My very first pain here

away from mothers pure warmth

cry for now then laugh

Laugh as colors blow

round in circles of free hope

Laugh for now then grow

Grow into myself

spread wide my fledgling wings

Grow for now then live

Live with the bright day

create, love, know, explore, exist

Live for now then die

Die at last in peace

I return to mothers warmth

Die for now, don't cry

I fought for peace, oh I fought

For the ceasing of war and famine and death

I sought it out like moth searches for flame

I did not know it would burn me too.

The world it cried peace on it's banners

relieve the people of their burdens

I believed them like a lamb fresh for slaughter

I thought my sacrifice would mean others freedom

When I fell finally to weary knees

I did not hear well done now rest

Words of truth reached my ears instead

Naive child foolish girl silly little thing

How could you ever have hoped

Have dreamed to ease suffering

While all you have done is seek out pleasure

Peace for all is a balm to a weary soul

For yourself you tried to change

As your privilege ate you alive

So to sooth that overwhelming guilt

You carried a cause to make you look less a monster

Now you've joined the real world

To each their own ineptitude

There is no such thing as innocence

Nothing to protect as we all search out our pleasures

We are all pawns in each others game

Played to give a false righteousness

To weep a victim and laude a saint

To persecute the devils amongst us

Some choose to be defenders of life

like you so bold as to deny your true role

If you truly want to rid of evil and bring of peace

Then accept your place in this appalling would

For if peace is pleasure, then surely pleasure must be peace

Hmm. My writing is... How to say. Drivel spewing forth from the pool of madness I tend to keep locked away in the non-functioning thing others often refer to as a brain?

Yeah...that's it.

I don't write so much with careful planning, but intent and feeling. And the only way I'm ever going to be able to put words on a page is if I just do it. Mostly my thoughts guide me, but that can be dangerous given the environment I let them live in. Thoughts tend to deconstruct and reconstruct randomly and so does my writing.

Put it like this, stream of consciousness from the worlds most unreliable narrator (ie. me). All the feathery detail that springs to mind with a poetic nature not even the Gods can curb. Is it fanciful and revealing or long and tedious, just far enough off the tracks to collide with the train coming the other way. I don't know...please don't tell me...please.

There's the little triple dot things...like literally everywhere, 'cause commas are to boring for the kinda pauses my mind takes...capiche? Mmmhmmm, no you don't, lying's not a good look on you. It's like the most sincere saint on the planet had a love child with a cyclops and now your face is constantly looking like your trying not to be blinded by the sun, you know, with that whole weird face scrunch thing because you perpetually forget to close both eyes when you blink. I mean dear old dad only has one right? and you blink a lot.

There. That right there is a perfect description of my writing. Peddling fast with nowhere to go. I don't like running okay?

I got my point across (did I really though? did I?) using all the words I could think of at my disposal to make that mumble jumbled mess of a description. How much simpler would it be if I said 'Your face looks funny when you lie'? Hmm, how much? I wouldn't know. Please don't tell me, it would mess with the very core of my off kilter world.

Did that answer your question? What about you? Wait. No, where are you going? Bathroom...right? Must gotta pee or something. Yeah that tracks. Hey, wrong way, restrooms are over there. That door goes outside. Damn. Did it again. Will I ever learn...no, probably not.

“What’s taking so long, boy? Not getting soft on us, are you? There’s no place for softness here. I could give one of the others a try… they could start with you.” The man’s sneer was ugly, plastered across cheeks rosy with too much drink. The boy in question stuttered, wiping the glistening blade on cotton pants. He was a macabre sight at this point. Blond hair no longer golden in the sun but almost brown with the tragedies of the day.

“No sir, I was just fascinated by his weapon. May I keep it?” Though his voice was forced and rough, his hands did not shake. His new role was too important for that.

A twisted, jovial huff of laughter escaped with the putrid breath of the officer as he crossed to his quarry, placing a rough and dirty hand on a slight shoulder.

“Sure, my lad, of course, you may take anything you find from the dead. It’s not as though they’ll need it any longer. But if there’s money or ale to be found, you know who that goes to. Right, lad?”

The unfriendly squeeze on the boy’s shoulder left no room to wonder where his place was. Scum on the bottom of the army’s shoes.

