
James Arthur, Hold on



No, I couldn’t stand in your resonance
and your mind numbing negligence
No, I refused to be your noxious scapegoat
and omission in your dangerous eyes
No, I wouldn’t be a remainder in your lopsided mistake
“Hush hush, nothing will save you”
Yes, I thought I was rescued from my haunting past
Yes, I thought this residence was permanently carved
No, I dismissed the fatal request but still felt the jagged nail in my back
No, I denied you satisfaction and drifted in an awkward disposition
No, I fell in your discrimination and felt blackballed from the very second
“Hush hush, nothing will save you”
Yes, I thought I was found until I realized the pieces were scattered
Yes, I thought this residence was secure and guarded
No, I destroyed the walls you built with your reckless hands
No, I stumbled into your humiliation with anxiety stuck to my skin
No, I cried until my rage leaked from my mouth
“Hush hush, nothing will save you”
Yes, I thought I discovered love in a colorless dream
Yes, I thought I found peace when in reality all I heard were silent screams
My books are available here.
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

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”

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


I drank rain from a malevolent cup
and I couldn’t touch the terror in the wind
I distinctly felt the extinction in the air
and the intruders inside me left fingerprints
I anticipated the rumblings, jitters, and
the despair to rest in my esophagus
I stood in the fog seven miles away from
the shadows and the vile from the hill
I swallowed ignorance with a blend of
dismay, concern and suspicion
I fell before the behemoth’s sins and
I stared at the tarnished wisdom
I inhaled the scent of darkness
and I could feel the breeze of agony
I witnessed my logic, quirks, and talking
Skeleton disappear into the clouds
I was consumed by crisis oriented faith,
misplaced psychology, and charades
I stared at the dementia with my lip
quivering and with the aftertaste of sorrow
I stood six feet apart from the quicksand
and the rattle swimming in the sea of chaos
I severed the gospel from my identity
and I muttered words of inadequacy
I stepped on the carousel of deception
and shrugged off human decency
I became one with the vile from the hill
and detested the color of my pupils
I was obsessed by the anxiety and the
venom in my stomach turned into stone
I was crushed by my weaknesses
and the stench of loneliness dispersed
I devoured the indecisions, complexity,
and the tears in my eyes evaporated
I despised the grave of my haunting past
and ignored the road to the sunrise

She’s dressed in compromise
with a splash of anaesthesia
Lost in the scars
She’s wreaking ruins
with a touch of benevolence
Tangled up in a mess
She’s covered up in scotch
with a hint of animalism
Disoriented in the haze
She’s cleansed in affection
with a pinch of pandemonium
Invisible to the
She’s laced in anarchy
with a shot of jangle and bedlam
Slipping in oblivion
She’s cauterizing affection
with roses in her palms
Scatterbrained colors









I use to languish in the polygon of my weeping mind
I thirst for the fragments of my anguish to mold my center
I use to sulk inside myself and drink the wine of selfishness
I sunk my teeth into the dejection
I use to dwell in the camouflage and sink in my words
I swam in the black river under the oppression
I use to neglect faith and drown in the empty tear ducts
I fell into the depths of silence
I use to grieve in the awaken sadness and never sleep
I felt the last breath deceive me
I use to shed my dead skin in the morning to erase the gloomy nights
I carried a chain of misery
I use to gasp at the hollowness and gazed at the autograph
I refused to stare at the nemesis
I saw the signature and found it revolting
A transformation within shouted

If I could run away
I’d join a flying circus
Chat with the lions
Chant with the crowd
Joke with the clowns
Dance with the acrobats
Crawl with the trapeze artists
Hide with the magician
Wrestle with the roar of the tiger
Walk with the Bear
Fall in love with the sideshow
Sit between the caramel apples
and the cotton candy
If I could run away
It wouldn’t solve any of my problems
Check out my books!