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Marshall Layne Poem
I was always told blood runs thicker than water.
But when you held my hand, I felt what blood has never given me.
Love.
They say it's wrong.
Unnatural, demonic, perverted.
But in my eyes,
If the church calls what this is demonic,
I see why they bow their heads for the end times.
For if love is demonic, perverted,
I too, would await the headsmen.
My being laid bare for the death of myself.
For heaven is a plane of pleasure
And in your hand,
I feel I see heaven.
Your face, the light warm against my neck.
Your laugh, my golden gate.
I will charter on,
Regale you as your soldier.
For the goodest of books leave out one story.
The story of us.
The story of me and of you.
Him and him.
His and his.
And it is the most holy of script I could write.
Copyright © Marshall Layne | Year Posted 2025
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Marshall Layne Poem
I've had this spool of wire for nearly 20 years.
And I’m almost out of it.
Sure, people may look at it and be confused at my sadness.
They’ll ask why I’m so fixated on this spool of wire.
But, inside my head I just keep thinking to myself.
I’ve had this spool of wire for nearly 20 years, and now?
I’m almost out of it.
Sure its tightly wound, held together tightly by the forces that be,
The whole thing under tension unless I’m near people I trust to unravel it.
But I’ve- I’ve had it for almost 20 years.
Now I’m almost out of it.
And- I’m looking down at it, the same way I did 20 years ago and just-
It’s almost gone.
This wire,
This steel straight I’ve had for 20 years,
This.
Lifeline.
It’s almost gone.
Sure theres some rust on the underside,
Sure there’s cuts in places from when I got mad or upset-
But
It's almost gone.
And it’s stupid, I know it is,
But- I looked up to this spool,
This thing I always had.
I realized I had it in my mind that it would always be here.
Now its clear it won’t be one day.
And- I’ll need to get a new one,
With the knowledge it’ll also run out, 20 years from now.
Copyright © Marshall Layne | Year Posted 2025
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Marshall Layne Poem
I think a lot about the world surrounding me,
As I get older,
The way I’m the bent product of two straight lines of soldier.
The way Atlas holds up the globe on just his shoulder.
The way the paint grips the canvas like a child holding on to his father.
It's strange; the way I think of the leaves,
As I get older.
But now I’m at an age where I’m thinking of adult concepts and eventuality,
I think about tax season — what what I’ll buy with the money,
I think of overseas — try and learn why people can't reach neutrality,
I think of wars, and blood on beaches,
Fake peace and victory speeches,
I think of the kids whos pain only matches the screeches —
Of tires and tares,
On runaway fares,
Paying tolls on roads I long forgot didn’t fall.
My friend got into an accident this fall.
There he sits — Hospital bed,
Wandering eyes to white walls filled with dread,
Legs broken so he can’t even wander the white halls — wishing he wasn’t stuck in bed.
And my mind is over on the side, wishing I could be dead.
I spent years of my life just wondering —
“Is this the older I get?”
Copyright © Marshall Layne | Year Posted 2025
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Marshall Layne Poem
I love my friends.
I said a solemn vow to myself to protect them.
I ordered that if I can't be the best man I can be to all, I might as well be a protector.
Some days I wonder where we will end up in 10 years,
Looking into each other's expressions.
I just hope I meet them with a smile on my face, and that in the end I dont give them a reason to dread me.
Some days I worry, though.
I worry my love is not enough, or is too much.
I push so hard, I worry about shoving relationships off the edge.
I'm not exactly sure why the people who claim to be friends hang around me.
Its another thing Ive struggled on.
I see myself as a man stranded in a fresh ocean, with no water to drink.
Ignorant to all my own problems.
But I dont get how others can see me different.
I look in the mirror and see the dark circles under my eyes, the coffee-stained yellow teeth, the gray dead eyes that show im in pain.
But one day, I asked my friend what he saw.
He told me “I see the soldier that got to come home”
And since then Ive always wondered..
What war did I fight?
Copyright © Marshall Layne | Year Posted 2025
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Marshall Layne Poem
John told me, a few weeks ago,
About this place,
A land far away from any and all,
Somewhere problems don’t exist,
And everyone stays happy.
