Alone

The truth is,
we're all alone.
We reproduce to ensure we're not,
but they leave.
We marry so someone is there,
but they aren't.
We pretend that those we choose
to have in our lives
are substantially defeating our loneliness,
but as we talk to them
they can't understand.
Because they
are not us.

So we're all alone,
and we fill that loneliness
with everything we possibly can.
From buying shit we don't need
to friends who create more pain than they are worth
to vices that take us away from
the very loneliness we should face.
Head on.
Because while we are
lying on our death beds
what is going on in our own heads
is exclusive to us.
As it is every other minute
of every other day.

Sure, there may be people who try
to connect on some level.
And maybe they succeed
to a degree,
and maybe that is enough for some of you,
but it doesn't take away from the fact
that you're still alone.

I'd love to take every hand
of every person I have discovered
to be special
and walk through the dark with them,
to help alleviate that loneliness,
but the best I could ever achieve
is for them to just feel less alone.
Which is to say they are still
very much so
alone.

Loneliness does not come
from external sources.
It comes from realizing
no one is you,
and thus
no one can understand
You.

So let us find
temporary releases from that loneliness
and hope that they last
longer than most,
but never forget
that they are just that.
Maybe then, maybe just,
we can learn to appreciate one another
a little bit more,
and that dark walk
can be just a little bit less
Alone.

-Dustin S. Stover

Small

Truly,

he felt there had to be

something

more in life than what he was getting.

That wasn't the case, of course,

as the more he took from life

the more he felt he needed.

Experiences have a means

to make a person feel small.

Small is exactly what he was.

Small, the way everyone is.

The conscious perspective of being

however,

made it that much more difficult to live with.

He admired people's ability to get lost

within their trivial existences

the way they put importance in

the shoes they wore

the cars they drove

the way they looked while ordering

their fucking coffee

while he just picked the clothes on top

of the clean pile

and hoped it matched.

He looked at art

and tried to understand the emotion

behind the paint strokes.

He listened to music

attempting to feel something new.

He listened to other's problems

with the hope

the sincere hope

that he could understand humanity

a little bit better.

But after a lifetime of doing these things,

he still knew

how very small he is

and how very small

he will always be.

-Dustin S. Stover

The Music Plays

The music continues.

It plays as background noise.

It plays as an emotion.

It plays as confirmation.

It plays as interaction.

Mostly, it plays.

Whether we want it to or not.

-Dustin S. Stover

Accomplishing Fear

Once you know what you want out of life,

how do you go about accomplishing it?

The sickly, fickle, and trepidatious

nature of being human

ruins all the greatest things

we ever accomplish

if we ever accomplish

anything at all.

And when we don't,

we ruin other people's lives.

-Dustin S. Stover

Not Your Hero

I am not your hero.
I wear the dirt on my face,
scars upon my brow,
and muck upon my hands.

The same as everyone else.

I am not your hero.
Despite your claims,
your desires to put me on a platform,
and despite the things I have helped with.

I just care, the way I feel we all should.

I'm not your fucking hero.
I'm just another person.
I'm just another person.
I'm just.

A hero wears a cape.
They do nothing wrong.
They rescue people from trains.
They have comic books written about them.

All I've done is listened.
And perhaps, offered advice.

So I'm not a fucking hero. 
I don't want to hear about how you feel that I am.
I don't want the praise of being a hero.
I am the same as everyone else.

I just cared.

-Dustin S. Stover

Days (Gone By)

We work our lives away,
so we can retire some day,
and watch the bluejay
float and flutter another way.

We regret our lives spent
wasted on work days and repent.
Life, it came and went
without our permission, heaven sent.

The notion of heaven is hard.
No guarantee, not even a shard.
Filled with sugar and lard,
our lives full of guards.

Wasted.

A smarter person
would learn to live early on;
their end days being spent
reliving the good times.




-Dustin S. Stover

Rapists

Two rapists walk into a bar.

One a Democrat.
The other a Republican.

One loses his career,
his livelihood.

The other becomes President
of the most powerful country

in the world.

This isn't a joke.

This.
Is.
Not.
A.
Joke


-Dustin S. Stover

Burdens

To escape,
to run,
to hide,
to avoid.

The state of the world
is to believe
it is better
than change.

To escape,
to run,
to hide,
and avoid.

It is an easy desire
to behold,
and become
beholden to.

Especially when one
cannot fathom a change
or to even imagine
a better world.

