Picture a small child standing at your side, anywhere from eight to fifteen years old. Their arms are shrunken, and their belly is bloated. Their face is toneless and unimpassioned. Yet, these are not the most exceptional things about this child. Rather, grasped in their malnourished, clenched fists is a gun.

**inspired by my imaginings of what life might be like many years after a dystopia (and by watching Independent Lens and POV, and reading The Other Side of the Island too many times). I apologize in advance for any go-green sentiments or other cheesiness... (cringe)**

home is a hard thing
to find
a soft place
to fall into
a dream
like a cloud in the sky
white on blue
where the sun shines through
to my heart
as it winds its way
over the landscape
of this sojourn
unwinds its strings
seventy times seven
moves on again
driven to a
home, a safe place
to land
a promise
of belonging
to give you a name
and a strength at your back
like the wind
on the mountaintop
drives you until
you fall into that place

living half empty
driving after a love that will fill us
hanging by a half-starved hope
that around the next bend
we'll find happily-ever-after
nobody stops to wonder
if maybe we're running
away from the one thing
that can ever bring peace

Sometimes dreaming is what keeps me alive
but sometimes I wonder if it's worth the fight
when all it appears to do is fill my mind, with
something that seems impossible for this life.

And I don't mind this world in its essence
it's the outcome I don't understand
when everything's viewed to be broken
and no one will just take a stand.

Well, I'll not lose myself in this depth, unfathomable;
a world and humanity. It's a surface smile,
a shallow love that lasts to strike, and
the match goes out, giving way to the night.

It's the rage of all the ages


it's the cry of all our hearts


it's the sin that drowns the beauty


tearing us apart

It's the ache we feel with silence

it's the voice that goes unheard


it's the times when we are troubled


it's the times we're not assured

It's the helpless little babies

it's the blessing never known


it's the line that needed drawing


it's the the love never shown

It's the heart that bleeds with longing


it's the times we're far away

Today,
the tree watches sadly,
a hundred years
of what we might have become.
Every day he sighs,
while roots struggle
through cracks in the pavement.
Each day is a torment
that nobody hears,
lost in sirens and
unearthly noise.
Each day they all smile,
trapped behind bars
in a fortress of stone
and of fear.
The city teems every night
in unholy light
and traffic throbs
in the veins of progress.
One day,
the volcano may erupt,