep
it flowing.

it is not because we don't
have other means to utilize.
it is because it's cheap,
and reaps the most profit
in the least amount of time.

no one that you know is getting
rich off of oil. oil profits are reserved
for the wealthiest people.

these are the people that are
in charge. they pull
the strings. and
they will make all of us
go away because of their greed.

because oil also destroys
the climate of our
increasingly fragile planet.

no more farms. no more lumber.
no more oceans, streams, or rivers.
no more middle class. no more
poor. and eventually, no more rich.
we're all losing ground to
a dying resource
held captive
by the insanity of greed.

because the reality is that
greed is a sickness
and should be treated as such.
because only the sick
would destroy their only
home in exchange
for a temporary high.
greed is an addiction.
and like all addictions,
if it goes unchecked,
it will only lead to
more excuses to maintain
that addiction.