Poetry

Writing to, from, and about the parts within. Sharing to normalize the healing process.

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About Poetry
Poetry, A Requiem, wage slave Zachary Phillips Poetry, A Requiem, wage slave Zachary Phillips

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

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

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Poetry, A Requiem Zachary Phillips Poetry, A Requiem Zachary Phillips

In Your Absence

I can’t quite express
The confusion and the mess
That’s been left
In your absence
Why didn’t you confess
The demons that had you possessed?
Why couldn’t you
Escape the thoughts that had you depressed?
Why was this the only way you could address
The aspects of life that you detest
that had you dispossessed?
Perhaps if you got some of it off your chest
The world wouldn’t be one man less
One man that blessed it with his presence
Now all who knew you are left to digest
News of death’s caress via a self-inflicted process
We can’t protest
We can only attest
To the pain and existential unrest
Of the hole your life has left

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

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Poetry, A Requiem, wage slave Zachary Phillips Poetry, A Requiem, wage slave Zachary Phillips

Legacy

In the end
The only things
I’ll leave behind
Will be the few memories
My children hold dear
An empty bank account
A pile of used junk
And
A few words
Immortalized upon the page
Waiting
For someone I never met
To misinterpret

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Poetry, A Requiem Zachary Phillips Poetry, A Requiem Zachary Phillips

Triggered

I cannot whisper
The words I wish to scream

Tears fall
At the precipice of silence

Unmoving internal chaos
Catatonic rage

Memories of the present
Give way to realities of the past

All again
All at once

Visions flash
To the beat of the body’s rocking

The internal observer
Watches helpless

Why can’t you see I’m suffering?
Don’t you dare touch me

Thank god
For Valium

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