Expectations
By Dustin Branum
And when my angel betrayed me
It was my demons that saved me
While the devil enslaves me
Although you might think I'm crazy
It was Lord thou savior that played me
My own flesh and blood's degrading
I thought I was Destined but maybe
Lost soul, and the death of a baby
Dark, cold, and angry they made me
The ones that loved me now hate me
One gun one bullet one shovel they gave me
Six feet down in a hole they laid me
I don't like to brag, but I've seen it all
The virginal Springs, the legends of Fall
Where whispering pines, meet towering peaks
And raging rivers, raise babbling creeks
A fresh forest glade, festooned with fauna
Hot bubbling waters, nature's own sauna
Swam the Tasman Sea, hiked along the Nile
Even met a wretch, walking "his" green mile
Once I played the Met, and jammed with the Stones
Then won a big bet, while rolling the bones
Met the self-righteous, who claims to be right
And basked with the meek, who shines a true light
From Rome's Rotunda and Phlegraean Fields
To Chinese lanterns and Japanese shields
Sailed the Seven Seas, been around the Horn
Watched a nation die, watched a nation born.
I've seen followers and leaders of men
I've met the Pope, forgiving my sin
Saw too many rich, degrading the poor
I've stood at Hell's gate, passed through Heaven's door
I've traveled the moon, the stars in the sky
I've charmed the Devil, making Angels cry
Like I said before, I don't like to brag
Here's a toast to ME, waving my own flag!
I wonder if my eyes have the strength to carry the dusk of my dearth.
They say eyes are the window to your soul.
But could the silhouette amplify the accosts of my void you claim with tangibility?
Could you name the poverty of my shadow within the dilation of my pupils, as they expand with a willingness unseen beneath anything but the weaves of your labyrinth?
Could you caress the convolutions of my heart, so twisted by the absent twinkle that determines the lifespan of my irises?
They speak a language so extraneous to the snarl of desperation; a hope clinging onto a surfeiting glut of insomnia.
They speak in syllables of a pitiful, pathetic articulation; a fleet of a cascading deluge.
They speak in a dialect so degrading to the ponder of my wondrous conclusions.
Not the ones you see in classrooms.
Not the ones you see in lectures.
But the ones you wish to lapse into; something as condescending as the melancholy of my amber.
And something as demoralising as the delinquency of my destiny;
The windows to my soul.
360.
My Fear of Burial
I fear physical death because I may just go…
To the fertile soil of light and heat
Where my organs and flesh the worms will eat
Like organic fertilizer be consumed from juice to meat!
To the barren ground of rock and dust
Where my blood and bones diminish onto the earth's crust
Like an old iron gradually degrading into useless rust!
-03/16/2015
(Dumarao)
*My Fear of Death Collection
I wish I could erase myself from their eyes.
Give myself purity again, without the filthy looks, the degrading names, the lust.
I want to reset it all.
To not be seen as dirty but as a pure girl. Let me be clean.
I would give anything, even if it means I would never be seen again, to not be perceived as this horrible being, this filthy, lusty animal.
Give me peace and silence back.
You can take all the dirty talk, the dirty looks and the figurative hands all over my body.
I'm begging you.
TAKE IT ALL BACK.
I am soiled.
The soft life purple of my soul has turned into a burnt crimson red.
CLEAN IT.
I silent them all, in sweet confusion...
Without any form of agitation
That could promote tough sensitive violence,
Cum the targeted aim via annoyance.
I brief them all into falling failure,
That keeps degrading their young minds pleasure,
Without possible mastery of goodwill,
Cum troubling care dreaming to stand there, still.
I cut them all off in near distance hot form,
That seems weak to get back on... or transform
Another chance to hook up lovely plan
Without letting go ease, till peace be ban.
I keep up with writing to make hints; fresh...
Cum wandering war receding to refresh.
I am a watcher. I watch. I think. I am standing by a laminated wad of rotting brown ice; glacier. Somehow she is more resplendant for her age and degrading slough. She will carve off in hunks, destined to float in the sluch of a Svalbard inlet. Destined to become brown water a million years old. And this is still beauty. A beauty of age is of more substance than a beauty of youth, for it as endured millenia. Like the Greenland Shark; he lives for hundreds of years himself and is beautiful. For his knowledge.
dying ice sloughs off
melting, warmth of ice water
rinsing off shark remnants
Pocket-Gazes
Night depressed—
black spirits, spiders,
demanding, retorting,
an empty vessel, titanic with trauma.
A downturned smile, flagellate,
disillusioned, demoted, disinterested—
dystopian dysmorphia.
Dolls.
