Preface: This is a collection of poems that I wrote while in middle school and high school. Innocence has always fascinated me. The very first poem in the collection was created at 13, I won a contest at the local library and over the next 6 years I decided to follow the idea no matter where it took me. I wrote these (and several others) as a child and, now that I have children of my own, I intend to write a follow up collection on the concept. The original collection (I-X) were made over the course of 2 years, through 8th and 9th grade. These poems are not perfect, but they are fascinating. Today, when I look back on these poems, I see a bittersweet irony. I wrote of innocence with total awareness of its fleeting nature, yet failed to recognize that it was still somewhere inside me, slowly fading away with each new poem.
Finally, I leave you with this request: Do not read these poems as just a piece of work created by an aspiring writer. Read them for what they are - a glimpse into the mind of a boy wandering through life in search of something he’s losing.
Innocence
Nothing fades like pure innocence
Lost in the wind
Nothing else feeds every sense
And destroys every sin.
It matters not, if you’re different
For nothing repels your fears
Nothing else makes you ignorant
To the thoughts of your peers.
Innocence is a gift
Like a talented guitarist
Playing a beautiful riff
It's more than a dream
The world is many fabrics
And innocence, the seam.
Nothing short of perfection
It amazes us all
Pointing to the direction
So as not to let us fall.
Innocence is pure
Innocence is rare
Innocence is real
It's perfect and fair.
Innocence II
The guilty are gifted
With an unseen force
The angry are tricked
And then thrown off course.
Guilt has its innocence
Making its victims succumb
To fates not unheard of
By the end you feel numb.
Guilt has no conscious
Anger has no control
Leaving one clueless
To the loss of its soul.
Innocence has a dark side
It's missing some links
Washed out with the tide
Forced to watch as it sinks.
While only prophets can foretell
The meaning of life
The meaning of hell
Is found with the swing of a scythe.
The message hidden behind
All the haze of this cage
Might be lost in forever
Fueling all of our rage.
Innocence III
We are born with innocence
Through age we grow guilty
The time wasted on nothing
Is what makes our soul filthy
In life we are thrown
In death we are found
Life's end isn't a mystery
But its era is not sound
We live in a world
With few doors unopened
But I have the keys
To the dreams we have hope in
One day we will be reminded
Of the past and it's blindness
For it watches in the shadows
Of its pure hearted kindness.
Innocence IV
Fate is concealed by innocence
It has trouble finding you
Connecting to an inner sense
It could save your life, if only you knew.
You refuse to open your eyes
But you take it in not by sight
It finds you through the wise
Advice passed down in the light.
But the beauty of it all
Isn't what you take in mental note
But what you inherit with each fall
Something you forgot you wrote.
Innocence is still here
It's used every day
It's dotted and crossed
Beauty is innocence
And innocence the way.
Innocence V
As depression fills the void
My strength shall grow weak
With my life it has toyed
Inching closer to the peak
No night is left unshattered
Nor day left me empty
My thoughts scurried and scattered
Like injecting my mind
With its poison so deadly
Lost forever in this world
With no faith and less hope
As each fetus has curled
I’m left laying to mope
Try as I might
I assure you, I will
It’s myself that I fight
And myself that I kill
As depression empties into my soul
I can feel its chill down my spine
As midnight approaches
It comes to collect the toll
The bounty for each one in line
On our souls it poaches
The soul I had thought to be mine.
Innocence VI
You keep your eyes open for the day ahead
You keep your eyes closed for the day behind
Never to remember what had been said
Always ready for what you've yet to find
You still haven't grasped the concept
Trying hard not to be confused
With all the thoughts you kept
Realizing it's you, you've mentally abused
Here it gets interesting
Here the wound begins to sting
You've cut your mind open
Crushing the dreams you’ve had hope in
You see the ideas behind each word
Secret intentions that go unheard
Fate begins to unravel
Faster than light can travel
You lost a battle with your mind
As your teeth start to grind
Life's no longer stable
Common sense no longer able
I destroyed you from within
You have destroyed you,
I am the thoughts you've hidden in
Once one, now none, but treated as two.
Innocence VII
In a confusing place
Her presence is strong
Went from looking death in the face
To thinking nothing is wrong
Innocence is her source of power
Allowing her to occupy my head
So I feel tall as a tower
Not weighted down by lead
Only moments before
I was stricken by regret
Then came the one I adore
Giving me the strength to forget
If by fate or through hope
I may never truly know
But thanks to her I can cope
Thanks to her, I can grow.
Innocence VIII
As life goes on
Stretching out time
We're played as a pawn
To be moved on a dime
Fate has the ability
To take away and to give
To induce such humility
As to make you not want to live
But perhaps it's opposed
And even fate fails to be correct
It's what we had supposed
For there was no one to direct
Fate has a master
The hand moving the pawn
As the day ends in disaster
There's always the dawn.
Innocence IX
Faces of confusion
Among spirits of illusion
Leaving you helpless
While confined to seclusion
Only allowing you to confess
It seems like mere tests
Leaving you helpless
To the outcome of the rest
Fighting the mind over logic
Impossible as it may be
Will thwart off what’s toxic
So the haze rises and you can see
No words can truly define it
For no cushion can brace the fall
Nor ladder rise you from the pit
That stretches infinitely tall.
Innocence X
As faith and hope become absent
The clouds begin to grow
Giving life an accent
That clearly wants to show
The clouds are filled with thoughts
Beads of sadness, not of water
Raining down until my mind rots
And the rage only grows hotter
Sanity is like a ship
As hysteria develops in a blink
You slowly lose your grip
And your vessel begins to sink
Now all sanity is gone
Washed away in that brushing tide
Fate has moved its first pawn
And there's nowhere left to hide.
Very good read, Keaton.