To escape,
to run,
to hide,
and, of course, avoid.

The tactic that allows
the world
to become worse
and dictated by those who would benefit most
from that corrupt future.

But some of us
must feel the burdens
of your escape,
your running,
your hiding,
and your avoidance.


-Dustin S. Stover

Wise and Lucky, May We Be

Essentially,
we are all damaged.

We are all frail.

We are all divided.

We have all been stomped on
spit on
degraded over time
for the things we don't
control.

We run.
We hide.
We evade.
We escape.

But it is all a temporary
relief
for what inevitably comes
to confront us.

Still, we run
we hide
we evade
and we still escape
to be confronted again.

Perhaps,
if we are wiser
or luckier
we take on some of that pain head on
and we defeat it.

If we're lucky.
or wise.

Otherwise, we run.
We hide.
And you know the drill well,
as you take your next drink of alcohol
or down your next pill
or consume your drug of preference
in whatever way suits you.

Essentially,
we'd not need those things
if we were just wiser,
or luckier.

But until then,
have another run,
but try not to hide.



-Dustin S. Stover

Mirroring Images

Measurements. 

Taken in all shapes and forms.

How big are your feet?
Your tits?
Your dick?

How long are your legs,
and waist.

Obeying the desires of others
when they don't even know their own.

And conforming to their notions
which are fed by their own insecurities.

You're too big,
or too thin

You're too short,
or too tall.

But have they looked in the mirror today?

And if they have,
did the recognize what they saw?



-Dustin S. Stover

Dangerous Daisies

I tripped over daisies
on my way to work this morning.
It was this profoundly new experience,
one in which totally shocked
and stunned.

Graveled hands,
broken glasses,
and my pride shattered
upon the ground
as the audience gawked.

I tripped over bricks
in the past.
And I've tripped over ropes
because I put them in
bad locations.

Ego plays a part in those falls,
but daisies shouldn't be dangerous.
They should be frail,
weak and kind.

But this daisy
damaged me more
than the brick and rope
could dream.

The Most Pleasant Poem I've Ever Heard

There is a touch of sadness in your eyes right now.  You're talking about bad times through them, the things you've seen, and the things you've felt - whether directly or indirectly.

There floats an invisible ripple for a moment as I start to see a glimpse into something you don't want me to see.  We both acknowledge that I know it exists but before conversation goes any further the topic has changed.

A bubble forms out of your words, a never ending stream of happiness.  I believe it to be caused by our mutual enjoyment of one another, but I'm certain that you could find happiness in anything.  It is a part of you.  It is you.

Like the child with withered and torn clothing, too poor to eat meat from the market and survives on fruits and vegetables alone, yet even in the rainiest of rainy days he still finds himself outside dancing to invisible sounds and kicking a paper ball around the street.  He knows things could be better for him - how could he not - but he still finds a means to be happy.

And that's what your lips tell me while you speak.  They tell me there is happiness where the average person can find none.  Even if it is just your head hitting the pillow at the end of a long, hard fought day.

The trouble comes when our eyes lock.  The rest of the world floats away and it is just us.  I forget that I don't like it so much here, I forget that I work a job that pays me the least I've made in my adult life.  I forget that I have a past or a future or a present, for that matter.  All I can do is focus on your words, taking them in, absorbing what I gain from you.

And then you do this little dance in the sand.  Even though it is in the dead of the night, the hotel lights illuminate you as you laugh at yourself for being silly.  I don't see silly, though.  How could I see silly?

I see life.

And that, my dear, is why you're the most beautiful, the most pleasant poem that I've ever heard.

-Dustin S. Stover

The Rabbit, The Wolf, The Way

A daring little rabbit, they say,
traversed into the deepest parts of the woods one day.
He found a grave sight within a hidden grave site
when he stumbled into a wolf's way.

Presented with a fear not like any other
the little rabbit dared to stay.
For the wolf had no appetite
and only wished to create a fear in the rabbit's bay.

Mindful of the lack of attack
the rabbit sat still, and eventually, came to ease.
The wolf, who was very distilled
had lost the ability to be pleased.

Turning from the rabbit to go the other way
the wolf made one final attempt at a tease.
He licked his lips while staring at the little rabbit
before he set forth the release.

Now the rabbit, having faced mortality,
was faced with quite the dilemma, they say.
Was he to become a stronger rabbit,
or was he simply going to stay?

-Dustin S. Stover