When we sought a new world,
We looked courageously to the skies above,
To create an atmosphere of love
Where man could see and simply live.
When we sought a new world,
We scorned and laughed at the hate they bore,
The many troubles of hidden agonies,
And the daring competitions of life.
The man I know is not one of cruelty or hate,
But a man of genuine integrity and pride,
A man of virtue, with an eagle’s pride.
When Obi was a boy,
He played at hide and seek,
But now, in the new world we sought,
He is a man who lives for others.
Draw the sword to the heart of man,
Gaze at his face with lifted eyes
There, only sorrow you will find,
Hidden for a thousand generations.
The strong, independent fellow,
Who lives for his fellow man,
Who ignores his pain.
He barters his happiness for a flower’s smile.
Buds of heart break open
spread myriad hues of joy, cheer, and happiness
Mend broken
Sacrifice self
Ending spring of color, fearless
In shelf
Encore
Childlike, blameless
Pure
Buds of heart break open
Ending spring of color, fearless
Pure
Self and selfless exist on a spectrum
A path of maturation
A path of relative perspective
From personal to transpersonal.
When you are young it is all about you
As you grow you see there are others too
Until when old, finally see those others
Make up the many, and you the very few.
All of us are hardwired for empathy
And compassion too
Although the two are not the same.
Empathy, connected to our pain centers,
Makes us feel other’s pain as our own,
A basically selfish concern.
Compassion, connected to our love centers,
Makes us want to take on and share
The suffering of others,
An inherently selfless concern.
Compassion doesn’t lead us to harm others
But empathy can. Empathy
Is what lies at the root of mass hysteria
Leading one to join a lynch mob
Soccer-fan riot
Anti-ICE protest
Or nationalist army marching to war.
Compassion is what leads us to see the other
As no different from ourselves
No matter what side the other is on.
In the end it’s really not selfless
It’s just self expanded
To include it all.
(1/23/26)
Quote unquote friends i have made since he.
How do they see me now? Was i just a sign on a highway? Just looking and cruising me by.
Its good that my peers know how i operate yet, it unsatisfied me that they know who i am
i think of it quite useless.
It’s always “young and free” but i don’t feel free. countless days and nights entrapped in four walls. my social skills are torn and low, i’ve wrapped myself in isolation
I don’t feel happy.. but i feel peace. enough peace to not become so faint and cruel to this world who showed no remorse.
I’m uneasy and ready to rest.
The summer.. such a shame. Why am i back here?
School has been going pretty well. i maintain my grades and i’m striving to pass with all A’s.
Just a month ago, relationships are a pity. i sought interest in a person.. declared negative.
Im not supposed to be emotional, why am i this way? i thought i liked him.. declared untrue.
A hook tossed into a lake, i thought i had it but it swam away. it all feels like a repeated cycle..
blood sweat and tears wasted, to a boy who blew away the flame.
Although it was he who ended, i blame myself for being emotionally attached.
i get angered at the time the moment happened.. oh so lucky am i
he gave his self a chance to be happy, but what about me?
The hours lean heavy,
laid like bricks with no mortar,
a survival gripped together by determination.
You are half truth, half courage,
escape before they bring the cracks to the surface,
before it shows, before the weight.
It’s not the clapping that stirs you,
not the glow of some imagined end,
but the quiet conviction
to bear it all,
to ensure no one else has to.
Tell me how it feels,
to bear the world’s muck upon your back,
to keep breath gentle, even as it scorches,
to give without taking,
and call it living.
The blissful ignorance of self-denial
as a means to self-awareness and inner meaning
denies the selfless bliss of
service and love for others.
To make less of self,
to cease selfish cravings and desires,
is more about striving to satisfy
the needs of others than to
blast away at what you think you need
to satisfy and satiate, your own inner selfish needs.
Self-denial is a dead-end fork
on the road to self-awareness.
For the blind cessation of self, if unrequited,
lets frustration break out
into unresolved blights and sores
that you alone cannot heal.
The path to less self-awareness
lies in unselfish selflessness
to others.
On a busy Marescaux Road where
No one cared for an injured dog,
Where motorists do not come to a slow,
And honking horns hammer
As impatient traffic competes toe to toe,
There on the asphalted heat
The painful cry of a wounded creature
Pierced through the peak-hour hub of the street.
Out into the throbbing traffic
The Wolmarian girl stepped
Caring none except
for that injured dog– whimpering, pleading,
Fighting with its final breaths.
And the honking swelled and motorists yelled.
From their faces, I could discern
They were void of an iota of concern.
Above the chaos, I heard her whisper
Gentle reassurance to the timid creature.
The Wolmarian girl bent
and slowly lifted her casualty
And walked back to the sidewalk
With ceremonious dignity.
And I have always wished to be as brave as she
Who defied the odds to honour her humanity.
Beagles’ breath I love now as I awake.
Your wet tongue keenly laps my chin and brow.
I know your love is true and full, not fake.
You impart your joy and love to me now.
The battles of the night have bled away.
And my eyes can blink back to life once more.
“Good girl!” in gravel tones aloud I say.
Then lean up fast to grasp your furry maw.
Best friend to me and I to you am proud.
Even our soaring love as such must fail.
As ruin will likely wrap you in a shroud.
In pain of grief sorrowfully I’ll wail!
Doing as I’ve done each time before death
Has brought me to the fatal edge of doom
I selfish, will seek to find one who’s breath
Will kiss me to raise my heart from the gloom!
i was thinking about us
I mean
the immense amount of people
like-minded
and very similar desires
and then I asked myself
if what sets us apart
and determines our individual success
it's just the strength of our will
or the end result is achieved
by our level of selflessness
My wrongs were long ago
my rights corrupt my mirror
i'm about to run
Kindness.
Utmost selflessness.
Giving, empathizing, understanding.
Sunshine in people's lives.
Compassion.
There was a steadfast vampire, who never chose his fate.
And when encouraged by his peers to kill, as was his trait,
He shook his head, and staunchly said, “A life, I will not take.”
“For yours, you will,” they laughed, so shrill.
So sure that he would fail.
But on the night he starved and died, their will to his, did pail.
The strokes of angry waves painted,
Beneath a sky of charcoal gray.
Did you feel it even then,
The water's rise above your head?
Bobbing up and down,
Slowly losing ground,
As they tried to hold on
To the clothes which become
Your coffin.
Knowing this you went anyway,
To try and save
Someone you never knew.
It's hard to believe,
But where you weren't before,
I now see
In your painting
You
Drowning.
Peter dove in, waves all upheaving, raging
Sure as blind eyes always are, never doubting
Saving Sandra, fallen in, shouting, blurping,
Sandra saved Peter!
(fiction)
2/28/2019
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