#0013 - "Laughter is the epitome of happiness"

Your sonorous laughter is the epitome of happiness,
and your smile is a perfect example of bliss and joy.
Your gleaming gaze is formed of radiant rays of sun:
metaphorical waves of ecstasy diverging from a star.

But when I deeply gaze into the wells of your eyes,
I can see that in their depths rest pain and sorrow;
although you carefully veil them with covering lids.
Your lids are of tin - easily adapted, but easily torn

open to show your festering wounds -
wounds that would be long forgotten
if you would keep from picking them
like a fidgeting child with dirty hands.

When coping foreign gaze
you wear your band-aids,
but by the end of the day
they've long peeled away.

They say that before solving a problem
you must first acknowledge a problem.
You see clearly, but your only problem:
you'll only confess to empty darkness.

I know you crave your solitude,
the safe succor of being silent.
I always hear silence is golden,
but sometimes, quiet is violent.

#0012 - "I've learned the flaw of stoicism"

I've learned the flaw of stoicism: life
assumes its blows have no effect on you.
The world brandishes its serrated blade
and assumes that your armor can withstand

its tearing blows, its tyrannical rule.
Each day it digs in the ground with a spade,
and upon the lip of the grave I stand
and watch: the growing pile of dirt stacks high.

My demeanor remains dully unchanged,
my smile and expression stoic and bland.
My countenance marked by a weary sigh,
my gaze isn't kindly, and isn't cool.

But I feel the tormenting tremor, and
thoughts run across the landscape of my mind.
I constantly think, but don't know how to
stop waning, how to maintain the charade.

#0011 - "Words"

Words

can be

eloquently

phrased to express thoughts, to confess

or represent

laments.

They

can hurt

or can comfort;

a whetted blade or sunny day;

a call to fight

or flight.

One may say

life's complex: c'est

formidable, fort minable.

Life is perfect,

direct,

hard.

Mam dość;
Solidarność:
Solidarity, and pari-
-ty. Grievances
must hence
stop.
Love poems...
Show love to them
with metaphors, with lovely words
and trysts, saying
"darling;"
"dear."
Six lines
with words and rhymes,
millions more to skillfully use
to show, express,
confess
Thoughts.

#0010 - "It seems like people talk and hug and kiss"

It seems like people talk and hug and kiss and lay together
not because they've earned the right to do so
but because they can,
and if they can then why shouldn't they?
It's all a game, and they're just there to play it through:
Meet,
talk,
hug,
kiss,
sex.

Finish it all like a campaign in Call of Duty:
Hunt,
stalk,
shoot,
kill,
endgame.

Finish it all like a play, like a broadway show:
Curtains rise,
they talk,
they sing,
they dance,
then you let the curtains fall back down.

Finish it all like a movie:
Titles,
introductions,
the tempers rise,
the climax appears in an explosion of meaningless color,
and once the conflict is resolved everyone lives happily as the credits roll
     along the blackened screen.

Movies are the best, though,
because you can skip past the dull parts and flip to the exciting ones
- why bother with formalities
when the exciting parts are a button press away?

And it gets boring.

You've finished the game,
so you throw it in your dumpster or return it to Gamestop for $5 or leave it
     under the crap in your closet to collect more dust than the sweater you got
     from grandma that's always been two sizes too small.
You've experienced the show,
so you leave the theatre and throw out the ticket stub as you do; don't bother
     keeping it, because it's not a memory - you just needed that extra credit
     in your english class because you didn't feel like reading up in first semester.
You've experienced the movie,
so you return it to Redbox or look at what similar titles Netflix is offering you;
     you tell your friends about the exciting parts but forget the slower parts
     because you weren't paying attention or because you were busy holding
     "fast forward" on your black, plastic remote.

I won't ever finish you like a game.
I won't ever throw out memories of you like ticket stubs.
I won't ever give you back like a borrowed disk
and forget the parts I could have skipped over.

#0009 - Haiku I

A sputtering fool -
Is he truly a fool if
Others will follow?

#0008 - "Your grin extends from ear to ear"

Your grin extends from ear to ear,
A selfish rat, a sly, striped cat.
You wear a medal and a badge,
Where one says "faith" and one says "trust."

But I can see that it's an act -
You spew your words, but I'm no fool;
With questions asked, you make no sound,
Pretending what I say is moot.

An open book is what you are,
And I can see your missing page;
I don't know what exactly's gone,
But I can see the torn, ripped frays.

#0007 - "I see a woman and her dog"

I see a woman and her dog;
her dog is black, and so is she.
She holds herself with wooden rod,
provides a smile and nod to me.

Her dog, he wags his furry tail
with flopping ears and hanging tongue.
But in her eyes I see a tale
that stops the air within my lungs.

To him they'd shift their gaze and say,
"Why, there he walks along the street;
he doesn't whine, he won't complain,
exactly as a pup should be!"

To her they'd shift their gaze and say,
"Why, there she walks along the street;
she won't revolt, she won't complain,
exactly as a Black should be!"

While he would always find is scraps
and garner water from a bowl,
she'd fear her iron will's collapse
and guard 'gainst water from a hose.

They're both dark-skinned mammalians,
but one is nursed and one is marred.
They both have limbs - one paws, one hands,
but one has fur and one has scars.