Author Archives: schwervon

Photo by Fally Afani

Eyes on the wall
Shooting your mouth

Touching it doesn’t
Give you power
It feeds the fear

I know you want to touch it
But It messes up the painting
For everyone else

It took me years
To imagine myself as cool
Without a cigarette

Walking the stairs
Tasting the gun
Don’t worry
Forgetting the perfect lines
Are just  steps in the right direction

The movies aren’t Even close

The entertainment
Inside the thunderdome
Has a rating scale
All it’s own

Also
Stop caring about all the lying
Everybody lies
They’re like leaves

It’s more important to not eat donuts

Truth or Dare is a game you
Play in Middle school

Propaganda
Is not boot camp for adulthood

Fucking well is only fifteen percent
of your happiness

Most of us live in blankets and sheets
On a cold day
We mistake them our wings

Sometimes
So cold, we can almost feel the stars
They burn tiny marks
Into the skin.

The sky does a lot
From a distance
useless to us
now

You and I
We are close
We do things
For real
Real close

(This poem was originally recited on January 10, 2015 at The Bottleneck in Lawrence, KS )