[Pall sits up on the bench and snaps their fingers to get Rogg's attention. Rogg is attent for a moment.]

Pall: I consider myself a hopeless addict, a beggar, a base, a bastard. Maybe sometimes my opinion diverges quite heavily from the standard base of standard thought, those thoughts and emotions which are carried and felt by the average advantage in their pretty little middle-class homes, but none for I, for I, I in my shabby cloak and quite different approach, I only long to be normal like them. My longing causes issues in the liver, but I refuse help. It’s not that I don’t believe in medicine, I just can’t be bothered. When I awake in mornings, it isn't from a sleep. I can't sleep. I used to try to sleep, but now I don't sleep any longer. I have gone so far in this life and yet I still don't know how to sleep even one night. Take it one day at a time they told me. People who fail cannot adapt to our simple principles they told me. They tell me I am hyper-fixated on myself. And maybe I am. But that is okay, for what I consider myself. I consider myself a scum, a rat, a leech. Self-hatred has kept me intelligent. It has kept me awake in life, and alive in living. But I must be alone: Pall must stay away from all of you normal people I will ruin everyone I love. I have read Shakespeare, Dante and Milton. I am a prostitute, and I am a scholar.

[Rogg loses interest, Pall snaps fingers, regains interest.]

Pall: But what is of me? I am all interest in you, you little creature over there. Do you sleep also? Your eyes look like they close for long hours, they are young and lineless. You could write a song on those eyelids. But what's the use? Everything is doomed to come to dust after all, so maybe the poem could end with dust too. All these great summations of beauty and virgin colours given out in dust. And all the emotions too-

[Rogg loses interest, Pall snaps fingers, regains some interest.]

Pall: And all of the emotions too, all of your happiness and lightness and pure bliss, all will come to dust after long, all ends in death, we all know that, and what can you say to counter that? That more love is the answer? No! I consider love the unevolved state of pure hate and sadness. Death is the evolved structure of life. Death...

[Rogg loses interest, Pall snaps fingers, regains a little interest.]

Pall: Because living and being defeated, what does that, what does it even matter,

[Rogg loses interest, Pall snaps fingers, regains a little interest.]

Pall: What matter what it means-

[Rogg loses interest, this time Pall takes no notice.]

Pall: What matter what it all means for your mind to lose track with my mind, because in the end, when all is said and all is done, you can never truly know me, can never truly know how I am all of myself in every impact all the way compact, you will never know, so here I am. I consider myself all that I have said and none of it. I am dust. Dust! Dried dust in a grave. I am silence and the faint echo left behind after I have died long in the future tense! I am nothing.

[Pall ceases talking, falls to musing something. Rogg perks up.]

​​​​​​​Rogg: At last!

I never asked you to claw your skin off and leave behind all the gods that you love

So why do you ask that of me?

I never asked you to keep on living when all around you the world is dying

So why do want that from me?

I never asked you to give up yourself

I never asked you to change all you are

So why do I have to not be myself

Why can’t I do what the gods made me for?

———

I follow gods of intangibility

I follow gods of full equality

The kind of equality that can’t be denied

The kind of love that all can know, none can hide

I follow gods who the rich see as fools

I follow gods who tell us we’re not tools

I follow gods who love unconditionally

Who say all of us do deserve to be

Given life, love, and given dignity

All of us part of one full family

———

I never asked you to claw your skin off and leave behind all the gods that you love

So why do you ask that of me?

I never asked you to keep on living when all around you the world is dying

So why do want that from me?

I never asked you to give up yourself

I never asked you to change all you are

So why do I have to not be myself

Why can’t I do what the gods made me for?

———

May the dawn always rise so bloody

May my blood flow to this earth freely

May my torch-light heartbeat show me

May I learn to not be so cowardly

I follow gods of constant teaching

I follow gods that help me be growing

I follow gods that bring justice to us

I follow gods that I don’t fully understand

May the fire consume my body

May my blood flow set my soul free

May I fight for true full equality

May I fight for all love that must be

———

I never asked you to claw your skin off and leave behind all the gods that you love

So why do you ask that of me?

