An Exquisite Stranger's Tales. Justin Mainhart
off.
Until the moths of time start chewing holes through it.
Only then,
as the ugliness of the real world seeps through those jagged holes
do you realize how sorry it really all is.
Then you’re left there,
jilted and jaded,
cold and distant.
Then you see how people really are.
They’ll take your money,
break your heart,
rape your soul.
And thats when you grow hard.
Fox holes are dug in your mind,
barbed wire wraps around your heart,
and your soul …it darkens and crisps.
Then the rest of the masses know,
they can feel it emanate from your pores.
With just a glance,
they know,
you’ll kill them back.
The world runs like one big safari,
all of us are like animals circling the water hole,
constantly on guard for the first sign of trouble.
Our homes are now the watering holes.
People who’ve paid their dues,
done well for themselves,
got their slice of the Great American Lie.
But like any safari,
there’s always scavengers,
ready to swoop down in and fight for scraps.
All like predators,
circling the water hole,
and then closing in for the kill.
The Genius of the Hole
The genius of the hole,
no matter how long you spend climbing out it,
you can still fall back down in an instant.
Crashing down you wake up from the Great American Dream,
the Great American Lie.
The whole reason they call it the American Dream,
you must be asleep to believe in it anymore.
Then to your horror,
you realize that life itself is the hole,
and you were never meant to reach the summit.
So many obstacles,
so many shattered lives,
so many broken dreams,
all lay at the base of the hole.
All the things in life you cannot choose.
How you feel about certain people,
How you think about certain things,
And above all else, who you love.
You lay at the bottom of the hole long enough,
and you’ll begin to see what’s led you there.
All your mistakes,
all your misgivings,
all your missed opportunities,
all your lost loves and chances at happiness.
Everything you love and hold dear will one day,
somehow, some way,
they’ll all lie at the bottom of the hole.
All of it,
Swallowed up by its genius.
Going Home
It’s the oddest feeling,
visiting my old house.
It’s where I called home for 6 long years.
As I walk through the door,
this feeling sweeps over me,
engulfing me utterly, entirely.
It’s a place that looks so unfamiliar,
but yet I know it all too well.
I think it’s because I used to belong here,
But the only way I can tell,
is that my children still call it home.
As I look around,
the memories and ghosts of this place,
they all come charging at me.
I feel the panic,
starting to climb up my back,
taking hold of me altogether.
I close my eyes,
but that only forces me to look,
to look deep into the darkness inside me.
The darkness is the hole,
the hole that was made when I left this place.
It hasn’t changed in so many ways,
and yet it is still not the same as I knew.
The biggest change,
is the one no one can see.
It’s the fact that no matter where you look,
there’s no place left here for me.
As the panic begins strangling me,
and I force back the tears,
I’m driven away and thrown outside,
from this place that was my home for years.
Standing back,
taking it all in,
I’ll never come back here,
I’ll never come home again.
From Here to There
The time of innocence is gone.
Childhood ends the day you realize you’ll die someday.
From here to there,
it’s all about trying to be happy.
Life keeps rolling along,
choices are made,
dreams are dreamt,
and sometimes shattered.
Most of the time,
we know exactly how we got to here.
Other times,
we look around and wonder what went wrong.
Sometimes,
we lose sight of our desires so bad,
there seems no end to the chaos and struggles.
Colors fade,
buildings fall,
lives are lost,
but we still all long for the same thing,
To be happy from here to there.
Behind this Man
Behind this smile,
Is a completely broken heart.
Behind