Masks.
Spills.
Blood.
Oxygen.
Water.
Decaying. Degrading. Devolving.
Despair, disaster, disappointment—
disappear.
The lexicon collapses inward,
a ladder whose rungs only fall.
Sand sighs. Water shifts.
Hands disembodied.
Faces detached,
checked out.
I flail,
a swimmer drowning in a teaspoon.
Watermelon empathy—
bloated, barren.
A clock face melting, Dalí’s sky.
I am Picasso’s fractured mouth.
I am Van Gogh’s shell-ear,
smashed on the rocks.
Amy Winehouse cries, hollow,
vodka-veined, restrained
inside a music box.
Maya’s muteness.
Florence’s failure.
Mary Seacole’s poverty.
Nightingale’s lamp guttering.
Angelou’s song stilled.
Seacole’s hands trembling empty.
Yet outward—
instead of inward,
instead of into my pocket-gazes—
there might be,
just might be,
a shimmer of stardust,
a touch of moonlight.
Hope, a dot of light
in a cavern of dark.
And yet,
it illuminates the sky.
You make me happy/
You make me sad.
You treat me like a queen/
You hurt me bad.
You want me to stay/
You tell me to leave.
You say you trust me/
You don't believe me.
You're caring and sweet/
You're cruel and degrading.
See,I'm on my feet/
Now feel my love fading.
‘tis not this scape judgy?
‘lo, prey on the defenseless
short of a chirp, quite rationalized
facets of your twisted facade
the soul degrading you?
despises, despises theeself
thy insecurities shall protrude
thy good and their wrong spotlighted
i won’t get ready for this world
it will get ready for me
let their hearts pound in their chest
cause I’m fighting for those who can’t fight
it’s going the hell down
FLY HIGH! No one but you has lived a second of your life
FLY HIGH! The useless always negatively lie
FLY HIGH! We’ll prove our existence to those who reject it
TO THE SKY! F I G H T !
In my haze dividing
I clown my hysteria inviting
A will to finish this degrading
Life of fawning.
Forsaken by rape
Of a virgin in wanting
Now this life is a canvas
Of abandonment
And consoling.
Into hell I cast all wishes and desires
And petty arguments of
Gifted minds in drunken stupor.
I glide on failing and bathing in fire..
On tonight's global gift
I am debunked and scolded
For not falling in line
With this destiny distorted.
No junk in my veins,
No pop to my verbiage
Forever now grounded
In rules of the Owner.
I vow and repent
For this final agreement
That ripped through my decision
To try and offer a help I can't muster.
This frail feeling of worldly fate
Drowning and fast fading, mortal and degrading
This voice, his lips on my ear; whispering,
Hurtful hate; feeding on fear
These choices, crucial, turning life into a surreal blur of chaos
Dreadful moments just waiting to occur
The darkness pounces on my soul wrapping and clawing its way to my mind,
There is something very valuable to find
For a most Holy Spirit is guarding my hallowed heart
And the daunting demons have yet to part
seeing the way the men around you act within the shadows then within the daylight smile and care within a holy “reasoning”-
purely disgusts the soul.
knowing that the men around you have been capable such sinful acts that rot the soul,
as i gaze into their eyes it feels as if im searching through their souls-
degrading and picking apart each unholy piece,
it gives them earth shattering knowledge that someone knows of their sins. like a sinful man spewing to the preacher.
i can tell they feel the same.
i can feel the shame and disgust within themselves as i search through their soul through their eyes-
they can feel the shallow disgust radiating off my soul,
as if it was the devil looking the blinding lights of heavens in the direct soul-
i can feel the unholiness inside themselves.
yet this isn’t my intention-
it’s their guilt of the shameful things they have done im merely just looking it in the eye.
If only I'd seen,
Your true colours shine,
Before your poisonous thoughts,
Could ever dominate mine.
Your toxic, degrading comments,
Began taking their toll,
Making me feel worthless,
Tactically destroying my soul.
Manipulating me to believe,
Way too many times,
I was completely crazy,
Guilty of YOUR crimes.
Searching for the evidence,
I could never find,
All just to prove,
Wasn't loosing my mind.
Still to this day,
My anger burns deep,
I once lost myself,
To a narcissistic creep.
The confirmation hearings are lowbrow theatre.
Wolf packs of C actors and bitter stone-throwers.
Getting off by degrading, disgracing, and humiliating.
Transparency and truth are a pale afterthought.
Do let your children watch the theatre, though....
Explain that this is how not to treat another human being.
Then take them to a playground.
Leave your cell phone behind.
Let them teach you the art of playing all over again.
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