I never asked you to keep on living when all around you the world is dying

So why do want that from me?

I never asked you to give up yourself

I never asked you to change all you are

So why do I have to not be myself

Why can’t I do what the gods made me for?

———

Love is infinite, love is one

Love it pulls me right into the sun

Love transforms me in every way

I will fight for a brand new day

May the love transform all of you as well

May the forces of greed go to hell

May we learn how to fight for each other

As siblings, as sisters and as brothers

We are all siblings, sisters and brothers

———

I never asked you to claw your skin off and leave behind all the gods that you love

So why do you ask that of me?

I never asked you to keep on living when all around you the world is dying

So why do want that from me?

I never asked you to give up yourself

I never asked you to change all you are

So why do I have to not be myself

Why can’t I do what the gods made me for?

———

May I follow the heart I so love

May the flood rain down from up above

May these words of mine find a true home

Where forever the great beasts will roam

The beasts and birds and the fish and the plants

The rivers, oceans, lakes, skies and the lands

May it all be safe, may it be saved

May none of us be treated as slaves

———

I never asked you to claw your skin off and leave behind all the gods that you love

So why do you ask that of me?

I never asked you to keep on living when all around you the world is dying

So why do want that from me?

I never asked you to give up yourself

I never asked you to change all you are

So why do I have to not be myself

Why can’t I do what the gods made me for?

———

Thank you Forest for all that you taught me

Thank you river, and the sky so starry

Thank you mountains, and marsh lands and prairies

Thank you Parent Earth, I feel your heartbeat

Thank you land below, thank you sky up above

Thank your worms in soil, the soil that I love

Thank you insects, and spiders and trees

Thank you centipedes, and thank you bees

Thank you mushrooms, and lichen and conks

Thank you beavers, and bears, deer and frogs

Thank you snakes, foxes and coyotes

Thank you starfish, and walrus, and the seas

Thank you bison, for you all may I care

Thank you heat and cold, always you’re there

Thank you sky above, clouds, moon and sun

Thank you rain storm, and snow storm and love

Thank you seasons that turn like a wheel

Thank you day and night for letting me feel

Thank you sunset, thank you sunrise

I would give all to help all of you rise

I will fight I swear it so true

I’ll fight for all of us, for each of you

Transform me into what you need

May all the earth and the people be freed

———

I never asked you to claw your skin off and leave behind all the gods that you love

So why do you ask that of me?

I never asked you to keep on living when all around you the world is dying

So why do want that from me?

I never asked you to give up yourself

I never asked you to change all you are

So why do I have to not be myself

Why can’t I do what the gods made me for?

———

I am becoming, but I am not yet

During life, and after life, may I give my breath

May I give my breath and my blood and my bread

To all the people and all the nature that form the Godhead

If you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is [email protected] and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.

The Great Mother, Mother Earth

She gave me a blade

She bade me to use it to

Help love liberate

To help love to liberate

The children so pure

And teach all to do the same

On through the future

———

I gathered my people ‘round

And said we must fight

If they push we must push back

Until all’s alight

We can make a universe

Where The Mother wins

Where those who would slander Her

Find no place within

———

And we made a siblinghood

Of outlaws so kind

To fight for a better life

To help love unbind

To help love unbind the chains

To stand by hurt love

To water love’s sacred truth

That we must speak of

———

The struggle will still extend

Long after I die

My comrades who will be born

Like me, they will try

One day no child will be faced

With a destiny

That is cruel or is harsh

The Mother told me

If you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is [email protected] and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.

People talk about growth and they talk about birds and I understand that but I am not a bird and will never be one. Give me blood and rust and dirt and decay. Give me darkness. Hold me under until I am consumed by these worms.

If you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is [email protected] and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.

