Writings on the mirror,
Projected onto me —
Truth in layers, obfuscating
What we're not supposed to see.
Smiling for the camera,
Eyes dead to the world,
Smoldering within.

Light, a blinking cursor,
Questions asked, unanswered —
Are you there,
Is this thing on?
Reactions nor compassion —
Drive-by clicks to like my pain,
And then they're gone.
Are we still live?
Are you still there,
Is this thing on?

Loveless lust,
Heat preamble —
Clouds of
Burning butterflies.

Streams of consciousness
Meandering,
All colored odes to selfish I's —
All of it truth,
None of it life.

Summer love
And winter gloom —
Unseen fingers
Not our own,
Pulling heartstrings.

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.