99 percent click ‘next’

move on / lord knows / had it up to here with emotion and tell-all’s / give me some false with my cornflakes and a little fake juice

if you feel sad because nobody is listening, tune in

the record you play is scratched and everyone has upgraded to digital

their headphones drown you out truth-tellers / sorrow-spellers / drowned girls and boys

it’s their whim, their fancy, to inhabit the glory and the cavort

who taught you they wanted to hear about you?

those flashy egos who seek grandure, attention, praise, affirmation

do they place their hot hands on your grief? or pause and seek

anything but you

truth, it is said, doesn’t sell

honesty makes us tired

we want elixir, we need to be uplifted

read to me, tell me a bed time story with a happy ending and lots of pictures

in the news; photos are more popular in social media than words

says it all …

speak, speak no more

and if you do, ensure it’s after you take your pill

for you belong to the tribe of wonderment, nothing less will do

do not rent your heart online

do not display weakness or fear

whatever you do, don’t expose how it is

paint over / disguise / laugh / get pissed

and when you lay there feeling that sliced feeling in your gut

emptiness and her counterparts

when you bring the shards of glass closer

when you realize this is it, there is nobody out there

in this 7 plus billion world

less is more, more is less

how can we be so inhabited and so isolated?

do ghosts walk our lives with empty diaries?

the ones who crumple on their knees in the street

who picks them up and who hurries past?

with scorn written in their jowls

more and more we hang our heavy hearts

in places of silence and neglect

the pegs of our support, thin of reassurance and tenor

more and more we lose our truth in betrayal

and counter attack

until like a game, like a digital effect

we are not real, we are chess without hands

our feelings so siphoned and lost

they exist beyond us

it’s only when we feel the edge of the ledge

staring down into leaden rivers

then we know it’s all a joke

this idea we’re doing anything of worth

and the words you suffocated

trapped in throats like unhawked phlegm 

never to be spat

what would they if they could, say?

please

don’t walk away

please

listen hear me

please

need someone who is not perfect

please

feel

something

the girls who have friends

standing with gymnastic straight backs

smooth waxed hair and plump cheeks

talking over cigarettes, turned on by a switch

everything is different

until a man enters the room

all eyes flash in unison 

he has power

the girls prioritize the phallus

the boys are drinking fluoridated water cutting off their

reproduction

soon sexless frogs will spawn harpies

would it be so wrong if

we stopped now

at the cusp of our cruelty

died out before another era came, crueler still …

dominating fickle lay of shivering wasteland

another creed, another judgement

the Mormons are the largest expanding faith in America

do your research acolyte, then ask yourself

progress? Really?

who progresses when others are held back?

feet on backs of the fallen, that’s the way they roll

with tarnish set on high

we are the crushed on whom aniseed devils inherit kingdoms

sometimes I don’t care anymore

I just want to get into a boat and leave the shore

sail away to something of Huckleberry Finn

I understood him and his penchant for solitude

it wasn’t hate it was necessary isolation

from the wear and tear of jitter-bug humanity

gagging at the hurtling fense

with their sharp and mercilless claws

step down falsehood

let the wild hare, the quick footed fox

take over