WritersPen

In the election where laughter reigns supreme, Candidates juggle jokes like a wild dream. With quips and puns, they dance on stage, Trading barbs in a comedic page. The crowd now roars, not for their plans, But for the punchlines that tickle their fans. Policies fade in the witty delight, As voters laugh till late into night. Who will win? The jester or sage? In this joke-filled race, all set the stage.  The polls declared, with laughter as the test, Whose punchlines soared, and left us all impressed. No policies were weighed, no plans revealed, Just joke-filled speeches, expertly appealed. One candidate, with puns of purest strain, Found votes increased, despite a witless reign. The other, armed with anecdotes so grand, Won hearts and minds across the voting land. Choose your jester, let the ballots fly, For governing with humor, reaching for the sky.

There's only the process of being Within and without Expansive and terrifying Powerfully beautiful Neutral There's only the self Like a moth in a cone of light Frightened into madness Trapped into believing That a wall of photons cannot be breached There is both the process And the self consumed by it Regurgitated by it, a tangled web of neurons A net within a world of signals And strings of muscles puppeteered by gravity And so, Knowing themselves in and out, The self and the process Meet at last They arrive phasing out of existence At the gates of blinding whiteness In this place with no end and no beginning Floating and yet firmly on the ground But who is the one that would enter? No, there is no entering And the gates themselves are but illusions! Closed openings that need to be dissolved So that emptiness and form can merge again So that time and space can collapse Into This that they've always been

We grew up on riverbanks In shadows of concrete, its smell dusty and sharp Where pebbles met sewage We sat on crumbling benches Watching foaming water travel far We grew up with animals Born and dying far away from city lights We grew alone beneath the stars Their mystery a promise When everything around was dark We gathered at iron bars Numbing ourselves to their overarching presence In silence of forest trees We were nurtured by fear Of those who should have cared for us Guides for each other Through intoxicated nightmares We fought monsters that were made for us Among grave stones, we were smiling dead Where judgement did not dare to be passed We carried ourselves beaten down We pushed against rules drawn by hatred Before rage would devour us We gazed at the horizon Wondering about lives more free than ours We traveled miles in wrong directions Searching for that which cannot be found We bled our bodies and our minds And darkness was a shelter, turning pain invisible Our

For those who built a fire in a cold world, and despite/to spite all fear, remained umovable in the face of evil even as death approached just to keep others warm... While the history we didn't learn from plays on repeat, there are those who scratch the surface of that tired, worn out record. Nothing lasts forever, but may the love you gave come close enough to hear a new song beginning in the now.

Upon the screen, a digital design, Where Peni plays and Samus finds her grace. With every stroke, I draw a steady line, To give each fleeting thought a staying place. From "Princess School" to winter’s icy sting, I craft the tales of heroes bold and grand. My quiet poems bloom like flowers in spring, As the magic flows from keyboard to hand. Though years may pass and styles begin to change, My passion for the craft remains the soul. No matter if the world feels vast or strange, Creation is the thing that makes me whole. With pride I hold the pen and start anew, To share the magic only I can do.

Today the air smells of salt Of pungent algae, a scent raw and pure Today the earth rests deeply Underneath darkness of laden clouds There is chill moving subtly Right into the bones In between ruffled feathers and wind-swept fur Today mountains take cover And wait for a doom to be unleashed It shall sear crowns of the leafy ancients It shall burn the horizon with electric storms Eagles fly low shielding their younglings Hugging wild waves foaming in violence Today ocean is the master Of atmosphere and its rivers of rain You can hear killer whales calling In madness from deep blue hideaways They cry for warmth nearly forgotten For a lost sun that shall not come

Even if I don't own the matches that set the world on fire, for the beauty this world owns that sets my soul ablaze, let every tear I cry in the midst of chaos, be ink to write, creating meaning instead of destroying it. Like a tiny flower growing out of a crack in the cement, I know hope still emerges even from a dark place. I remind myself as tears run down my face that while the world's on fire, tiny flowers are emerging from the flames—all is not well, but all is not lost, and those tears will tell a story.

The divorce papers sat on the kitchen counter like a freshly laid brick, heavy and final. Elias didn’t want to look at them, so he didn’t. Instead, he drove four hours north until the pavement turned to gravel and the radio static swallowed the mid-morning talk shows. He rolled down the window, letting the pine-scented air rush in. It smelled like freedom, or at least a temporary reprieve from the suffocating weight of his soon-to-be ex-wife's passive-aggression. He chose a spot deep in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, a place where the air tasted like wet pine needles and cold stone. He wanted to be nowhere and everywhere all at once; a man untethered, trying to learn how to inhabit his own skin again. He found a small, moss-covered clearing and set up his tent. The silence was a balm, broken only by the chirping of unseen birds and the rustle of leaves. He took a deep breath, letting the cool, crisp air fill his lungs. It was a stark contrast to the stale, recycled air of his