Forgotten

 If I were to die
At this moment in time
I'd be forgotten by all. 

     Every Monday, I fire up Blogger and pretend that I'm a member of society. I pretend that I don't hate the world as much as I do, that I have anything remotely approaching faith in our government, that I'm at all convinced the world will listen to what I have to say. Every Monday, I pretend that someone will read what I have to write. Why? You and I both know I'd be much happier if no one saw me at all. 

The Greenhouse

 It's cold.
It's raining.
I can't see the sunlight
So I'm starving.
I'm still alive
But everyday 
Brings more pain 
Then I can deal with.

I'm told that somewhere,
Far away,
There's a heaven made of glass.
A place that's always warm,
Where you never get rained on,
Where you never need to worry about 
Finding the sun.

Oh, to live there,
To never need to worry
About dying again.
But I won't live there.
You don't go there by choice.
You go there because the gods 
Have chosen you.

No one knows why they choose some
Over others.
Everyone wishes that it could be them.

It's cold,
It's raining,
But the concrete won't let
Most of the water through.
I stretch out my leaves,
But the sun's vanished
Behind a large square cloud.
I'm so hungry.
I'm surviving,
But only just. 

Oh, to live where there's always sunlight,
Where you get water every day,
Where you never need to worry about being eaten.

I'm not asking for much,
So why won't the gods
Listen to my pleas.
I've heard they can change the climate,
So why can't they build 
A greenhouse for everyone?

There's someone else
Growing next to me,
Fighting me for sunlight and air.
It knows I'm struggling,
Knows there's not enough for both of us,
But it's fighting me for all that it can.

I wish someone would help me,
I wish the gods would grant me
Respite from this torture.

My enemy laughs,
"Do you think such a place
As a greenhouse exists?"

"I've heard, on the wind, that the gods have
Warmed the planet. 
I've heard, on the wind, the gods
Have cleared the land
And sowed it with so much life
You grow before you know what's going on.
All that greatness, and you still demand more?
The gods have given us all we need to survive,
So why don't you accept 
That you were never worthy to begin with?"

I know what it's doing.
It's trying to prove that it can win 
By bullying me.
It knows it's dead,
Just like me,
If the gods decide not to help us.

The sun's blazing,
But my leaves can't reach any of it.
I can feel the heat roasting me,
But I don't see the light.

Why can't they hear me?
Why won't they help?

If I can't live escape the hunger and pain,
What reason do I have to keep living?
What reason do I have 
To fight for survival? 

    You ever think about how most of the people we see aren't real? They look real, they have the faces of people who exist, and they sometimes share the opinions the people who look like them share, but the people we see aren't the people who exist, they're people we created to fit molds we have of the world we live in. Good guys, bad guys, everyone in between, all are made up by us and the people who want to influence us so that our world can stay real. But they're not real, and the people who look like them often have little in common with those we see. We pretend Elon Musk is all powerful, but strip away the fawning adoration, and you have a man who is more pathetic than most of the teens who emulate him. Not that said teens will admit that, of course. 

    There's a lot of talk about personal growth, things written by people who think the way to make the world a better place is by becoming a better person. I think that we may have gotten it backwards. I think that it's just as important to focus on making the world a better place for everyone. The problem is that nobody knows what that better world really looks like. That doesn't mean that we don't have a vision for what it could look like. I think the problem is that we hold ourselves back, because we know that our perfect world could very easily be somebody else's dumpster fire, but if there's a way to make everyone happy, we won't know what it looks like until we know what everyone wants.

Anything for Money

 Anything for money,
Anything for cash,
Anything to help me
Make my current world last.

The world has gotten expensive,
The trials almost too great,
This anger I feel when I step outside
Is almost too much to take.

So I do what I can to survive,
Working, sleeping, praying
Until I find another world
That my soul feels safe in staying

    I know that this year will likely be a year of reckoning, but I want it to be a year of introspection. I want us to look inward and see who we are and how we got where we are now.

One Trick Pony

 The one trick pony
Can't do many things,
But when they do what their best at
The crowd goes wild.
When the one trick pony 
Tries to branch out,
The crowd gets upset,
Says they're just an imitator,
That they don't belong on the stage.
What if the one trick pony,
Could learn to be better
And wow audiences for real? 

 Holy crap, it's 2024!

The Character

 Am I real?
Am I person too complex
To be reduced to numbers?
Or am I just a character,
Someone who's nothing more than a list
Of traits on paper? 

I try to write my life's story,
But the plot won't go 
Where I want it to. 
I just watch, 
Seeing people go about their day,
Doing things for reasons
They could never explain,
For they can only see the inside
Of their own skulls. 

When did this happen?
When did I start role-playing
My own life?
How do I see the truth?
How do I find who I really am?
Or am I wrong?
Do characters only ever exist
Between the pages of a book?