Trapped & Alone

Of course you feel so trapped and alone
It’s the only life you’ve ever known
It’s impossible to see what you’ve never been shown
Impossible to think when your life’s on loan
Forced to become what you should’ve outgrown
No true role model other than those
In your home
The actions taken now your future will atone
Already you are regretting the seeds you have sown
Already you are wondering if your mind is your own
Acutely aware of how you act the drone
Just another hapless soul addicted to their phone
Just another underpaid overworked useless clone
You know it’s not enough just to sit and bemoan
Your slavery to capitalism or how the algorithm has you prone
Or how you waste everyday dreaming of the unknown
Losing yourself in the fantasies you’ll forever postpone
Following the leaders you should have overthrown
Following the narrative spoken in that safe monotone
How easy it is to comply to accept and condone
To just go on feeling trapped and alone

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This poem is from the book Wage Slave, The Unpaid Overtime Edition

Modern Day Peasants

You
and I
Are just
Modern day
Peasants

Convinced
By capitalism
To needlessly want

Controlled
By inflation
To pointlessly save

Coerced
By religion
To endlessly argue

The farm
Replaced by a cubicle
The hoe
Replaced by a chair
The grime
Replaced by paperwork

We
Are trapped
Idolizing
Those who escaped
The trap
The very system they now uphold

We devour news
As if we
Have any power
To act on it
Believing
That if we at least know
We will somehow survive
The next apocalypse
Our rulers say
They are protecting us from

We pretend
That the weekend is life
And that our work
Has meaning

We pretend
That we have fulfilled
The dreams
Of our childhood

We pretend
Because if we don’t
We will realize
We are
Modern day peasants

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This poem is from the book ‘A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

How Is It?

How is it
That all I get
For all my time
Is so little money?

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This poem is from the book Wage Slave, The Unpaid Overtime Edition

capitalistic desire

here’s to the capitalistic desire
to sacrifice our lives
in order to have the
most fancy coffin
just to flex on
our friends
that we didn’t have time for
and to afford a headstone
chiselled with a quote
espousing the value
of hard work
and dedication
to something beyond ourselves
that no one will read

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This poem is from the book, ‘A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken’.

Read more from the colleciton, download a free copy, or purchase as a Paperback, eBook, Hardcover or Audiobook.

Swallow The Poison

Swallow the poison
Trade your day
Time for money
Life’s wasting away

Work to live
Not to thrive
It’s all you can do
Just to survive

Take a moment
Look around
This is your life
What have you found?

Your kids are old
Your friends are gone
Your dreams are unmet
But you can’t move on

You earn just enough
To cover the bills
You know what would happen
If you took ill

You’d lose your job
And then the house
Then the car
Then the spouse

So every day
No matter what
You swallow your poison
The only hope you’ve got

To earn enough
To survive the night
And do it all again
The daily fight

 Not quite the fairytale
You were promised in youth
But let’s be honest
No-one could accept the truth

It’s the daily grind
Called that for a reason
To hope for other wise
Is demonized as treason 

We are in this together
The workers plea
Collective repression
Then distracted depravity

Work for the weekend
Then pay to play
Porn, liquor, and drugs
Then some takeaway
 

It’s not in your budget
But you convince yourself it’s okay
Cause it’s all you can do
To survive another workday

Don’t think of the future
It’s far to long
30 years more of this
What could possibly go wrong?

But hey!
Doesn’t retirement actually seem good?
Finally you have the time needed
To do everything you wish you now could

So you delay gratification
Of most every form of joy
Problem is you’ll be too old by then
To enjoy it anyway

Still you delude yourself
It’s part of the poison
Swallowing your dreams
Then acting with caution

Besides those weekend benders
Leave you with little spare wealth
With little motivation
With diminishing health

You sometimes wonder
How you ended up here
Overwhelmed by resentment
You crack another beer

‘It is what it is’
‘Inflation is high’
‘It capitalisms fault’
To yourself you justify

There goes the weekend
It’s time for another dose
Off to work again
Hunting that promotion grandiose

A different brand of poison
A variation of the old promise
You’ll get paid far more
Cause you’re no longer a novice

In your new role
You think you will finally be free
Until it dawns on you
All that extra responsibility

Even less time
For those that you love
For the friends you don’t see
For all the hobbies you let go of

But what other choice
Could you realistically pursue?
If you changed path now
Only chaos would ensue

So you swallow the poison
You trade your day
Exchanging time for money
Letting your life waste away

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This poem is from the book Wage Slave, The Unpaid Overtime Edition