spoonful of chlorine

i'm not asking for your heart in a paper bag, nor ball and chain for you to wear around like a prisoner. i've spent time on the outskirts of time, where the days go slow and all you can do is watch dust settle on your lonely bones. I've painted pictures, written symphonies, and told stories never heard before inside my head on the borders between nothing and even more. i still remember hanging chemical lights at dusk, to make us see so that when death comes thrashing we were not all blind. now i am a light. i shine bright and stand tall with a damaged backbone. the pain washes in and out. the sadness always leaves eventually. im counting my fingers every day happy they are still there and I can read, ride a bike, or listen to your voice. i've been stepped on and stepped over since, washed and rinsed, hung to dry tear stained and not knowing why i try. i've been fed well and starved, degraded and pried apart, changed and rearranged and I still have empathy, drive and somehow a loving ability. the leaves have gotten green again and we find ourselves at winters end, the world of opportunity for the young and without love, as we stream through the world searching for substance and fun. i can't help but feel not up to par at the moment. I cant help but feel that the world pulls at the strings that it knows will hurt me. bleeding for the god's enjoyment, making me hate the things I cannot change and escaping the grasps of the throes of love because I want what I can't have, and what i do have is breaking me.  i don't need anything, i'm built to last, my line is cast and quickly sinking, always hoping words i'm sending will redeem me for being forward and fleeting. it's so fucking cold here, like most places I have been, like those hearts i have seen and held and tried to warm up to me. can't be happy because I am not worthy. i can't find love because love no longer wants me. i can't change minds because mine is collapsing under pressure, i've got an unbreakable chain between emotion and pleasure that makes me treasure you, makes me want to see something through, for once, for joy, for my own well being. i don't want your ship to just skim by and go missing. i don't want to lose my minds pictures of laughing and kissing, as i move forward you are distancing, and no one is witnessing because no one knows you even mean anything to me, because no one knows we have anything. as you cheers, or kiss, as you drink life from your single serving cup get drunk and live it up, because you know you can find love, will find love, will be something to someone, and god I wish that someone was me.

Everything we say is theoretical and subject to disection

Man was at first trained and conditioned by nature. It was the rise of communication that allowed my species to assimilate the world around and therefore begin to speculate in a verbal way the experience of living. Each of us carries a torch inside of us, our only duty is to keep the fire burning and survive the violent storms that fling our fellow beings into the abyss. We may try and save the ones we can, many are part of that unknown force that helps to send these beings on that journey into the unknown. Speculation surrounding that unknown ranges far and wide, to unseen and unheard beings, forces that guide existence in some way. Without concrete, programmed, or divine guidance it is difficult to find hopes for some similar existence when our matter is returned once again to the cycles of the universe. Or to hear the calls of the gods within ourselves to become what is meant for you. Most fall short in accurately describing the true reason for existence.
As we rose, in recent history, into an age of consumption and assimilation I see no definite or great future for this world. I am sorry for all war waged until now. Every death and moment of solitude, confinement, or second of pain, fear of everything, loss of friends, family, and men and women of inspiration. I am sorry for the pollution, the corruption, and the ability for like minds to be subdued and broken down by the destructive forces that gain in numbers and power everyday. Entropy increases with time, and Klimpt once said "To be truly great you must live outside of time". It is difficult to do so, when you stand back and see the "powerful" (monetarily and politically usually) subject the major population to exclusion through corporatization of resources. Options for living and keeping the torch burning are not designed with the worker in mind but the production and consumption of said resources. When someone spends their entire life building a life and burning a torch through the lavish consumption of goods by their peers and fellow beings, is it possible to maintain a respect for existing, or gain some better insight on existence that is not merely attributed to the decay of the mind (not to say that our minds are always sound). When I thought of this, I thought of the first inhabitants of this country, the men and women who were tangled in wars of ideas and opportunities. If they were here today after giving their lives, and sometimes everything they have, their children, would they look upon us and say "these are my descendants and they fought for a right and just world consistently", will I say that in a hundred years after I had fought in Afghanistan? When I see and hear of the darkest this world has to offer, I have heard the calls of the revolutionaries and none seem in noble positions for an enlightened being, there are few great men and we may never see many because of the exclusion of image and information.
There are no banks in the abyss

