When tyranny sings
And gunshots ring
Then it's time to cast my vote
From rooftop high
To mountaintop
I will make every vote count
In the  mean time now
And the mean time here
I am sitting this one out

I am odd
Some would say
But not to me
Living here in my own skin
In my castle of bones
Listening to words
Beating like my heart
Some would say
I am odd
But not to me

I think it was losing Lyric that did it
After everything else that I had lost
It was the  final straw
My gardens once bright and heavy laden with fruit
Became dry and fallow
The soil hard and unworked
Uncared for
The bright blue sky became pale
The sun harsh and hot
My hands so full of carving and craft
Gripped nothing
No longer was beauty
Birthed by them
They were as empty as my heart
In the end

I have become nothing
I am empty
I am devoid

There are bodies in the sky,
And yet we have the nerve to
worship our own gods,
Hand-crafted,
Beings we cannot see.

We are stardust,
They are out being,
Yet we forget them,
And make ourselves so big.

Blood, pounding through our veins,
Never meant to leave,
I carve promises on my skin,
I engrave myself in memories and
tear my clothes,
Tear my skin,
As I fall into an inferno of ugliness
and sin.

Cigarettes **** - and I'd be disappointed if they didn't,
I listen while the oppressors say they are oppressed,
While we die because we are faceless,
Slaves to what they desire;
I think that maybe we are stardust,
But maybe we aren't but  punished dust,
Forced to breathe and live
and love as we see fit,
Forgetting the stars.

© A Tripp

She sits in the cold rain
And lets the dark night weep onto her skin
She does the only thing that he can't
Which is to feel
She is as cold as him now
But she breathes
Weeping into the night
But breathing nonetheless
Still having life
Even as the cold sting
Robs her of her warmth

It's a picture from better times
Long gone by
Cousins sitting in the doorway
Full of smiles
Still too young to dream
Just happy to be alive
But there is hope and happiness in all of their eyes
And enough life
To last forever
Enough dreams vested in them to fill the world
And I look at that picture
From so long ago
And I notice that the paint
Is scarred and worn
That dirt mars the door frame
But you know
Their smiles are so bright
That it doesn't really matter