Beauty is a rare thing.
I see it sometimes, in hallways and on sidewalks, always in the silent gaze of some glowing misft…
In it, there is no seduction, no familiar human lust,
Nor is there the novelty of conversation…
Only purity,
Nature.
Nothing so shallow as for words to describe.
It passes by,
Silent among the aimless chatter and quarrel that fills the filtered air,
Drifting along in clouded lays,
Lowing to itself, illuminated,
Calm blinks of melancholy
Laughing away a neurotic mess.
Silent eyes catch restless ones,
Lulling them wide in a hollow round,
If only for a second.
I sleep in them forever,
As in beauty’s twisted, smiling tone
They whisper this to me:
You are a coward,
A dreg-bound and rusty shell.
You are passive decay,
A nowhere island, nameless and uninhabited.
I am not yours to admire.
I am not yours to hold.
I do not belong to you.
You are sick and lonely,
Worthless and impossible.
You are pathetic; small and disturbed.
You are not so smart.
I do not belong to you.
I will not speak with you.
And you’ve no one to blame but your own petty self.
A blink; a turn of the head as the words cease their incursion,
Life goes alight as a May-flight zeppelin…
The past, a recurring hell,
The future, where nothing goes wrong or right,
Her, some messianic delusion of change that I’ve yet to release…
A laugh, as always, to keep myself protected,
Unexposed.
Mysterious.
An enigma of absolute nothing.
I am a coward.
I am a romantic.
I am a cruel joke of God.
Jim Marshal, 4 months ago
Breathe, this is a really powerful poem. Forgive me for saying, but 17 year olds usually don’t write anywhere as articulately as this – so crisp in description of emotions and angst. It was a decade ago that I was 17 and when I think back I can relate to almost everything you have said here. The world of social appearance is (and possibly always will be) a world of hypocrites. It takes a momentous act of will when you’re young to not sell your soul entirely, to keep as George Orwell put it, that cubic inch of mind to yourself and not let it be played with by people that want to profit from you in some way. But at the same time to not become totally paranoid. Not easy. Peace to you.
Roger Sampson, 4 months ago
This has left me more than sober…. more than amazed in the impact it has left me with. You have penned feelings, the same of which many have done before but, never have I read them and felt as I have with your words here. I’m being honest… this powerful and brilliantly written. All I will add is a personal note – please know that God does not make cruel jokes. Pass it on to whom ever you know that may think so in a serious way.
KEITH R. WILL..., 4 months ago
a cruel joke of god i think not