what do you go home to

i am a shadow on a cave wall
i am a dog at the door hungry for the bell
i give up and get down
wake in time for nothing
this cold stint I'm doing here is getting inside
the cell is getting smaller every day. i hope. i eat. struggle with fears, doubt, and other peoples emotions. it's a spiral into space where it gets harder to breathe. the gods are closer there
we are turning into something sterile, my heart cant take it anymore
when i grow, i gallop, seeking future events like a lost and lonely lion of the night
when i die the earth sits still as i drift. looking back at the ripples I see the trail i have waded , the carnage i push to radiated shores.
 we are becoming nothing, but lost ones
hold me til the morning at least darling, speak soft and happy into my mourning ear, my sad cut away of everything, tiny bones like machines absorbing your energy, to waves i can believe
my genesis is in the tiny chains that bound our ancestors
not built to survive, just able to live
i am in the burning pit and hope that not all we saved is lost today
stagnantly staggering making haste only losing taste
from black smokey lines grasping me wildly into the night
nothing beats time, it's erosion and decay
the ruler of all i know and say

Devil's Laundry

27 years of solitude

anger cried moving forward into battle, at odds with others and ideals
some lie and lying is done for in a mind hardened by the heat of existence
plates readjusting spewing ash and molten embers
the cold alone is unforgiven and the waves crash upon shores i know no more
i never knew the ones receding, melting down to a core long forgotten
nature chooses who the plague moves to and destruction is evident
in all of those who choose to will these fleeting moments forward
a dollar is only a dollar as a million a million as well
work isn't anything when taxes pay the interest of the greedy the sitting
stagnant leading with gleaming evil eyes
in dark corners there is imbalance where the rest are exposed in full light
and grand tunes play not in the ears of the wicked little ones rolling in
thousand dollar sheets tonight
bank, but don't bank on me, don't pay your organizational fee, flee from something, nothing but smiles, dark hair flowing glowing skin ready for a change
god save the king, that is me, as the circus pulled in years and days stretch and zing

1st Guest Blogger Tim Elliott

Tim Elliot is a dedicated supporter of our troops and advocate of veterans' benefits. He's just starting blogging but look for more of his writings to come.

Asbestos

Have you ever heard of asbestos? It’s deadly. It causes the cancer mesothelioma, and thousands of veterans have it due to exposure while serving.  Before it was known that asbestos was dangerous the military built everything from roof shingles to cloth with it, and millions of soldiers have been exposed to it.  Mesothelioma takes a long time (twenty to fifty years) before it starts to really negatively affect the body, and it is just now that many veterans are beginning to find out that they have it.

Can you imagine the hopelessness, the bitterness, and the biting cruelty that would have to accompany such a diagnosis? To learn that the mesothelioma life expectancy is only a year or two, that you’re not expected to live longer than a year or two? It would be devastating in any circumstance.  To hear that, and then to hear that it’s likely because of the time you spent in the military. The fact that you made it through all the trials and tribulations, and survived only to find out years later that cancer from then is going to take your life anyway is just unbelievable.  Or the helplessness, because the whole time you thought that trouble breathing was nothing serious only to find out it is a mesothelioma symptom ? It’s absolutely unbelievable that some people have to go through this, after they’ve already been through so much. 

If you find out early enough that you have mesothelioma there are options for surgeries that will treat the cancer, but the prognosis is poor. So the best thing to do if you think you’ve been exposed to asbestos is to talk to your doctor and get screened regularly for it.

 

man is monster and innocence is lost in accumulation
woman is a beast and purity is compromised in acquisition
children are sirens, loud and crashing into each other, further from control
mothers are just as lost as the rest of us,
makes me feel wisdom is not age or experience,
but rather something we start with
a certain perception
a stranger on a train recognizing something in you
that you hadn't known in years
wondering if that is a good thing
who am i now that this person saw, maybe a shadow of who i was another time
i want to hide them and talk about them
as my face turns red

get off the train and go to the bar

a girl smiles and laughs gives advice takes a little interest
i shelter heartache with smiles

a blur, a tired tired blur

another reaches out and i retract
in fear in lonely shallow hollow fear
disinterest