fireflies carrying the weight of the world

as the barrage from an overcast, weeping sky,

dimming the gentle glow of our hide,

killing the heady flush of our pride,

hammers, unyielding, on.

no refuge to seek in barren branches,

the lush simply leading us on;

while the leaves, fluttering freely in the rainy breeze

will droop, drops slinking down onto our own.

all homes erected must be built

tall, strong, warm, loving, home,

keeping in mind the ever-brewing storm

distant by fathomless layers of green

yet merely by a well-aimed bullet's second

to hit the bullseye, hit the home, hit home.

little colonies of fireflies scatter, now alone.

ever alone we remain in the forest we call our own,

ever alone we remain, nostalgic for home,

ever alone, we remain, desperately clinging on

to the conviction we are lonely, not alone; alone, not lonely;

to the dogma of our shared experience,

to the axiom of the camaraderie of our wailing souls,

trapped in a jar and longing for a notion,

knowing those before, knowing those to go,

aware, painfully, of the condition of our derelict abodes,

and the moisture we breathe into the air

dripping down onto our bare backs,

sliding down the walls of our prisons,

to each their own.

oh fireflies, how flicker your lights,

how by daylight, they are gone.

how, when the rain stops and summer shines

all we can see is the moisture clinging on.

oh, us fireflies, live short, don't you know?

us fireflies, with our impassioned sparkle,

watered-down by teary raindrops,

amongst ourselves yet painfully alone,

lonely and alone, never feeling at home,

weary with age, in our dull, mat skin.

Dawn never comes to liberate

But eat away at souls who dared

To shake their murky thoughts awake

And live on as if no one cared.

Sunny, humid, pleasantly warm

Dawn never comes to liberate

A fleeting calm before the storm

To live, do get this fully straight.

Night - ready for endeavor great

Inspiration, will, passion's flames

Dawn never comes to liberate

Not even one who aptly tames.

And so, resigned, you sit in bed

The world to crush your mightier trait

High in the sky, a flaming red

Dawn never comes to liberate.

Tomorrow the seagulls will fly

Wings thrashing frantically, speeding

Under a restless, shifting sky

With nature and weather pleading

Hear their agonal, jagged cry

As they float, never retreating

Rule the wind and tame the tempest

Endeavor does make you greatest

Tomorrow the seagulls will soar

Aligned in a strong, rigid key

Hear the thick clouds' rambunctious roar

Though bound, each intimately free

Faster, feathers fall, ever more

Perhaps one will flurry to me

Subject to the wind yet reckless

In endeavor they are restless

Tomorrow the seagulls will float

Gracefully, in tune, in rhythm

Seen from land, sky, a little boat

Perceived in unending schism

And those who've seen earn right to gloat

For an unspoken truism:

All those who see seagulls take flight

Have lived and experienced their fight.

Hold it in, like medicine,

Do not spit out that small pit,

Swallow words, sheath your sharp swords,

Do allow yourself to bow

To their whims; your wisdom dims

When compared to their hatred.

Hold it in, like medicine,

Vomit not that stomach knot

Shut your mouth and nicely laugh

At their shit, their brainless grit

Their notions, have no lotions

Dim the slap made to your sap.

Hold it in, like medicine,

God forbid farewell you bid,

‘Hail Mary’ so you marry,

Do as told, till you get old,

Death’s solace sees your prowess

Your soul, mind, how you are kind.

But now,

Hold it in, like medicine.

Cold-brew coffee spilled on the sheets

A still-damp stain stubbornly clinging

To where dawn's anguish readily meets

Reluctance of nighttime ever lingering

Sleep possesses a fragile, impervious glory

Its brittle tendrils splinter yet hold fast

Shattered panes of your tired eyes tell a story

Under the unyielding sun you will not last

Mornings with their tacky ethereal glow

Descend upon you like phantoms of your sins

Surely, they must do it just for show

If not, then when you suffer, sunrise grins

Heedless of the damp newspapers drifting along the languid current, he waded further towards his flooded van. Yesterday's trash strewn across a fold-up table was scattered, while the travel chairs, the tacky table tarp, the notebook - all gone forever.

"There you are," she greeted him. A puff of smoke escaped her lips. He prayed it was from a cigarette.

"How much damage?" he asked.

"Engine's drenched," she replied nonchalantly. "Maybe it's time we-"

"No."

"Jeez. Have it your way," she dropped the cig into the murky water. "But know this - I'm tired of you leading us into trouble."

Beyond comprehension is

sunk in malice, a small fly.

