"Padlocks"

"Padlocks" 

Never ask a question
you already know the answer to.
Ask for who?
Who's the friend?
You contend with denial
to see how much
can be tucked under the cloak
as if those secrets weren't provoked.
As if the concealed won't appeal
to the chance to have you
choke on your words.
Spoke what they heard
until it seems absurd
to be granted your measure
of air.
To spare no lie
is to die in the moment.
Atonement too high an expense.
Too intense of a compliment
is consequence to confidence
and the contrast implied
is that common sense
finds its way to you
eventually.

A lie soaked in sympathy.

Your Are Not Listening.

Never ask where it went
while it remains in your possession.
Therein lies the lesson:
Misdirection does less harm
to the misinformed
than those charmed by secrecy.

Decency has no place in this.

The lake
and
The abyss
given the location
are only distinguished by light,
lack of
and the time of day.
The hideaway where one resides
can never say
that where others confide and pray
is less deserving of a timed delay.
The demon that stalks the night
will still prey upon the day.
Havoc is haphazard
and hell ignores the schedule. 

Speaking in time;
not of the end times.
Not of the last days.
No certain pathways
hinged on relieving your soul
of the impending.
Inevitable.
Incredible that we who see
are not perceived as prophets
until the rose dies under rockets... 

I'm not woke
and
I'm no "Hotep"
and
if that offends you,
rise up.
Outgrow that.
I'm not blowback.
I won't grow that hedge
around you
just to say "I Told You."
I don't know you
and
you don't owe me
so before you show me
what sensitivity looks like
when dunked in retort,
proofread that report. 

Listening Now? 

Don't pretend to wonder how
when your otherwise betrays you.
Your eyes drift in caution;
feigning the casual glances.
Your movement serves you poorly
as if grace and precision
thought it best to abort the mission.
Trivial condition all too common
to the perpetually slalom among you;
dodging the straight and narrow
like a chamber and barrel
at point blank distance.
Resistance affirmed
in all your might
yet you squirm in the light.
Night retires

but

Darkness remains..... 

.... like weeds in the sunlight
from which they were sprung
to twist and choke
until lopped off,
pulled up
and flung.

Just like your tongue.

Written By: Devin Joseph Metz