The Cost of Conscience by MidnightShadow83, literature
Literature
The Cost of Conscience
It costs to have compassion these days.
To care about something greater.
If you play the game by fairer rules,
You are looked on as a traitor.
For this democratically run republic
Proved to be just the guise they'd need,
To build a capitalistic theocracy
Where the people worship and are ruled by greed...
Constructed just beneath the surface
By elected tyrants and corporate kings,
Until their cruel constructs were ready,
And the people were outfitted with strings.
That's when all those behind the curtain
Began pulling so ruthlessly,
And the masses became so distracted,
That they could no longer truly see...
Where once we slept
Living the nightmare by MidnightShadow83, literature
Literature
Living the nightmare
...expansive...black...constricting...
I awoke in unfamiliar surroundings.
Panic burning deep within. Overwhelmed. Lost.
The night sky filled with crackling dark clouds ominously running over with precipitous tears.
The cold washes over me with the waves, and my breathe pulls shallow.
Stolen by the stabbing, sharp chill of the waters clutches.
Gently tugging at my feet, it pulls me. Bidding me to the depths beneath its chaotic surface.
My head whips around in all directions for any sign of help...or hope.
Some distant landscape rising up from the water.
Natural beacons carved out of the horizon. Silently looming with its offer of s
Cauterize the poet's heart,
Stop him from bleeding out.
The solace of the page replaced
With panicked fears and doubt.
His pen dipped deep in the well,
Inked there from on his sleeve.
Bled from years of scars retraced
From which he has no reprieve!
One brought the fire...
One brought the pain...
And in the flames,
They lost it all.
As hope expires...
And dreams remain...
They play the game,
Until one falls...
Sate the shadow's dark hunger,
For wounds the poet bares.
Before his breach cuts far too deep
To ever be repaired.
His eyes hollowed like his soul,
Still drinking in his prey.
Knowing the cost is way too steep,
Sti
Break down - the shadow season by MidnightShadow83, literature
Literature
Break down - the shadow season
On the verge...
Both lost and found.
Emotions surge...
Now breaking down.
Feel the urge...
There's no control.
Shadows merge,
And purge the soul!
There on the edge
Of rhyme and reason,
The poet found
The shadow season.
So cold and dark,
And yet alluring.
Offering lies
That seem enduring.
And there he was
Touched by these flames
Rewriting rules
He thought could not change!
There on the edge
Of rhyme and reason,
The poet lost
What would have freed him.
Gone forever
From there in his sights,
Within the fires
Unwelcome rewrites.
And so it's told
That here he shattered
Holding a dream
This torn and tattered!
On the
The child awoke seeing the world
Through the weathered cynic's eyes.
Found the sunset's just a backdrop,
And his heroes peddling lies.
He found the villains wearing white;
All of the scales unfairly tipped;
Where the silver lining's plug in,
And all the tabled truths are flipped.
Found the systems were constructed
With cold, cruel oppressive themes.
He found hope to be a concept
That now exists only in dreams.
The child awoke seeing the world
Through the weathered cynic's eyes
Seeing all that he once held dear
Reduced to that which he despised!
Innocence was all that mattered,
At least it was, until it shattered.
Now all tha
Resurfaced breath, unwilling wakefulness
The calm serenity---interrupted
Like sinking lead inside the sockets of
My skull, or glowing coals that smolder bright
Unopened eyes, but conscious soul within
Just longing for the depths embrace once more
A rolling groan and body toss and then---
Enforced position vertical, the heat's
Continued burn within. An awkward stroll
In heavy stumbles down the hallway's dark
And quiet length, then sitting rigid, droop
the curtains upon sight. Return to rest,
A lost caress in moonlit room's e-ter-nit-y
A rolling groan and body toss and then-
find room to
explore
massive space
over one thousand years
to sketch exhaustively
complex formations
over time
this drama is key
to provoke
struggle in opposition
and hope in fiction
which tensions finally
establish
poetry