The instigators sit in electric climates basking in their righteousness.
Buildings crumble, bodies buried, children cry.
Slop dished out – bullets pierce the hungry.
Lies, heat, hate, fuel the fervid war.
Is peace too much to ask?
Yes, dammit it is.
-Mandy Ricks
By roar, summer comes screeching in by drone, spewing heat, anger, and destruction. Sent by cowards sitting in judgment. And the people cower, running for shade, drenched in dirt and tears of starvation. How can this be real? Isn’t there supposed to be a ceasefire? Maybe only for those in the white tower.
-Mandy Ricks
Thousands of miles,
bombs are dropped,
to threaten retaliation.
A plane flies,
A ball of fire,
families die,
and lives are destroyed.
Free speech is tested,
Democracy loses its lustre.
A dictator calls himself a President,
and the people cry.
-Mandy Ricks
Scarred hands clutch broken dreams.
I bled through nights no on dared to scream.
Ashes crown the ones who burn.
Each wound a page no chance to turn.
Still, I rise, too fierce to mourn.
-Mandy Ricks
Broke my chains with trembling hands.
Built a kingdom from shifting sands.
No hero came – I wore the crown.
Found my fire when the world burned down.
I am my own salvation now.
Mandy Ricks
I began to write poems when I was a child. Late at night, in bed, alone with my pen.
My mother and her partner would drunkenly fight and I would write about horses and sunshine.
-Mandy Ricks
I have spent too many years with my heart and legs open, hoping to find love, and to please, but only finding hypocrisy. -Mandy Ricks
It’s taken years and a lot of crap for me to understand;
I am deep, serious, complicated and messy.
I am professional, focused, and driven.
My ability to persevere sometimes doesn’t know when to quit.
Sometimes I can be a bitch and sarcastic as hell.
I can swear like a trucker.
And;
If it’s political then I’m often “incorrect,” sometimes on principle.
I’ve been called abrasive and brilliant.
I hate change because most of my life it equated loss.
I don’t usually act my age but part of me is wise beyond my years.
I like to be right but I’m a graceful loser.
I think empty beauty is ugly.
My respect is reserved for the truth.
But also;
I can love like no other.
I am moved, sometimes to tears, by simple things.
I’m obsessed with equality and continually overwhelmed by the barriers blocking it.
The phrase, “socially acceptable,” makes me cringe.
I care too much, often about the wrong things or wrong people.
I sometimes laugh too hard and too loud at the silliest of things.
And;
I usually put everyone before myself.
I have no patience for fluff but endless time for meaning.
My insides don’t match my put-together outsides.
And;
I am consistently inconsistent.
I crave routine but fail miserably at creating and living by it.
I am a perpetual student yet feel a deep sadness that I won’t have enough time in my life to learn more.
Tech fascinates and inspires me but also infuriates me in the ways it is abused.
I love spring, autumn, and winter but hate the summer.
I let outside people and events affect me too much.
Then;
Once in awhile, the surface cracks and all the pain and trauma comes pouring out like a lava flow. And at those times I’m ugly, raw, and too real for most people to handle.
But;
Above all else, at last, after all this time, I’m me, just me. And that’s okay, it’s better than okay.
Mandy Ricks 