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From the mind of Braeden Michaels, drink from this cup, the raven’s poison, a concoction of his collected poems all about the human condition. Imbibe in the rainbow of emotions found in the soul’s colors and taste the bitter aftertaste when you’re drenched in rage.

Indulge in the reasons beneath dripping lust before absorbing all the ways we experience our wide-ranging flavors of love and finish off with a sip of self-destruction. This is us. Humanity. All the layers stripped away and arranged for your pleasure.

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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Reviews

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No prescription for your malady
No antidote for your cynical inflammation
No injection for your discolored points of view
No drug for your toxic disorder
No capsule for your upended character
No serum for your ill advised prejudice
No elixir for your disgusted stance
No dose for your insensitive notions
No sedative for your piles of insecurities
No remedy for your black and white beliefs

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Lock your trite lips in the propaganda administration
Enlighten the elastic genesis, raise your meandering eyebrow
Impose sanctions, disregard the impositions
The wreckage is caught in your esophagus

Tiptoe on Infinite Promenade Street
Engage in this four year sentence
Presidents don’t destroy America
Americans dismantle the roads we built

Reciting vomit, enunciate the splattered fiction
Nominate a two headed figurehead
Surrounded by bigots, cockroaches, and the ministry of backbite
Inflame the toxicity, lay in the genocidal rubble

Tiptoe on Infinite Promenade Street
Engage in this four year sentence
Presidents don’t destroy America
Americans dismantle the roads we built

Discern the contaminated logic
Walk through the fog of monstrosity
Seek out page one fifty one of the aberration
Italicize the phrase “The American Delusion”
Sip on the symptoms of the patriotic zombies

Tiptoe on Infinite Promenade Street
Engage in this four year sentence
Presidents don’t destroy America
Americans dismantle the roads we built

Dilute the bloodletting, reject the veracity
Follow the path of the misguided narrative
Turn up the volume on this impaired speech
Clap your hands for the disturbing inauguration
Wrap yourself in the collusion and friction

Tiptoe on Infinite Promenade Street
Engage in this four year sentence
Presidents don’t destroy America
Americans dismantle the roads we built

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I witnessed a revolution within my evolution
Blending between the escape and noise
Seeking a discrete language within my bones
Torn into shrapnel and self diluting conflict

“Son, you can never walk away from the pain
Don’t bother trying if your mindset is the same
We all have to fall to see where we are
It takes a lifetime to recognize what was easy and what was hard”

Thirty five years passing by,
Staring at the same rooms with the same old eyes
Points of view turned me into stone
It’s not a secret that I’m walking alone

I’ve held a reputation to ignore the sensation
A fusion of mediocrity and ignorance
Hunting down a passage in a coma
Frayed and twisted in my frozen mind

“Son, you can never change what was
Don’t bother trying to walk off the buzz
We all have to crawl before we can run
It takes a lifetime to recognize what you’ve become”

Thirty five years passing by,
Staring at the same rooms with the same old eyes
Points of view turned me into stone
It’s not a secret that I’m walking alone

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“I opened my eyes to see the ugliness and beauty of humanity”

Braeden Michaels creates a curve in the poetic stratosphere revealing glimpses of the characters who walk amidst the life of newly-widowed Stella Walker. By exposing the flaws, scars, quirks, and the light we see in each other, this profound collection generates a fine line between friendships and acquaintances.

Within these pages, we are introduced to different shades of colorful characters in varying points of their lives. Every poem describes the hidden truths and realities of human attributes. Each perfectly imperfect person we meet is a representation of the people we run across in our individual journeys which then become stepping stones in our own growth.

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Acquaintances and formalities

shook hands with the Devil’s tongue

Saliva drips down to the

center of honesty and disintegrated

Kindness only filled a shot glass

As gulps of uncertainty surrounded

glass scarecrows and empty vigilantes

Stale friendships vanish in the mist

Faded signs were torn down

Three bedroom houses decomposed

Laughter is a decaying tooth

As you turn on this fragmented road

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I’ve been chasing a sky of blurry lines
I’ve been chasing constellations with my eyes closed
I’ve been chasing misplaced trust with heartfelt lies
I’ve been chasing danger with silent explosives
I’ve been chasing peace with a vicious expression
I’ve been chasing filled pages in an empty book

If these decorated walls could shout
crumbled words would cut my open arms
If these rooms could plead guilty
my disease would cry indifference
And my inflicted patterns dwell on Silence Boulevard

On my knees with my hands clenched together
Reciting scripture and broken prayers
Begging “Take my pain away, tired of all the shadows of yesterday”

I’ve been chasing delusions with a vacant jar of pills
I’ve been chasing wisdom with limited experiences
I’ve been chasing a river of echoes with a pierced eardrum
I’ve been chasing a fantasy with numb fingertips
I’ve been chasing daylight on a dim path

If these decorated walls could shout
crumbled words would cut my open arms
If these rooms could plead guilty
my disease would cry indifference
And my inflicted patterns dwell on Silence Boulevard

On my knees with my hands clenched together
Reciting scripture and broken prayers
Begging “Take my pain away, tired of all the shadows of yesterday”

I’ve been chasing riddles with a cracked compass
I’ve been chasing affection with a crippled identity
I’ve been chasing sentiments with a star dripping resentment
I’ve been chasing sweetness with a bitter tongue
I’ve been chasing suspicion with an arrow
in my hand
I’ve been chasing time with drops of heartache

If these decorated walls could shout
crumbled words would cut my open arms
If these rooms could plead guilty
my disease would cry indifference
And my inflicted patterns dwell on Silence Boulevard

On my knees with my hands clenched together
Reciting scripture and broken prayers
Begging “Take my pain away, tired of all the shadows of yesterday”

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Love was just an insignificant occupant making me gag
Love was just a bad joke I heard in another language I couldn’t comprehend
Love was just a citizen that held me down and raped my soul with a jagged knife
Love was just a stench I couldn’t wash out
Love was just a word created by Hallmark
Love was just four letters thrown together to serve a ridiculous purpose
Love was just a shadow so I can feel myself
Love was just a bruise on my shin to prove I exist
Love was just a song written by a billion dollar jester
Love was just a death wish waiting in the wings
Love was just a plant I didn’t water
Love was just a black eye with covered up lies
Love was just a watercolor I can’t see
Love was just mascara running down my face
Love was just a cloud of obscurity
Love was just a gram and a kilo of voids
Love was just a room of emptiness
Love was just a shattered mirror I look at every day
Love was just a pile of poems that made sense one day
Love was a just a pile of poems that I threw away the next day
Love was just an adolescent that claimed to know it all
Love was just an adult with an addiction that didn’t know a damn thing
Love was just a bomb that exploded on planes, in buildings, and in schools
Love was just a clan, cult, gang, a war of losses
Love was just a book that millions don’t read
Love was just a doctrine of stolen beliefs
Love was just a pile of divorce papers
Love was just a trigger pulled by one finger as the other four were staring at him
Love was just an overused word
Love was just ten minutes of causal sex
Love was just an irrational scream
Love was just the sun not seeing the moon
Love was just a down payment for an item I haven’t touched
Love was just a puzzle piece that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere

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She blatantly ignored the gun shots in the forest of her mind

She stumbled across the hidden bridge squeezing a bottle of time

She carried a picture of temptations with her lips high and dry

She drank from the inkwell of resistance to justify her words

She dropped to her tattered knees shouting “Forgive me”

She fumbled for a candle to see her shadows in the dark

She carved out a statue to remind her of her past

She spoke to the flames of the king in a delicate language

She leaned on the shoulders that could carry her forever more

She stared into the mirror for hours recognizing her flaws