I asked how to get there,
My eyes colored in starlit blues and painted hues,
He told me simply,
“You ride a bus there.”
I asked where it went,
“It's a bus to nowhere.”
“To Nowhere?” I asked,
“To nowhere.” He responded.
“Its a place near and far.”
“A place where no one knows who you are.”
“A place where you can be content with just living.”
“A land of civil rest.”
I repeated to myself,
“Nowhere..”
He told me so succinctly.
So effortlessly.
I thought it was real.
Then in my older years I realized,
There was no sunshine in John's eyes.
As I really realized.
The bus truly went
Nowhere.
Copyright © Marshall Layne | Year Posted 2025
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Marshall Layne Poem
I hate not sleeping
I sit here, horizontal.
And I just keep thinking,
My mind drowns in constant unheard prayers.
As I think, and think, and think.
And my thoughts are awful
Wordless memory,
The drawn blood from my wrists,
The way I pour that blood into my works,
The way I feel when even one person is happy to see me write.
Euphoria,
In darker places.
My mind wanders between optimism and pessimism
I keep seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,
And then I see the headlights,
Stock still I stand
Waiting to be hit.
To be isekai’ed into a better world.
For the train to crush my brittle weak bones.
Pendulum minded,
Back and forth
Left with the memory of bloody loss,
The noose squeezing my neck,
As I look to the future.
Euphoria.
In the worst places.
Copyright © Marshall Layne | Year Posted 2025
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Marshall Layne Poem
I was always shown stories as a kid,
Heroes with capes and cowls taking center stage,
Talking, walking, beating crime down with style and flare,
Until I got older,
And I saw my own personal heroes fighting amongst themselves,
My batman yelling at a emotionally starved wonder woman,
As I hid in my fortress of solitude,
Hiding away with a knife in my hands.
It felt so strange when I saw that same knife on TV,
My first horror movie,
As it pierced the veil of a shower curtain.
I got back into superheroes as a teen,
Now no capes and a lot less glory than I had remembered,
Just The Boys showing me even superheros can be supervillains.
But I watched them with rapt attention
Watching as they burned the world around them, to a cheering crowd.
I wished to be them one day,
Able to do anything I wanted,
If I was a leader I’d burn down buildings too,
Its only fair,
Right?
Copyright © Marshall Layne | Year Posted 2025
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Marshall Layne Poem
Today, there will be millions of emotions,
All convoluted and insane,
From the most basic and inane,
To the rancorous and everything that isn't plain.
But amidst all the revelry and reign,
Against all the war paint and pain,
At the end of all worlds and cleaning up the drink stains,
There is one thing that I want you to know,
I stand on this stage, and I look to my side and see the best of men at the show.
I see the man that I laughed with underneath the TV glow,
I saw the man I cried with when the going got low,
I see the hand that sat on my shoulder when I was at my worst woes,
I see the personality I always turned to when I needed help,
I see the one man who didn’t give up on me when I moved states,
I see the only person I’ve been able to rely on for 18 years.
They say friends come and go,
But brothers will be there for you no matter what.
And I’m glad to have the best brother of all.
Copyright © Marshall Layne | Year Posted 2025
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Marshall Layne Poem
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.
Copyright © Marshall Layne | Year Posted 2025
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Marshall Layne Poem
The Worst Grief
I believe the worst grief you can feel,
Is the grief you feel for people that hurt you.
You paint pictures of all people in your mind.
But pain dealt to you doesn’t give you time to paint into that picture.
Pain taints your oils, your pigments and acrylics.
And the portrait is distorted,
Burned and burdened with blood spilled out of your own fingers.
But in the rearview you can’t see those smaller smears.
You see the face of the person you cared about one day and an age ago.
The poison only shows back up when you back up —
Take a closer look into that painting.
Its an optical illusion,
Occlusion clouding conscious thought.
That one last “I should text him.” Or that one last “he’s better now, surely.”
You built up walls to keep them out.
So why do we keep opening the gate when they come back?
Copyright © Marshall Layne | Year Posted 2026
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