We take the time to smooth the edges
That makes us stand out
We are busy stifling our voices
When it is time to be loud
We turn ourselves to ether
To delve amidst the plain
We try to exemplify others
When we are all the same

Sandpaper against my bare skin
Scratches on my raw soul
Trying to put me together
Broken bits to a shattered whole
We shy off when people look
At the scars highlighted with gold
When the fire burns within our hearts
We try to turn ourselves cold

Sandpaper against my bare heart
Scratches drawing out ruddy trails
Scratches on a face all botched
Ripping out the masking scales
Camaflouge and dumb charades
Hiding truth and hinting lies
Sandpaper against my lips
Drawing out wanton sighs

We make the effort to look our best
When the good is defined by others
We take the time before making haste
Suddenly caring who bothers
Yet our worth is in our own hands
How we draw ourselves
Our secrets are our own prison
Our confidence where freedom dwells.

(c) Anavah 2018

In the fifties in the USA
It was sad, but at the time
It was a rock solid fact;
Flamboyance was a crime.
I had to wear a coat and tie
The uniform of every day
Behaving quite the normal guy
In every conceivable way.

To be a good Samaritan
And genuflect at the altar,
Wear the collar of a puritan,
And not shame your father
By being some kind of fool
Who goes against the will
Of a society that longs for
A conformity inducing pill.

I gazed longingly at clothes
Of fashionable panderers
With the color matching garb
That triggered the slanderers.
But more than their profession
I saw their ability to strut,
The fit, the material display,
The magnificence of the cut.

And I had trouble being
That kind of person they craved.
To me it was a boring ride
From birth, right to the grave.
I could not understand those
Who felt life was not for living.
What good were the gifts I saw
If I refused their very giving?

Not for me, even when young
To spend my time mud crawling.
I would rather spend my efforts
In verbal social brawling.
I rejected insulting phrases that
Proper people so often employ
And chose instead the descriptive
And openly proud ‘gay *******’.

I refused to let the common man
Who was afraid of his own crotch
Insist I be mute while he insisted
That I should stand and watch.
No, I would be who I was then
And reject their false packet
Of wearing the coat of social balm
Which I called The Straight Jacket.

Power deceives,
And ill minds contrive.
Follow as you are lead,
Be happy to be alive!
Pay no attention to foul deeds,
Schemed and completed behind closed doors.
There lay flowers and candy for those,
Who forget wrongdoings forevermore.
Beware of hungry beasts,
That knaw on your tender mind.
To those who create of their own free will,
You are likely the last of your kind.
This angry world has no room for lovers,
For those who cherish and support.
All too often, it seems like fear,
Is the last, and most effective, resort.
False lives are drawn up,
And strung upon coathooks.
Observe beyond and you will see,
These lives were derived from cookbooks.
Cookie cutter lives.

Who am I?
"How silly,"
the pond replies,
"Seems your eyes'd
see through your disguises
a sight better than mine."

But when I reach into the deep,
distorted ripples lull to sleep
the me I'd need
to really make
these murky waters shine.

"Then come inside,
the water's fine,
or at least
it's all you've got to drink."
But if I submerge,
Will I ever emerge?
Or drown myself
with liquid think?

What will I find
but fishing line
cast from some other
fisherman's rod?

Is anything mine,
swimming behind
the genes of history?
Perhaps I'll try...
But I may die.
"Oh, what a mystery........."

For who am I
to have this choice?
Just some noise,
a soulless voice
dawdling in the shallows.
"But would you become
A forgotten old crumb,
A bundle of bone and tallows?"

No, I'd wish not,
but what've I got?
This pond's no ocean,
that's sure.
"So return one day
when you've steeled your faith
or maybe obtained
a magic lure."

I recall now the reason
I love winter's season,
alone on my land dwelling
limbo.
While frozen you are
reflecting the stars
over schools of mindless
minnow.

I'm not a mathematician
But I know how to divide
And subtract
I saw you subtract your heart
From this chamber
Leaving apathy
To count in its absence

Not to say I wasn't to blame
But the numbers don't add up
And the scars don't match the wounds
Now I'm left being
A fraction of the sum
The value that came
Undone.

A common denominator
- Excuse the bad pun -
Wasn't fear of loneliness
Supposing we only made love
To warm ourselves
Is a distortion of the truth
In spite of what we said
If those words had no substance
Then I might as well have
Fallen into a different
Destruction

I'm not sorry
And I would want you to know
That not everything is squared
By you feeling brand-new
- Thinking I was old news -

I don't need to tell you
A fraction of the sum
Still has a beating heart
It's just not the same
As it once was.

No beginning is good enough
I heard the sand grains say
repeatedly
They're blown about
unstuck their cover is fragile
They always remember being
some place else
vague and connected
loosely they're tied
to the stupid wind
by their own choosing
Restless they will be everywhere,
so they aren't picky.
Some get sticky
and buried
under stainless water,
and some mount up
thru seismic waves
into volumes of sandstone,
only to be trimmed into shorter sentence,
whipped into tenderness,
groomed into the latest
fashion,
those banded dunes that sulk
the passion.