This mask, these masks

Impermanent, I know

Limiting, comfortable

But I cannot stand idle

While everything burns

Cracks in the porcelain

This shade of me, shimmering

My crimson rage

Channeled into words

Perhaps I have time

Time before words become acts

Before this fiction is cast aside

And I die once more for my cause.

#poetry #writing

A momentary glimpse of the divine

Burning me to my core

Wonder replacing skepticism

Tentative hope supplanting despair

Where are you now, my goddess

Was my joy mere imagination

Or is your existence something more?

#poetry #writing

The institutions you’ve relied on have betrayed you

They have enriched themselves at your expense

Offering the choice of authoritarianism and worse

Destroying the very planet with their greed

This dystopia was created without your consent

The lie that you are powerless used to keep you weak

But you are neither weak nor powerless

And you need not fear these cowards in power’s guise.

#writing #poetry

You presume to own me

Taking my lack of aggression for consent

Foolishly assuming I am weak

But you have never been more wrong

I have studied you, your institutions

Where they are brittle, where they might break

Seeing through your illusion of strength

As you wield a power you do not deserve

And I am not alone

Your rulership is at our pleasure

A truth you seem to have forgotten

So step over that line if you dare

Because we are more than willing to remind you.

#poetry #writing

I'm not broken, despite what I'd have me believe

Chipped, cracked, but never quite shattered

The weight of grief and circumstance conspiring

To convince me that I was weaker than I am

All of those lies I whispered in the dark

Punishments inflicted when I was not at fault

Self loathing masquerading as vigilante justice

An unfair sentence from a judge oft compromised

#writing #poetry

There is a resonance between us

Reality quakes when we are near

The rules governing this universe

Are no match for us combined.

#writing #poetry

I sit in maudlin silence

Doomed, if only in my mind

The weight of it all

Demanding my surrender

But, when I put my headphones on

The music brings me back to self

Me, grinning defiance as I sway

Remembering why I still fight

Resolve, pulsing with the beat

Bassline reverberating in my soul

Vocals, reminding me to love

And as the beat drops

My better self is restored.

#poetry #music #writing

Am I a pale imitation

An echo of a dream

Or is this chrysalis

My true self waiting to break free?

#writing #poetry