“Yes, sir” Straight faced and respectful, the boy grimaced inside, horrified by what he had just witnessed, done… heard. He doubted the screams would ever leave his nightmares if not his waking thoughts. But this man could see none of that. Not if the boy were to survive.

“Good kid, you just keep remembering that.” The stumbling saunter in the man’s step as he drunkenly wandered away was greeted by cheering for a fight well won by equally inebriated comrades.

Fight well won… right… well won. Don’t count the lives lost, the treachery necessary to make their victory assured, the cloak and dagger in the dark. Don’t hear the wails of the lost and broken, the pleading rasps of the dying. Don’t smell the iron tang, don’t taste it on your tongue. Don’t look at the death, the needless loss.

For what? All for a battle well won, they say. Most knew better. Knew the deception was in vain, that figureheads rule a country and a people of lies. We won, at what cost, for what? Nothing, that’s what. Victory for the sake of slaughter. Nothing gained and so much lost.

The boy knelt back down at the dead man’s side. He plucked a weapon from the dirty ground beside and stood with a new purpose and resolve. The boy couldn’t even say that his life had just become more dangerous, because all who still drew breath were bound to be dragged into the perils of the coming night. At least now the child had a reason to step foot into that night with the slightest glimpse at the far off dawn.

She was plain. Colorful, but not extraordinary. No visible talents, magic, or links to speak of. Just plain.

She sits and swings, watching this place that is supposed to be her safe haven. She knows it is and she knows they're right, that beyond this place is somewhere far worse. Where the foul stench and darkness of the pitch swallows anything of light. She is of light.

That, she does not always understand. Why had she been made this way? Sometimes she wishes she could shirk off her duties as a resident of the haven of light. Slip through the cracks and slide out of this stifling place. Maybe out there she could be free. Not safe, but free.

The more crass members of her society suggest it would take huge...balls...to even think of doing such a thing. She doesn't agree, after all she has no such thing and to her these are far more than thoughts. Indeed. She climbs off the swing. She has thought enough.

Everywhere. People.

nowhere. me?

So many inhabit this world of mine. I see them laughing, dancing, playing.

I see that world, but I cannot escape into it.

I cannot sing its songs.

My eyes revel in this plane, my thoughts abound with how to make it mine.

through those lenses life teases me. It sits and sings and beckons me

fingers spread and arms outstretched, it calls to me.

How cruel this fate, that fickle fiend. who knows I cannot grasp back.

They are here all around me, enjoying the life I cannot have for my own mind says it's so.

My tired soul looks through windows of glass, won't someone shatter them and let me out?

I promise I would do my best I promise I would do my part.

Just like them. Everywhere. the people I aspire to

Just like me in their own glass worlds I cannot see through waiting for the cracks that let us free.

everywhere…nowhere…we are all doomed to be.

The universe is made of moments

interconnected webs that grow deeper and deeper

Galaxies clothe the dark abyss in depths of swirling diamonds

their fabric woven of stars too numerous to count

Each star a singularity, a point by which to guide our ships

many there may be, yet we do not forsake their individuality

We have given each names and seen their histories and futures

and every one creates with it a system of rock and dust

Planets and moons, asteroids and rings

All kept together by the pull of gravity

stronger than anything they have ever known

so flowing in the intrinsic blanket of space

And us, people, so small, so insignificant

part of an entire world of atoms turned to masterpieces

We could never hope to shift the galaxies

but just maybe we can impact each others universes

massive in the expanse of our minds

the reason for existing at all

our tiny moments

together creating the massive expanse of the fabric of space

@SleepySong

A king on a throne without rubies or gold

is hardly known as a king at all

But God whispered to me about kings with little things

they have not a throne but are resistant to fall

If dimes define the law and love of man whose hardly grown

then he struggles and weeps for other love not shown

The man who takes the time and reads the lines

finds worlds between them waiting to unfold

The mysteries of life lie in the lost and the found

and knock glasses with those who might seem without

See there is no key for my castle or ticket to nights stars

so let fall your lashes and feel the winds of true fortune upon you

Rewrite of ajrfans' $<happyness

A child stares up at constellations

gathering in them great appreciation

They mimic stars with chalk

and build worlds with blocks

And in a cabbage patch they grow

left behind by crane or crow

With wistfulness they stare

into the sun without a care

Into futures of conundrums

the adult's whisper hums

But for now around the carousel

their laughter rings clearly like a bell