A sweet sponge cake
With snow-white icing
And a single candle
As big as a basketball

The table's covered in silk
Confetti all over the walls
And the floor, too
It's time to celebrate

The candle lights up
They're hesitant
Too good to eat, they think
Noisemakers distract them

But there's no noisemakers to be found

One of them grabs the knife and sighs
It has to happen
The other make a wish
And the room goes dark

The knife makes a deep cut
Unexpectedly, jam comes out
They're scared
Invisible noisemakers continue to play
The cake remains still, unaffected by time

The one with the knife did not know what to do but throw it
And it hits another, but not the cake
Jam falls, drop by drop

The silky tablecloth gets ripped
It was never strong enough
Noise grows deafening

The birthday child cries

You looked outside the window and smiled
"Can you make some jam for us?"
Obliging, you did so
You didn't know what flavor they wanted

So you did every single one
Blueberry, raspberry, banana
A plethora of colors comes into view
You always wanted to be an artist
To embrace the colors you see
A chance to be happy
But you're stuck making jam for them
Forever and always

At least it tastes good

I sit here.

Viewing a blank slate.

The black blinking line mocks me.

I've been here for hours.

Where are the thoughts?

The words?

Where are the rhymes to save the world?

The language to disintegrate the pillars of inequality?

The stanzas to make me rich so I can quit my day job?

I should be making as much as an engineer.

They don't contribute as much to society as I do.

I rhyme, I'm a sentence builderd.

I build societal commentary with words.

Me me, I'm a word boy.

Do you have any idea how much student loan debt I'm drowning in?

It's low tide in my mind's sea.

All I can imagine --

and picture

-- is myself placing a toothpick under my big toenail and kicking the wall in front of me as hard as I can.

Or maybe I can use a flat-head screwdriver to pry off the nail from the bed.

I could use a tack hammer to tap and slide that under.

A serrated sickle perhaps?

Move it maybe.

Liberate it from being on a toe.

It wants to be on a thumb;

a much better class of nail.

Toenails of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your jam job!

Sticky
Always grabbing
For compliments
For approval

“You’re so pretty.”

Like jam hands
Young and desperate
Sweet and clingy
Searching

“They can’t resist a beautiful girl like you.”

Is that all I am?
“Beautiful”  “Pretty”
That’s all they tell me
Am I nothing else?

“I wish I looked like you.”

Is there no head on my shoulders?
No spine in my back?
Is “pretty” all I have?
Am I nothing but a picture to look at?

“You’re the pretty friend.”

Gooey jam hands grabbing
For any kind words
Of how my looks dazzle
Because

That’s all I’ve ever heard.
Now I’m a "pretty” shell
With nothing worth noticing
Inside.

Tasting the moist interior
                                 with my lips...
my tongue tickling the innermost  
places of delight..

Cream slips down my throat
                     as flavours
entice me
     to consume every part greedily.

I lick my sticky lips, fulfilled I fall to sleep..

Never down this road did I sing within a tune
Never while I wandered
did I ever think of you
Ever as I walked, I ached right down to bone
Never once your name is whispered
Walking too far from home

Break the spirit spill the wine
flood the river before my time
You can't predict the future when you can't see the past
I yearn for the groove and the rest of the **** that will never last

Take me down I simply do not care
We rebound with others in which we simply do compare

The Summer is gone now
its here for you
Spring is my jester
now I'm playing the shrew

I'll keep on walking until the end of day
With no companion
nor fair sense of play
Just walking down this endless path
Not leaving a trace for others to mark

No telling story where I might have laid
No fleeting glory in this trek I've made
I'll not speak outside the lines
as I walk on down
this great divide

Sit you down with a drink to sip
but beware the bottomless of the cup
for degradation that way lays
as noted by walking
these endless days

Tomorrows a birch boy the **** never seems to end
Old friends past
no trace remains
Happiness is a grand disillusion so let's not pretend

In those pines down
in that humid breeze
is where the past does exist
Buired are my thoughts
somewhere unmarked
is the grave underneath the leaves

From Carolina to Brisbane the weather's different
and always the same
Words passed between poems stories are all just different solutions to the exact duplicate game

No one knows where the wind blows
driving needles from the pines into veins that are on fire
But we keep on walking
Bare feet on black tar
Walking on until we tire