WIN AND WIN NO WAY
MORE LIKE LOSE AND LOSE EACH DAY
TRUMP BOILING AWAY
White knuckle straining
Gripping the laces
At the edges of my thoughts
Praying the laces
Don’t come off
I am screaming
You cannot hear me
Because I am learning
I am learning what is healthy
And tearing down the dry wall
Until your nail beds are bleeding is
Not.
I do not hate you.
How do I say
I hate the way
I have to relearn how to think
How to speak
I have to weigh every opinion
Every porcelain inkling
So that I do not break
It
Break
Me
Break, you.
Break through!
I can do this sober.
Unless
I can’t.
String me up by my neck
There is only silence
Until the next
The thought
Rips its way in
Unfamiliar nasty little friend
I white knuckle strain
And grip the lace
Hoping for a soft landing
A greeting
A whisper instead of the screaming
I am gritting my teeth
Praying
And they call this
Healthy,
Self understanding.
But thinking for me
Feels more like disease
Punishment seeping internally
Pushing my face into gravel
Threatening to leak
Through my teeth
And onto my life where
I’ve rebuilt
Piece by piece.
Silence.
I breathe.
Release.
Repeat.
Written: July 12, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Karen Jones
Sun spits,
Skin quits.
Heat schemes,
Ice screams.
Bugs rise,
Peace dies.
Sweat wins,
Shade thins.
Air sags,
Grass drags.
Storm broods,
Mood skews.
Clouds glare,
No air.
Fans fail,
Nerves frail.
Nights burn,
I churn.
Days swell,
No quell.
Sky looms,
Room blooms.
Sun mocks,
Time shocks.
People love to say,
"I have trust issues."
Like it's a confession.
Like it's a character flaw.
Like it's something we're supposed to apologize for
before anyone gets close enough to see it.
And for years,
that's what I called mine too.
Trust issues.
As if trust was the thing that broke.
As if I came into this world
with my arms crossed,
my walls up,
and suspicion stitched into my skin.
But that's not my story.
My story is that I trusted.
God, did I trust.
I trusted people with the softest parts of me.
The parts I hadn't even learned how to hold myself.
I believed promises
because I wanted to believe people.
I believed "forever."
I believed "I've got you."
I believed "I'd never do that to you."
I believed words
because I hadn't yet learned
that some people speak in comfort,
not truth.
And every time someone broke that trust,
they left carrying only the pieces they needed.
TRUMP ISSUES AMAZE
PROBLEMS CONTINUE TO RAISE
MUST BE IN A DAZE
Some people’s lives roll easy
They never care to know
It comes naturally like breathing
The days just come and go
Most people’s lives meet issues
Too large to solve them nicely
They reconsider their views
Drink too much wine unwisely
But I have no advice to share
Sitting here with a silly grin
I imagine my love is still there
Where she has always been
This has nothing to do with reality
But imagination’s a friend
It cares a bit of my sanity
In a way I find funny and sad
Some people’s lives flow easy
There aren’t too many of those
Born wealthy, they weren’t too busy
Hence not to their credit it goes
It’s a gift of fate, I believe
You are given a life to spend
And the time and a place you receive
Are most possibly, heaven-sent
DISTRACTIONS
She slithers away,
Our feelings,
Like a snake,
And indeed the strings.
The man with the box,
Oh, the camera,
Sprint in second like the fox,
With shakara;
Just so you know,
And just so you listen,
Strings of now,
The noise to hasten.
Pastor, these are much,
And maybe,
You can quench,
Or you can just let be?
This your temple,
Wears distractions,
And the interior looks purple,
Losing her intentions.
Polithiefcians kissing the mic,
Exchanging blows,
Of insults to psyche,
As the bundles belows.
Is this truly salvation?
With her poke,
Or temptation?
This may choke.
Hey minister,
Tell your friends,
To tame the sinister,
And distractions ends.
Too many distractions,
Is it the lingerie:
Or the many temptations
Comraderies?
Truly, we need time,
To serenly meditate,
With christ in sight,
But sores repudiate.
We come for salvation,
And not distractions.
Life issues;
It's a stormy sea
Life is a mystery...
It's filled with up and down
You got to hold up
On what's true
So you don't stand up
For what is deceiving.
