I awoke, I awoke, I awoke they told me I was free told me to grasp it told me to own it told me to wield it told me solely I'm the master of my destiny They told me, told me, told me think for yourself but was it in compliance or defiance that it became reality? Like a dream, dream, dream the details scarce forgotten pasts untrodden paths Mankind a child a growing brain these growing pains his will a bane To be free, free, free they made me free would rather be a bird, a bee, an ant, a tree I awoke, this threadbare dream a waking sleep, in shallows deep
plenty of fish, they say but abundance is quickly exhausted a fish in the hand is worth two in the sea casting out, testing waters baits, worms, flashing colour interest, bites, nibbles suddenly hooked and reeling the catch's thrill is fleeting soon out comes the measure weights and judgments to keep or release this boat keeps company with regret lines missed, snagged, tangled, broken crashing over the waves of fate veering from rock and reef can an angler hook the same fish twice? to look with fresh eyes and hold with fresh hands or does he throw away his chances with the salt, and spray, and sea
where is our goodwill? drowning in this tide of indignation suffering from a malaise of ego clambering over top of each over to claim our rights peace and happiness instead of pride and bureaucracy seems a distant fantasy a common goal lacking majority whence our haste to thus deride? will we see the other's side?
I will build a time machine to remedy our course to put us on the straight and true and be our last recourse I’ll skip right past the world wars we’re going further back past all the saints and all the gods to the ancestral black I’ll smash the wheel I’ll douse the flame I’ll melt the coin Erase our name I’ll shoo those apes back to their trees I’ll break their backs, I’ll bend their knees Yes, I will build a time machine I think it’s overdue we’ve long outstayed our welcome and there’s just one thing to do I’ll stop this train right then and there before it’s left the station to quit this game while we’re ahead before civilisation no ozone hole no plastic sea no ruptured earth no space debris the trees stand tall the rivers free and every other being on this rock can sigh in sweet relief Yes, I will build a time machine with progress as my guide with all our fangled wizardry I’ll push us down the slide We had our chance, I will declare as I turn back the dial to rectify the
It crept up on padded feet thick socks on solid tiles stealthily, but not imperceptibly an awareness growing Crept up like the years passing like the thirties that once seemed so distant now ticking over milestones with cultural, but not biological, fanfare Crept up in memories forgotten windswept sands of yesterdays grains lingering in the folds embedded in habit and instinct This Sapolskian sense of fate every moment predetermined by every invisible movement in this cosmic game of dominoes If I could’ve done it wouldn’t I have done it? If I could’ve loved you wouldn’t I have said it? These endless forked roads splitting, cleaving, fragmenting burning every bridge, abandoning every potential in the blind pursuit of tomorrow The foolproof logic of every instant decision interrogated roughly by hindsight who, by virtue of its haughty smugness, I can only assume is in cahoots with destiny Yet in my constraints I am liberated and in the knowledge of my past I am changed And it
the next five minutes by Modnar-Redrosid, literature
Literature
the next five minutes
stare at the screen no time for a leisurely scroll zip, zip, zip skip, skip, skip chasing highs afterward sighs nothing quite like it for feeling no desire to touch or be touched again for the next five minutes the safest bet of no rejection regret to follow then dejection all to blame is one erection for the next five minutes (if you're lucky) stare at the screen grotesque time better spent trimming toenails a task alike of seeming perpetuity for the next, and next, and next five minutes a brain staring with eyes at hands wondering how they all wrought such self-destruction stuck in habit like matter in a black hole an uneventful horizon if only something else could capture my attention for the next five minutes
Nice Guy won't take sides always tries to rationalise don't rock the boat don't sink don't float prow steady, ever ready tipping toes on tightrope taut Nice Guy or standing aside? should be firm but compromise won't draw the line won't speak the crime heart petty, ever heavy slipping up on careless thought
I need to process but the days do not stop how can grief and gratitude align? gone, gone, gone and yet here, in memory dredging to surface others I'd sooner forget how can this be and why why why are you gone cursed, useless, poetic garbage where is the resolution where is the reason where is the justice where is the… the days go on and they must but how do I swallowed by routine the guilt of normalcy and in a flash there you are, again because you are not "How's it going?" "Good, yourself?" but I'm not am I? and if I am what does it mean? am I lying? or worse life's paradox like an academic exercise divorced from reality removed, clinical, objective concreted in absolutes but we exist in the cracks and life may be a gift but it can sit on shoulders like a burden when all we desire is weightless peace
insufficient justice: naught by Modnar-Redrosid, literature
Literature
insufficient justice: naught
bitter seed of hate wither / flourish sour egg of rancour shatter / incubate decade gone and no relief resentment comes and goes like season amputate the cancerous limb or let its host ever come to grief bitter tree of hate, burning clutching coals in futile rage no rest, no relief, no reparation story persists, no pages turning
a familiar, sombre return photographic words, capturing moments time capsules for the future brimming with present ignorance or prescient wisdom faces flash under eyelids in those weary, pre-slumber fits flipped and rolled and scrolled through desperate, futile animations searching for answers oh, what incongruous fantasy flights of fancy, first class chickens counted before eggs laid strangers with names, no less strange a yearning for familiarity those singular moments, signifying nothing or at least, nothing significant engendering spasms of a piteous brain attempting to wrench reality from potentiality homes for imagined romance, built on sand these marks, like shadows of something deeper faded in an instant, effortlessly washed away symbols of the temporary one night, one moment tomorrow remains conspicuously opaque