The buzz of its feeble wings…

Memory rings, tough to die.

Beyond compassion, behold -

A tree, old, never gives way.

Bark sturdy, branches pulled taut,

A lone thought flits through the day.

Beyond my narrow vision

An incision in a mind

Serves well - reminds, remembers,

The way embers neatly lined

Glitter; sparkle; shimmer still

Yet until this fire quenched

dies at last, deceptive is

their beauty’s virtue, entrenched.

My fingers, violent, tremble

An ensemble of dead leaves

Follows the rue and regret

I forget the path he cleaves.

Dear Esteemed Relative, whom I so Deviously Abandon;

It is, entirely, my choice and mine alone to make the woods my reclusive sanctuary, where I can pray to the gods of creative writing to bless me with some brilliant prose to end my self-imposed isolation. Do not take it personally and do not look for me unless this whole bothersome ordeal takes more than a year. If you do not believe the authenticity of this message, you clearly don’t know me, which is a great shame, because I would otherwise gladly share some of my fame-to-come…

Sincerely,

Writer Hermit

The one thing I absolutely, wholly loathe about the modern world is the fact that we, ourselves, are contributing to the brutal dismemberment of society. The strength of the worldwide human community has been tested many times in history; but I don't believe that before this age of globalization we find ourselves in, the film of our relative world peace has been stretched so thin. It is a quality innate to the 21st century, it is the hallmark of a new era of communication, of mingling, of even the slightest of offences producing ridiculously hyperbolized reactions - a time of polarization in every sense, at the precipice of a stark division that may well rip us forever apart.

Maybe I'm the one blowing things out of proportion, exaggerating due to my personal frustrations. Or maybe do or do not, there is no try really is poisoning our perception of reality and ingraining in us the notion that we either go all in or not get involved at all. That we either become a fanatic on one side or the other, that radicalism is the only ideology commanding the brute force required to make a change. That centrism is weakness and lack of opinion, moderation is restriction and paranoia, unwhole single-focus the sign of a failed endeavor and insufficient commitment.

Maybe I'm the one blowing things out of proportion, exaggerating due to my personal circumstances. Or maybe the question of do you care what others think? posed like a slight to my behavior, an accusation of lack of support, really does make no sense at all? We live in a society, for God's sake, a structure in which we cohabit relatively peacefully and strive daily to maintain! The opinion of others is not something I bow down to, not something I allow to trample over me, it is a variable, a factor in my decision making, risk assessment, in my day-to-day life, because I, you, and he, are all submerged in a big bowl of people, and unless we want to kill each other, we have to play by certain rules, we have to understand certain notions, you have to understand! I am not saying that him wearing a fucking skirt is wrong - I'm not! But you take the fact I am trying to protect you from the wrath of the people you know exist as lack of acceptance because I, unlike you, cannot disregard the fact that they are walking right outside of this store and I, unlike YOU, cannot ignore the danger he would be putting himself in if he went out wearing this, I am not his enemy, I am not yours! I am not embarrassed, I am not ashamed, not of the fact that he's wearing this! I am ashamed at your ignorance, at your nonchalance, your arrogant libertarianism. We live in a society. Deal with it. DEAL WITH IT.

Maybe I'm the one blowing things SO out of proportion, exaggerating due to my "wrong" and "harmful" beliefs. Or maybe the world that has ruined me to the point I cannot voice the above paragraph from anywhere other than behind a computer screen really is fucked up, fucked up because we refuse to accept the fact that we are actively fucking it up, and even if we do, can't deal with the fact that we do so consciously, with the very intent to offend, harm, to the point at which anything can be used as a weapon and everything needs to be censored to fit into our shallow understanding of ourselves and where we stand with others. Our shallow understanding of what it means to self-determine, be independent, assertive, to be ourselves.

The birthright of storm clouds both young and those old

A jagged line spasming in shimmering gold

Slicing the sky, cutting up its void tenfold.

Fruit of the feud between beings transcendent

On mere mortal lives nor weather dependent

Greying-hair colored in conflict too sentient.

Lovers feel it in their hearts; elders in bones

Tribal shamans see it in strewn sticks and stones

Approaches rolling thunder, skies’ raspy moans.

Perhaps the pull is not so foreign at all

Perhaps it’s nature that enchants droplets’ fall

Perhaps we are answering a primal call?

But what are dying clouds that clash with the new

But reflections of our own earthly venue

Sparked with vigor each generation anew.

Streaks drawn across the sky by a godly hand

Mirror our reverie like footprints in sand

For the heavens are still a humanly land.