Smile

It’s a chilly wind that blows,

but I still smile.

In a world of cold depravity,

injustice,

and strange delusions,

I see the madness for what it is.

Though powerful forces

would accuse

and drag into the muck,

I will not follow suit.

Yesterday’s wrong answer

won’t justify today.

And so I read their words,

hear their voices,

shake my head at folly,

and still smile.

This was written for Three Word Wednesday.

Haunted

You’re back again,

inside my head,

channeled in somehow.

Am I condemned to remember you always?

I thought this tug of war had ended,

strange ennui of disgust and love

where every mood has meaning

and senses burn hot
like withered grass.

My eyes see you in empty rooms.

I smell and taste a passion long departed.

Should I capitulate to the past,

dream of things that cannot be?

Better, perhaps, to list your faults,

parse and tally them,

generate a query

that will give me simple answers

and render you thus harmless.

But can complexity

be reduced
to a single number?

(Binary)
Yes or no.

Too easy.

So instead I will go about my days

with folded hands

and phony smiles,

while you lurk in the inky shadows of my mind.

Untamed.

This was written for The Sunday Whirl.