Tag: oppression

Silver Ladders

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Silver ladders put against all my walls, it looks like a movie scene

That almost got an award that year – but the director was way too mean.

Silver ladders pushing my doors closed. My home is now a prison.

If one more ladder is put on the floor, my room becomes a prism.

Happy, indulgent people waiting by the window, waving their flags high –

Some are white, some technicolor. The love of my life is fluttering red, oh my.

Dissatisfied, poorly fed faces are licking my door knob, religiously,

Like the taste of the metal will sing to them and let them speak to me.

My mind’s been stuck in a loop so I’m in no place to escape –

Have to stay still, listening to their dim curses, listening as they berate.

The ceiling’s slowly drooping, pressing on my open mouth. My teeth are breaking.

Please remind me, friend, why did I have to stab the truth when I was never faking?

-JW

Honey Bunnies

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I think of a line or two to write down in my notes all the time, but frankly

It’s never something I want to put down in writing – and you should thank me.

The burning sensation inside is a bit too raw to make poetic or pretty.

You can’t polish a truth into rhymes that sound deep yet witty.

I’ve never worn my heart on my sleeve so they’re right to say I’m heartless –

The girl who changed the game instead of playing cards is just another animal for them to harness.

To you, my friend, this situation might seem harmless –

Until you look inside and see how they’ve made their galleries empty. Artless.

Its people they’ve put on the walls, they’re saying our trauma is entertaining.

Our ideas are called cheap while they never disclose what they’re spending

On drugs and crummy hostel rooms with their Honey Bunnies.

I used to be the last person to kick someone who’s down, now I’ll do it for the money.

Isn’t it funny

How times change and how little left to lose we have these days.

Insanity finds it ways

To take a bite out of everyone who plays.

-JW

Faux Grieving

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When the light has left for the day – and so has reason,

I patch up the cuts in my stomach, clean ichor from last season

Of the witch,

Where I was the last one standing up to them, soaking wet,

With filth under my fingernails. Yet they didn’t see me as a threat.

They read into my words but they misconstrued the meanings.

Dictionaries are useless when it comes to faux grievings

And holding onto to things so tight they pinch your carotid

Until there’s not a single vessel left that’s solid, unrotted.

“Choose your fights carefully,” they say, guns blazing.

The ironies this world can teach deserve a proper razing –

Unless, of course, all things corrupt are also built from good intentions,

Spoiled by too much trust and lack of attention.

Aiming a revolver in the sky is not a choice many get to make

Although we’re told that going our own way is a piece of cake –

Wedding cake, probably, as there isn’t a faker symbol in the business

Of selling out souls for pennies at time, just to end up with a grimace

Full of ghouls and a grimness.

-JW

To Stop The Duel

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How did it go from me never settling for anything less

To me being the angriest person you’d meet on a workday

Because of the stress?

How did my pain become a part of someone’s reality

When the only truth I sought was the ability to stop ignoring my alarm

Because of my fragility?

How did my nightmares about failing

Involve into daydreams of bailing

On the life I know – like I didn’t build it, at all,

As if I was someone’s undeserving thrall.

I know it takes two to tango but why can’t I stop the duel

When my feet are on fire, yet numb,

But they keep adding the fuel?

I know it’s my desperation speaking when I have no time to eat

As they munch away on my future and money

But try to keep it discrete.

I know I should’ve pushed harder,

Knowing this tale is a two-parter

And I didn’t have anything to lose back then.

But it still felt like hell when the clock struck ten.

How do we pretend and keep avoiding the questioning?

It is much easier, of course, to ignore the reckoning,

But is it promising?

Have we become the jurors and prisons for our own sentencing?

The background noises are quickening, they might become deafening.

Call me when the standards are settling.

-JW

The Coast is Not Clear

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Photo of Pok Rie

If you took a peek inside my words, if you glanced through the mendacious keyhole,

You’d see the truest parts of me and how they each play a role –

My own heart can’t be trusted as it’s often acting as the mole.

I’m just a broken person, your narrative won’t ever make me whole.

“Believe me” can be harsh words to yell when you’re cornered,

Especially, when there’s not a single supporter in your corner.

It’s hard to feel fulfilled surviving on some empty calories,

Depending on a lust for blood coming from all the crowds you please. From your enemies.

Tired of walking the line but you can’t step away from it either.

“All your exits are blocked, honey, go and take a breather.

It’s going to be just fine. Now, go get in the freezer.

It will help with the burning fever of becoming a leader.”

***

Fingers are trembling, touching the broken screen –

Can you ever feel truly seen? Or do you only get your spleen

And a vivid red spite to go with it, waiting in line for the guillotine?

I can’t believe I didn’t end this when I was fifteen.

On a more hopeless note, it’s been two days since I last took a shower.

Been working so hard on proving my worth to some superior power

Which I’ve never believed in or prayed to in the first place, but what’s the use

Of being an atheist if you’ve always preferred some systematic abuse.

Called myself “worthy” on the bus ride home, but that’s simply a fraction

Of the fights I have to win with my demons. This is the first wave, the first contraction.

What we need is a true call to action, no abstraction or extractions

Away from the truth – with its burned edges and imperfect boundaries.

We will not sleep on this – or do what we’re told. I beg you, please.

At this time there’s so much pain we have to help ease,

So many smoking guns we must reach in order to seize.

Life with a price on your head was never for the influential –

It’s meant for the power hungry on the barricades, the so called “nonessential”.

Climb faster and aim for the higher ground, avoid the pestilential.

One day more to fight the confidential. To answer the existential.

To fasten our credentials.

To get the attention

Or pack the essentials

And leave – like we were never really here,

But I really hope they hear.

My dear, they will not always adhere.

One day they will learn to confront,

Even when the coast is not clear.

-JW