Elizebeth Turnquist

Daily watering the same brown patch Investing hope in a color change The lack of difference is exausting
The hints and promises of new growth As the weeds get taller and grass dies Endless false starts grind away hope
The grass isn't always greener But maybe a new start can wake us up Maybe fresh hope is enough.

People can change But they change for themselves And they often don't try to change It is a natural, unexpected evolution

There comes a point whenThe promise of future change is a lie Where the pattern of actual behavior Is clear and inescapable
At some point it's time  to stop believing words repeated To recognize actions as answers To think about your power to choose
If you pin your future on another You are at the behest if their behavior If you choose your power of choice You may not wait for change in another.

That sick moment when you realize the ugly truth That you've invested yourselfIn something that has no future
Where you stubbornly held faith Sacrificed pieces of yourself
Gave into one sided compromise For something that didn't work
Suddenly, after so long, You can't keep from seeing it The truth slaps you in the face And the sun won't let you sleep
You don't want to give up You hate the idea of giving in But you can't stand where you are You ache to move forward
So you dive into the unknown Gamble on the risk of worse To relieve the pain of foolish You choose a new costume.

I always knew I wouldn't be outIf true unrest came to my time And now it's come to pass In my safe bubble I feel anxiety As I watch the world outside burn Sacrifice is the precursor to equity
What they do is better than me There is no excuse for my priveledge I won't justify my passivity In my heart, I support those protesting In my words, I support human rights But, no, I'm not on the front lines.

Why do you lie frivolusly?Throwing out half truths  With no real purposeWhy don't you speak true, When asked directly?
You say one thing And then behave opposite I don't see your hidden purpose I dont know your unspoken logic And I've dared to ask for both

You just don't make sense
I want to give you the benefit I'm fighting my persistant doubt My fault is in looking for good When the evidence points to bad
I dont want to dismiss you completely But I'm strugglig to see The value you bring The benefit of you It's sad, really.

If I've stated my case
Tried to be clear more than once And you still won't listen I concede to your stuborn
Indifference is cruel A worse punishment than anger It's not my business to fix you It's my right to go silent
I don't reward bad behavior I don't participate in stupid I don't have to fight Just because I'm right
You keep flailing at the wind As I calmly walk away You can have the win I choose my own peace.

Some of us are not the first choice Not the significant other Not even the best friend Some of us are supporting cast We may be the lead in our own story But have no lines in another's Maybe we're a lone wolf Which sounds really romantic Except for the separate part The table for one part The feeling like an outcast part Some of us even prefer the quiet A single bed in a studio apartment
A noted lack of roomates No disruptions or chaos Being alone isn't all bad It's being lonely that sucks Not knowing who to call Not having holiday plans Not being an emergency contact Some of know we arent the favorite And this is the introverts dilemma Maintaining much needed relationships While maintaing much needed space.

Embracing plurality is hard The human animal likes familiar Perfection is a false belief
True acceptance an ongoing battle
We are humans, not robots We live with emotion  And individual perception The best we can do Is aim to know our bias Try to understand our priveledge Forgive our mistakes Keep striving for wisdom The complication keeps us alive Too much same is boring Our difference makes us beautiful.

My anger lives in meThat means I have a choice I can choose to kick it out Or make it go to its room Or try to calm it with reason My anger doesn't control me
I don't have to feed its fire I don't have to drink its poison Sure, there are things I can't fix Awful things in this world Things unfair, that hurt my heart But I can choose how I feel I can decide on forgiveness And compassion and calm I can make living with myself easier By deciding to be the better person Making anger an infrequent visitor.

You tighten the screws on you nutsAnd wonder why your dick hurts We tell you unscrewing is an option And you add weight to the aparatus
You wonder why love isn't yours As your lonely dick spewes hate When we tell you love comes from love You demand to be worshiped

Its hard to forgive the unrepentant Impossible to teach the stubornly stupid Sometimes we have to save ourselves From the toxic perpetraited by your sex.

Faith is not changed through factBelief is belligerent and stubborn Fighting face to face is fruitless
People change only for themselves How do we persist without impatience When the war we want to win It about bringing both sides together I can quietly persist in my defiance My defiance can be faith in humanity My belief can be that science saves us My forgiveness will be for everyone.

"I don't want you to die."I can say that honestly to anyone While there are people I hate People I don't want near me People I don't want in a role of power I don't want them dead I willfully don't understand  murder, or execution, or war So I certainly don't understand The willingness to sacrifice The life of another for comfort It is pure narcisim to think freedom Is worth more than a strangers life The frail deserve our protection
Culling the herd is a deplorable A kind human heart knows There is no disposable life.

Youthful moments of decayLiving in a body that betrayes
Forces awareness of mortality At an early age Long as I have quality of life Then living has immense value And I eagerly choose to be alive But there was no idylic healthy youth To make me yearn for forever Long as I'm trapped in this body Immortality is not my fantasy.

If the lead in great storiesAre the nice girl and the brave guy And we are the lead of our own story How do we end up in villain roles As the mean girl or the shy guy
Is it in a group that we loose sight Of who we are on our own Do we fill a role defined by the many Or is it simply the limit of perspective That convinces us we are doing right Even when we do great harm
How do we miss the flaws of humanity How do we not see our own villany Is this simply the grey part of life Where we can't know how we affect others Where the hero isn't always in the right.

I don't wanna spend my lifeSleep deprived and acting normal Coffee can't replace sleep Money can't sit in for sense of ease What if self care really means Accepting the lazy parts of self Sometimes a finished job is flawed And finished can be better than perfect An hour more sleep and a little less stress Decidining to be done in imperfection Maybe it's okay to be seen as lessor Long as I have some more happiness.

I don't want to loose My faith in humanity Age has given me Too many examples That Individuals are flawed And groupthink dillutes us I want to believe its a spectrum That the worst and the best  Make the most compelling stories But reality lives in between I want to believe in all of us Because when today sucks Humanity is my hope for the future.

I dreamt I loved a monsterA murderer and dictator Running an army of his peers And my lot was so pathetic I yearned for his abuse He made his terms clear I was a servant to his desires And I was not his only concubine At best I was sloppy seconds He expected my worship And I gave my devotion eagerly I woke up from this dream Frustrated by how real it felt Because I am not the first choice I am not conventional or subservient The world's advice to get a man Is an affront to my feminism It feels like I have to love a monster Or learn to live without love I want to believe my dream is unfair That men and women are better But I'm an old, fat, and wierd lady No longer hopefully find my Prince.

This morning I felt like cryingSeemingly out if the blue
Except its not so random I'm scared and for good reason This is a scary time, a sick time,  The world shares my fear this once in a lifetime event So, I watched a sad movie and cried Then, when I was done with tears, I turned on another movie And it was funny, so I laughed I laughed out loud, without thinking And it felt good to just feel  The rollercoaster of humanity Late in the day, I'm grateful Yes, my now is complex, But I have my small comforts I'm managing and coping In this moment, I'm still alive.

This unexpected visitor That sneaks up the brain Slow drip drop in opposite Slithering through my calm Stretching over my mind
Sicky cover of awareness Until I'm ill with the difference Upside down and inside out With this feeling of unease.