Outlaws
The crowd
Trembles
As the outlaws live.
As one man
Homeless
Writes poetry
With cigarette ash.
As one woman
Starved
Dances ballet
With blood on her shoes.
Me, you, and the frog
Slow
Steady
Silent
By family
Friends
And others
You will die
Like a frog
In boiling water
And perhaps
There is someone
Someone to help you
But he or she
Is dying too.
These aren’t happy tears
Mothers cry,
When the baby is born.
Friends cry,
When they rejoin.
Lovers cry,
Saying yes to each other.
They cry,
The same old cry
Because somewhere deep
Within us
We know;
Love will vanish,
Friends will apart,
And the baby will die.
What even is a “happy tear”?
Another optimist lie.
Waiting in a room, hoping for nothing
Bleak sense of loneliness
Around the people
Supposedly the closest to you.
Suddenly pours down on you;
“nobody will ever understand”
And that alone is enough
To push you to the corner of a room
With cement walls,
No doors,
No windows,
Where there is no hope.
And finally,
You can just wait
For a flower
To flourish
Through the grooves
Of your solitude.
That flower,
If there will ever be one,
Is all you have
The only thing that understands.