Everyone with their understanding
This is why the world is in chaos
Different beliefs system
Different religions
Leading all to apartheid
What's good for one
Is bad for another
The reason for disunity.
We all stand for what we believe
Even when we live in deceit
But just to receive
Even when we live in sin
Does insanity make a man worthy
Or sanity makes a man healthy
Living and standing for what's right
Makes a man blameless and untroubled.
I used to live at home.
We were a close group.
My mum took care of me.
When i was ill, she made me soup.
It started to get harder.
There was always a shadow.
Everything seemed dull.
Though this didn't always show.
I left to get my own life.
I struggled by my self.
They seemed to forget about me.
Like i was just a photo on the shelf.
I've figured it out now.
They saw me as a burden.
I was left on my own,
i was left broken.
Now 6 months no contact,
it wasn't done by choice.
But when we used to speak,
i felt like i had no voice.
It's hard when it wasn't my choice,
i should've done it sooner,
Because i'm better off now,
i'm no longer a performer.
I finally found myself,
i finally found love,
i found my voice,
i just needed a little shove.
Alexis Culley
p.s. please give your feedback
the
contemporary
forces
a
channel
of
rhythmic
physical
pulses
garnished
deservedly
with
vivid
elegant
re-imaginings
of
blanched
light
I long to be the shore and feel your waves crashing on to me,
Waiting in patience to hold your anger till it subsides into peace.
I long to walk alongside you till the end of horizon,
And let the sunrise dawn upon us in holy union.
But, alas, I find myself in the middle of your hurricane,
Breaking away piece by piece to sink in your neverending hunger.
People have always told me.
“Never throw stones in a glass house.”
I never understood.
I don't understand idioms,
They always contradict me.
Don't throw stones, but break the glass ceiling,
Get off your high horse so the ones in your ivory tower can't see.
You can't change what doesn't make sense.
We use idioms to make things more relatable.
But when we turn everything into a concept that doesn't make sense.
We turn the world into a tower of babel.
We isolate everyone.
We make the world blind.
We take an eye for an eye,
Until the world jumps blindly into the ravine of progress.
Scientific suicide.
We hold hands, looking side by side.
But our silence is a knife.
As we open our wrists on the cutting edge of technology
And the blood greases the raw silicone wheels in the valley,
More progress,
More waste,
One happy accident turns into one million depressing funerals quickly if you know what's happening.
Opening your eyes is the hardest part.
Living with what you see is the hard part.
2024.4.24
Ever since you installed on my phone,
All those fantastic Firmware,
After explaining about privacy issues.
I thought it was a wonderful idea
And you did it with good intentions
To protect me from all those spywares' infection.
But did you know, when you decided to end our friendship,
You left me struggling how to use them.
Most of the Apps you installed
Had started to have errors and troubles.
Every where I went, people shoke their head,
Stated your Apps were too far advanced.
Some even made several attempts,
At the end, they gave up on helping me,
I did not know what to do.
Someone suggested deleting all your Apps,
Getting back to the normal Google.
After a while, I decided to keep all your Apps,
Let people slowly introducing the spyware back.
Although you walked away from me,
But you actually left behind
A huge empty hole in me,
Many strange and weird Apps
Like Amaze, Conversations, Newpipe,
MPV, F-Droid, Open Camera and TEdit
And lot of Apps to drain my phone's batteries.
People also made comments,
I have been brain washed by your terrible privacy idea.
BB, why did you do this to me?
they show up at 2:37 a.m.
not with pitchforks,
but with your mother’s voice,
your boss’s smirk,
the girl who left in '89.
they don’t knock.
they seep in through the cracks—
in the plaster,
in the bottle,
in your goddamn spine.
they light cigarettes
with your regrets,
spit beer on your dreams,
laugh like old men in a losing bar.
you feed them
every time you say yes
when you mean get the hell away.
they sit on your chest
like a mortgage,
like cancer,
like love.
and still—
you buy them a drink.
The divide between my neighbour and me,
The strangeness that makes us strangers,
The silence that echoes our unspoken words,
The books that those words create.
We turn through the pages in the loneliness of separation,
The unhealthy world we inadvertently build.
March 17, 2025.
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