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 Jun 11 Bard
badwords
If you get it, you lost it.


I am here
(On this platform it is evident for your reading now)
I express myself
(Heads scratching, wondering what and how?)


I share pieces of me
(A defragmented glimpse of an experience deemed ‘worthwhile')
Callous, sensuality?
(Or a traitor in sheep cosplay?)


A dead-end hi-way?
Or this pawn from yesterday?
Here, your final say


This family we never asked
Amontillado without it's cask
Dry and cheery
Heart’s are bleary
We own this laborious task

My sins are scrollable, thumbed in haste,
Wrapped in ribbons of curated taste.
A gallery of masks, all timed just right,
My shadow dances in the ring light.
What of shame when shame gets likes?
What of thought when thought’s in spikes?
I weep in drafts, but post a grin—
The world won’t wait for the shape I’m in.
So brand the bruise, then sell the hue:
A wellness tip in sponsored blue.
This self I host in feedback’s cage—
A pet, a post, a digital page.
I bare my soul (or just its shell).
You’ll never know. I sell it well.

I logged on seeking something undefined,
A tether, maybe—some reciprocal ache.
But all I found were mirrors misaligned,
Each smile too wide, each word opaque.

The comments pile like leaves, not read.
Applause from ghosts, replies from ghosts.
I feed the feed, it feeds instead—
A hunger that consumes its hosts.

I draft a truth. I dress it twice.
Add polish. Then delete.
I write in blood, convert to nice,
Make trauma fit a beat.

No lesson left. No higher shelf.
Just one more version of myself.
 Jun 10 Bard
badwords
I wandered in where winds grew tame,
My boots half-mud, my throat all flame.
A village small, but sky so wide—
And there she was, with hands in rye.

She did not ask my name or song,
Just passed me tea, both steep and strong.
And though I came from lands unkept,
Her gaze was calm. The earth had slept.


She taught me how to grind the root,
To draw the balm from bark and fruit.
In her, the silence sang of rain—
A pulse beneath the orchard’s vein.

I tuned her father's fiddle bones,
Brought voice to what had once been stone.
She wept not once—just breathed and played,
And grew in light the dusk had made.


She grew the field. I grew the flame.
She called each beast, I carved each name.
Where she gave bread, I gave belief.
Where she gave balm, I offered grief.

And joy, and awe, and all between—
The dreams of places never seen.
She fed the belly. I fed the fire.
One kept the hearth. One climbed it higher.


“Stay,” she said, “and plant with me.
Let song take root beneath this tree.”

“Come,” I said, “and walk the wind.
Let fields be tales we never penned.”


But roots, like roads, cannot be one.
And dusk will bow to either sun.
She kissed my hand. I kissed her brow.
We loved in full. That was enough.


I go where roads forget their ends.
She stays where earth renews and mends.
Yet in the hush between two strings,
Her name is what my silence sings.

And in her fields, if wind is kind,
My stories echo through the rind.
Some loves don’t need a common ground—
They bloom where motion turns around.
 Aug 2023 Bard
Ryan
energy, scarcity
they say oil's a necessity
if they need more
we find it

they said it's too impure
and refined it

when they asked for coal
we mined it
the boomers sure don't mind it

church and state? they combined it
their self-worth, they defined it
as the value they give
to shareholders
hotter or colder
would it ever matter

they call us crazy
for caring
they're pushing daisies
we're pushing native lawns
in the future our thought trains will be solar-powered
 Jul 2023 Bard
badwords
Toast
 Jul 2023 Bard
badwords
The struggle is real
It's the raw deal
Together we feel
Subjugation for a 'meal'

Here, raise a glass
For the time has passed
Now, we relax
No anxiety attacks

Imbibe the heat
For your momentous feats
A just earned treat
... On repeat

The chemicals flow
Too easy to let go
Doomed, we know
Let's put on a show

Let's pretend we know things
Imagine we are inspiring
Never contriving
To the bottom of the glass we are diving

Morning comes, we feel like ****
Did we strike gold? Land a hit?
Awkward encounters to acquit
A lonely, frustrated fit

Try it again, same as the last
Nothing learned from lessons past
The handful of sand, we grasp
The loaded die we cast

The 'House' always wins
Against our incredulous sins
At the end, we begin
To justify our reasons to do it again

Out of time, out of place
Lost inside an inner-space
A truth we ignore to face
Inherent in the patterns of mental states

We are the architects of the pain we seek.
 Jan 2023 Bard
Michael Marchese
Yea yea
Can barely feel my hands
Yea
Not feeling so well
But I can’t even
Stand
Yea
Still rolling around
Head in the ground
Nowhere to go
No
Can’t think for myself
I need someone else
For I am the foe
Woah
Don’t want to go there,
Can barely repair,
What I did to myself
Thinking lost and alone
Was the progeny flow
And I learned how to turn it
Up into aglow
 Oct 2022 Bard
Julia Celine
I feel like a failed experiment
One that crashed and burned
Melting glass and plastic
I don’t mention it much
When I do, the mood dies
I scratch my neck with a sheepish hand
And the exhaustion creeps in
“I had so much potential,
But you know…it is what it is”
I flush a frustrated red as they look at me in pity
And try not to mention the smell of burnt hair
I cut it off and it still feels
Like it’s weighing me down
They lie and tell me I should feel proud
Because it’s a healthier thought
I smile and thank them
And I don’t tell them that I’m not
Picking myself up anymore
I could keep trying
But I just don’t want to
Keep disappointing myself
So I do nothing
And I’m disappointed by that too
There’s a weight on my chest and when I try
To speak, the words get caught
My sore throat choking them back every time
I poke at my wounds and tell myself not to do something stupid
When I go, all the salt in my blood
Will be dissolved
In the ocean I’ve become
 Oct 2022 Bard
Dani
type II
 Oct 2022 Bard
Dani
Nobody ever talks about a specific type of loneliness.
The type that isn’t caused by self-esteem issues.
Not where you think you’re ugly or unlovable or unworthy.
But the type where despite knowing you’re worthy, you feel numb, empty, devoid
Of the capacity to love back, in a romantic, vulnerable, open, throw your whole heart and soul into it type of way.
The way you would imagine your best friend deserves to be loved
 Jul 2022 Bard
Dennis Willis
Remember
everything
is loosely based
on reality
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