Flashing neons mirror pain in street puddles. 

Viper-like eyes flash and smile to prey.

Alcohol can be a sight aid and a bad advisor.

Silk and leather have true connotations.

It's easy to undo something meant to be undone.

A single bed can hold up to two people.

Simple discoveries are easy to make

In the middle of a night.

Lying against this bed of pines and shriveled stones,

I have come to the conclusion

that life is inevitably sweet and divine yet treacherously pure.

Events dancing like broken shells and bits of soot and brown

falling against the ground, welding into place.

Skies drifting about like mangled tongues

stripped and devoured

thrown against and through,

a greenish ritual of utmost beauty and grace.

Birds with beaks as glass pitchers

holding beds of water as stimulative as they are simulated.

Yet who am I to spew such parsing diction?

I am but a yearning heart sprawled over like a corpse

hanging from a bridge, hands nailed to the concrete

yet breathing scarlet-blazed cause and not boiled reason.

My rivers flow empty with clear tubes

and subtle worthless meanders that crisp and thrash so silently.

I am but a stringed mass

A pale pendulous body wandering about, wondering.

An individual with thoughts of stillness,

feeling trapped and caged,

lying here alone as one: a composite whole, a singular projection,

distant from others by lunges and clouds of colorless, virgin terrain.

Yet we all bleed the same, don't we?

I am anything but the needle in a stack of grain.

We all embody this ambiguity, this frailty, this solitude.

This intimacy.

We are all somewhat of able-bodied streams of ire.

Prussian blue shades of boisterous life.

Lax and lustrous shades of death.

Shrewd and wine-like shades of time.

An aging pack of tinted blotches.

A withered, elegant frame.

And a painting of skies and flames waltzing about,

filling each others missing pieces

like a liquid so generously takes the shape of its container.

Our founding concept of democracy,

Permanently corrupted by hypocrisy.

Civil liberties eroded,

Gears of progress corroded,

Perpetual dysfunctional bureaucracy.

Federal government’s jurisdiction,

Egregious example of dereliction.

From sea to shining sea,

Debasing what was free,

Leaving an incurable affliction.

So go ahead and invade because, honestly, I don’t think you could do much worse.

Titus Andronicus, Sweeney Todd, Arya Stark:

All place human flesh in meat pies

While seeking vengeance for loved ones.

Jenna Rink, Mike O' Donnell, Josh Baskin:

All wish for their age to change

So they can find a sense of fulfillment.

Mary Jane Watson, Bella Swan, Snow White:

All irritating damsels in distress

Who hardly ever fend for themselves.

Po Ping, Elle Woods, Rocky Balboa:

All individuals underestimated in their fields

That end up coming out on top.

Constantine Bates, Mrs. Gump, Sairy Morey:

All incredibly nurturing mother figures

Who influence their main characters' personas.

Where is the originality?

Now, don't misunderstand me;

I enjoy most of these characters immensely.

And I also realize that all these characters,

While very similar at their core,

Have distinct personality traits that make them all their own.

But why do writers limit their imaginations

And stick to character tropes that we have seen

Time and time again?

Do they not trust us to handle anything deeper?

Or have they simply run out of new ideas?

I wonder...

Dig deep inside the darkness.

Dare to divulge the demon, deep-seated

On the throne, throwing tantrums,

Wailing within the walls, wishing

For freedom from the façade.

Telling the terrifying truth.

War’s wounded

Famine’s flotsam

Ragged rejects

Lesser lives

Collecting crumbs

Scarcely survive.

Huddled, hopeless, humanity

Uncounted, unwanted, unloved

Forgetting freedom’s fantasy.

Power at my fingertips, unbridled and untamed, released on paper.

Raging imagination with no ends or limits, stretching beyond.

Open mind with no need to hide or hold back.

Silenced in sound, but loud in words, nothing stops this pen.

Each word flows like water with no viscosity, spreading upon once blank pages.

Player slumped down on a stool and ordered a bottle of whiskey, and

Raised a glass above hell's reach to the

Oasis of redemption. He commanded a prose like no other and the room became 

Still; not a joker was laid, for

Everyone who heard had something to contemplate.