Leeches holding on
For dear life,
Disciples of the great win-win —
Incapable, unskilled, unmotivated,
Anti-everything.

Melancholy,
Emptiness,
And strain —
Letting go of all that hurts
Leaves only
Pain.

Burned into our retina's
These values,
Frozen mid-collapse,
The new default of normalcy —
Our sanity, reality
Be damned.

It's a game,
Favors, debts —
The used, the using,
All mere players,
Bartering consent.

Counting breaths,
Listening
To the pulse
Beneath the skin —
Taking in
The ebb and flow
Of life.

Never learned —
Cravings mute the memories
Of heartburn and
Love over easy.

Ignorant, us mortals,
For death is nothing like —
A truth, no matter how
It's finished.

Expectations
Make fantasy
A weakness.

Buried under feeds
Filled with mediocre
Gold-lined shite —
Creativity cannot thrive
In a pay-per-spotlight world.

Remnants of
A thousand chances —
Dead promises,
Kept in vain.

Monuments to
A thousand moments —
Crucibles
Of love and pain.

Mosaics of
A thousand pieces —
Broken
To be remade.

Capable in thought nor deed —
My handicaps, internal.

Letting go
Is trust and fear —
Gone, but you're still here.

Scared we vent
And insecure
We scar.

Failing grip, the physical
Slipping, slipping, gone.
Tell me,
Who is it that falls?
Trembling hands, fingers slick
Left to hold
Not a twitch of sanity —
Not one bit,
No, naught at all.

Envy and jealousy,
Games of have-nots
And should-not-haves —
Unaware the parts they play.

Truth hits hard where faith is weak,
Pulling at the brittle branches
Of the trembling family tree —
Father, should we
Set our children free?

Multitudes with single shadows,
Moving on a single sign —
Written, spoken, or implied.

More deadly than durable,
These fragile ideologies —
Like little soldiers
Made of mud,
Marching through the rain.