In some Secret part of Her #FreeVerse #gender

In some Secret part of Her

I felt a pang of loneliness when
I watched the lives of others
I could not place the appalling self-consciousness
I felt, surely horrible and common?

The inner words we dare to utter at ourselves
Cramped in the dark for so long
God, but if life is loneliness
Then every act is one of saving ourselves

We get married for companionship
And have children to grow old together
We volunteer our time to help society
Yet does the neurotic element

Ever truly wane, wanting mutually exclusive things
And not having them, we make do
For the rest of our days, this
Is the great compromise, feeling misunderstood

We learn to not take anything for granted
As if the present is our forever
And forever is always shifting, flowing, melting
And as a woman, we are required to serve

While men can escape social roles by rebellion
Or male privilege, or utter irresponsibility
As women we were required to give life
Until we forget who we were without them.

Poetry is a mode of consciousness

Poetry is a mode of consciousness

If I were to tell you that
That no one could speak words
If it weren’t for language

Would you be grateful for the
Imperfect means of non-silence?
In the midst of living, we are
Trapped in death, it’s the isolation

Of not being able to communicate
Our authentic meaning
Technology only multiplies
This realization, if I were to tell you

That all others know of us
Are mere words, illusions, approximations
Would you understand
That poetry for me is my

Attempt, like an autistic means
To communicate with forever?
The tears float between us
But my feelings remain private

Wine shared still tastes stale
If I know the exotic flavour of my suffering
Is something you have never experienced?

So when we drink together
Do not imagine that we know how
To efficiently empathize
In an unfeeling universe.

Living off the Grid #EmmaFillipoff #FindingEmma

On Living off the Grid

We’re all a little bit lost
Not unlike Emma Filipoff
But we can’t all live off the grid

How many years will it take us
To go back home, there’s
Nothing worse than feeling alone

In a lonely world like this one
Everything sees through me
And I am anonymous

One soul lost among billions
And In a few years everyone
But my mother might forget about me

If I was to get lost in a city
I can’t go further west than
The West Coast, and every fibre

Of my beings wants to write
But I can’t live on poetry
Because being off the grid

Implies no internet, no smartwatch
No identity for that would be
The opposite of getting away

I no longer cry for the life I chose
For the life that chose me
I want my feet to be bare

To Walk freely without worries
I want my life to be shaven
I refuse to carry possessions

From place to place, it’s unnatural
Of unnecessary burden, the better
Part of it, my poetry, is open.

– Emma was last seen in 2012. Contact Shelley Fillipoff here if you have seen this young woman: https://www.facebook.com/HelpFindEmmaFillipoff

Wrinkles on our dreams

Wrinkles on our dreams

I woke with marble in my hands
What does it mean?
I am descendent of centuries
Not independent, not autonomous

I am a falling into dreams
Of generations and pupils of elders
It would be very difficult
To think of myself as separate

I inherit euro-centric bias
And I take part unwittingly in patriarchy
I live in an economic simulation
What does this mean?

It means reality is not culture
Social conditions is only a layer
Of existence, my hands disappear
In my dreams, for I know my ancestors

Committed murder, waged false wars
So a few could profit
And the many would remain slaves
Feudalism never died, it only

Masked itself in a homogenous
Globalization of pretend liberties
I wake up with dreams of my own
That I’ve likely been programmed for

My desires are the software
And I am the obedient application
I labour, I do what I am told
How can I innovate in a world

In a world where strangers
Are competitors and scarcity
Is a growing concern of failing economies
I haven’t seen myself in the mirror
Where has my soul gone to visit?

An Urban Afterlife

Aspiring to empty myself of information
The city carves me up with an orbit of
Advertisements, carcinogens, plastics

I am afflicted – rehearsing my escape
Where on the Earth can I leave it?
Modern life injures my spirit

Like a repetitive cognitive stress fracture
Of too much schizophrenia & separation
This world has chosen a kind of doom
*
Without volunteers, for needless kindness
I want a simple life, like fruit ripening
Before you eat it on a Sunday morning

Aspiring to coax myself back into balance
The city trespasses over my congruity
With an excess of competition

For wealth and breeding, for a restless
Workaholic’s lifetime of drudgery, slavery
I am stripped of my humanity a bit more
*
Year by year, till I reach my thirties
With hardly dream or innocence –
We believe the lies they tell us, until
We begin to tell ourselves the same lies.