Things aren't supposed to be easy

You're supposed to rebel

You're supposed to take your life into your own hands

If you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is [email protected] and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.

I feel like a dog being put down.

Anesthetize me, the old dog.

Take me on a walk.

Just take me on a walk.

I'm begging now. On my back,

Throat bared for you to rip open as you please. Jugulars spray painting the wall.

I dream of a life that isn't mine.

One of the young dogs, free.

Wildly playing and running.

No begging for walks to be had.

They know no fear of masters.

They intimidate and rule over, they are the hunters.

They relish in health and blood.

The old dog replays in my mind daily.

I am him, he is me.

I see myself in the weak dogs,

In the dogs awaiting euthanasia at the pound.

We've lived long but not long enough.

Loved but not loved enough.

I'm just an old dog.

Please, take me on a walk.

I am inherently fearful

A scared child in a woman's body

How does one grow up?

I have stayed the same since I was seven

Stagnant, but on the outside so deprived

As if I’ve never had a break

When all I have is time

But I never do anything with it,

And I don’t know why.

I should have completed my books by now

But I have written less than I did in high school

Oh how I hated high school

But now I’d give anything to go back

To have friends and correct the mistakes I made

Be less shy, talk more, to be loved

But I am nothing but myself

And I do not know how to change

A horrendous bug lurking

Somebody squish me

Trap me in a cup and let me loose

"The Smiling Tree"

It stood silent for years, not a word.

Blooming new leaves every year for centuries.

With a simple smile under an old knot of a nose.

With a simple smirk as it witnesses life before him.

Not his own, but so many others before him.

He remembers when he was young and small and he was surrounded by tall grass and large trees that he would one day be.

It grew and grew and once he remembers a tribe of Cherokee walked by him without as much of a glance.

Time went by and people started clearing out his brotheren and the tall grass that went for miles he stood tall and finally alone.

What reason, he'll never know why.

Time passed and more people soon came and built a house it was 1830 and soon a large family moved in.

They had birthdays and feasts and tears of one they lost.

Still, he stood with a smile on his long weathered trunk.

Life came and went and The Smiling Tree stood firm without breaking just swaying in the breeze and withstanding the greatest of storms.

People come and go out of the house and start new traditions and new tragedies that plagued the family of the time.

But one day, the families that lived there soon died off.

No one moved in, and the house was vacant and abandoned.

Year by year the paint on the once proud house fell off on the ground or just blew away.

Children came and broke the windows out wrote bad words on the walls and smashed the old pictures of the family that once lived there.

Nothing but the curtains blow out and wave out the windows and the sun fades their once vibrant colors.

No more laughter, no more tears just dead silence.

A once proud house, with what seems like a hundred generations of people.

No just an empty husk a weathered shell of its former self.

The only witness to the soap opera of the life that happened there

Was The Smiling Tree that stood outside.

Copyright © 2024  by Jaylee Rivers

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Sexuality equal to Humanity

When no ones think about the lifeless

Prices will be increased till we see the mindset

Which will help to escape From the mindless

If you go seeking out the happiness

You might get know about the cross roads

It’s Will lead you to the wildness

Seen by the virtuousness

I got to know about the righteous

Greatness will be meaningless

If Can’t help the helpless

Helpless will seek out the solutions

To come out from the population

Consumption won’t be enough till realize the imagination

What can do the generation

If we could destroy the pollution

Which cave into our mind, since we are from the aggravation

Expectations will be vital

To the future population

To go ahead with the imagination

To win the Life by the acceleration

In order to find the hallucinations

You have to have the sensation

Get your feet from my mind

I gotta think

Think of the way

How I’m gonna escape

Escape from this uncertainties

Till I met the devil

I’ll search throughout the universe

How I’m gonna survive

Till I see the stars to show me the road to heaven

Way down we go

As long as we able to see

We see the full of lies of reality to keep us on the ground to make the mistakes