Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

Trauma

In Between a Rock and a Safe Place

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I have to be the rock
the rock that doesn’t sink
though I’m sinking…

I have to be the rock in which
all things are built and founded upon
but I’m sinking…still

the rock that isn’t hurled
nor kicked, but ominous
and immovable

never too high
never too low
never too big
never too small

positioned with equal purpose
and proportion

I have to be the rock that
determines surface,
from sea level

I have to be the rock
ever-stable,
amongst uneven ground

misunderstood, if stepped on
existing to be built than lived on

trying so long to stay afloat
never noticing
I’d sink perfectly into position

and all I was doing
was landing

becoming the island above
surrounded by water
for all castaways
to get away
safe

And it Goes On

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here we go again
anger and fear
the most potent concoction here
it’s too common here
too often peace gets commandeered
hostility volunteers
unity seldom accomplished here
it’s too toxic here
unsure, uncertain, I’m too cautious here
arrested development without cops in here
breathing isn’t free, it gets caught in here
misery is the domineer
and right now, it’s that time of year

Good Damage

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there’s value in brokenness
you just have to want to
see it
in yourself
then you’ll identify
with someone else
needing to be helped

I think my shell
has been my longest-lived
prison cell
my vocal heart quelled
by a development jailed
erosive emotions guarded and hailed
in the wake of hope, one could only rebel

there’s honor in honesty
I say this humbly, I’m depraved
with nothing, it’s hard to be brave
when I only see graves
I brace too much to embrace
but how can one behave?
when that way means, be slaved

but there’s value in us
cutting calendars up
living and feeling is challenge enough
detaching from time until released
what an irony, huh?
every over-pressured coal creates a diamond
if help is mining, you’ll see us shinning, just look!

Trapped

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think they understand you
not realizing your actions
results from how they demand you
stereotypes feel like mating parents
they planned you

what control did you ever have
yet still bear the responsibility
what choice did you ever have
yet still carry the consequence

those who arrive to help
do the most judging
those who prefer you where you are
deny being judgemental

what room did you ever have
when every step is ridiculed
what thoughts are truly yours
when their system thinks for you

how is change possible
if those who speak loudest
lack the ability to change their methods
or themselves…

I hear hollow voices
repeating insanity

I see empty bodies
but filled beds

I know guilty minds
think self-righteously

I touch solid walls
and can’t escape

Living Liars

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there’s this lie
one that you must know about me
I wrestle with it
more than I do my pillow
fighting to listen to sound sleep
I don’t want you to know
me by this lie
yet you do, already
more than you know me
by anything else
or other than
something else or anything
other…wait,

confused myself
guess I just want you to
better understand the lie
you will know then
who I am, really am.

seeing what I have
been up against
you are
better able to see me
know me
hear me
trust me
help me. heal me. whole me.

but you don’t know me
by first, hearing my truth
still you can’t see
beyond my lie
far enough to
absorb my truth
and care.
but to care,
you must know the lie first,
reason being..?
you live it as well.

how does one live truth
rediscovering lie after lie?
unlearning and relearning
in years too far from childhood

it seems
the lies are the layers
which lie in procession
to one’s core truth,
core of truths.

the lies are fodder
old paint
chipped away at
or the splintered wood
chopped down
never sanded.

I was spirit
before being
I was celestial
before extraterrestrial
I am absolute
relatively speaking
I am imagination and will
manifested
I am vessel
for truth realized.

king, in one mind
god, in the other

but, I was born a lie
then became human.

before man
I was child.

and even before baby
I was black!

though your mind denies
color is unseen
and my certificate of birth
readies the lie
signed, into truth

I am a lie
you carry it out
by reinforcing a world
which accepts it.

you see me
and say
he’s black
I am and am not,
I am and am more
I am
but
the lies you tell yourself!
dressed as truths
they appear worn
picking with no sense of details

the lies I believed
trying to discover
truth.
new clothes, I’ve rarely tried on

the lie I became
knowing no truth
the truths I know–
outcastes, of lies–
have to convince you
and me
of the truths, we live
being lies

the lies we know
obscure the history
of truth’s time in the sun

so I need you to see me
I need you to know the truth
my truth
your truth!

Son shine, Sunshine!
Sun Shine!

but if the moon,
remains eclipsed
you will never will
true sight
until you understand
the dark is the truth
and the light,
the way

Frantz Fanon said
”a Black, is not a man”
so my lie
is harder to escape
than yours

a complex problem,
with too simple a solution
to be believed, in
so since the details matter
‘rejected’
is who I am
until we stop living lies

Thing Chasing

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lost myself losing things
lost things lose people
people lose things
loss seems like self-lost

thing people
people things
time loss loses things
things lost to time

more things one finds
more self becomes blind
things vanish, lost in time
with no frame of mind

occupying space and time
degenerative minds
the self I lost, chasing things through time
when all I’ve lost, is my mind