Poem: Common Ground By Orville Lloyd Douglas

It was either passion or purgatory

Ecstasy or rage

Blood or tears

We were on opposite continents

The violence of your seismic outbursts  erupted like lava

Your rage was irrational, yet erratic like an alcoholic in a drunken stupor

Yet there was something peculiar and opaque

Something hidden, something distant

Too  foreign and too different

You spoke another language that I could not decipher

You talked about your culture that was like an alien life form

It was in a galaxy one million miles away

I wanted to give you my life jacket

Yet you were drowning trying to flee your demons

I dreamed there was something tangible

While you smoked your life away

As you choked on your pain

Vomiting from the disgust you have with your own reflection