45

“45”

The greatest trick this devil ever pulled
wasn’t smoke, wasn’t mirrors—
it was the algorithm.


It was teaching you to doubt your own pulse.
Convincing you the fire alarm is just
background noise.
Convincing you the cage is a corner office
with a flattering filter.


Perception becomes policy.
Policy becomes posture.
Posture becomes prayer.

And suddenly
up is a rumor,
down is a conspiracy,
and truth is a freelance contractor
waiting on late payment.

We scroll past the smoke.
We double-tap the collapse.
We outsource our outrage
to a headline written in disappearing ink.

No one stops to ask
why the air tastes metallic.
No one wants to inventory
an unpleasant existence—
it’s easier to binge another distraction,
another blue-lit anesthesia
dripping from the ceiling of the feed.

Facts grow thinner.
So thin they’re transparent.
So transparent they pass through bone
without resistance.


You blink—
and the blink is curated.
You blink—
and the world has been gently rearranged
like furniture in a house you swear you know.

They call it perspective.
They call it balance.
They call it both sides.

But it feels like standing in a funhouse
where every mirror insists
you are the distortion.

And somewhere, softly—
almost kindly—
a voice says:

Don’t think too hard.
Don’t look too long.
This is normal.
This is fine.
This is freedom.


We repeat it
because repetition feels like stability.
We repeat it
until the echo sounds like evidence.

So tell me—


When the ground shifts
and the headlines applaud,
when the lie wears a flag
and the truth wears fatigue,

is it all fake news—


or did we just forget
how to see?

(c)BobChristianpoetry

Solutions

“Solutions”

By Bob W Christian

Please don’t worry, this isn’t written about me, it’s about a close family member.

My morning coffee.
Unlike me, is strong.
I say morning, actually
It’s when I come round.
After another of those,
Unforgettable nights.
I just can’t remember.

Strength, something
I lost years ago. Now
A way of measuring.
How much solution,
Is poured out. While
Revisiting the regrets.
In this endless story.

I’ve told anyone who’d
Listen. While continually
Poisoning myself, slowly,
Desperately. Fighting the
Inevitable. One last shot,
To stop my life, becoming
A sad statistic of addiction.

(c)BobChristianpoetry

Snapshots

“Snapshots”

by Bob W Christian

So many memories left here.
Photos – a snapshot of you.
Pieces of paper, scattered.
Your essence lingering on,
Haunting this old house.

Reading your scribbled words:
Always thought this moment
Would come without warning.
Waiting for the right time could
Take forever, you see.

We both know it’s been coming
For a while now. It’s not you, it’s
Me. It’s kept me awake trying to
Tell you. I’ve been scared for a
Long, long time now.

I can’t understand how we can
Forgive each other, for words not
Spoken until it’s too late, while trying
To move forward with our lives.
What would Social Media say?

How can someone be around one
Minute, then disappear? How do I
Cope with the disappointment of all
The things I didn’t accomplish?
It‘s best I go. All my love always.

The end, then? Or a beginning?
A whole new chapter in your life?
Left, wondering. Searching for
Clues. Will I ever know
The end of your story?

(c)BobChristianpoetry

Haunted


Haunted

By Bob W Christian

If this place could talk,
The stories it would tell!
Trapped within these
Walls for their eternity,
Gliding along corridors.

Pictures gathering dust,
Snapshots of the past.
This gallery of memories,
Life frozen, doomed to be
Repeated on an endless loop.

Voices call to me from
Empty rooms. Ghostly
Echoes from the past.
Whispers from beyond
My reality, now falling silent.

Memories, emotions,
Regrets. Forever
Haunting me.

(c)BobChristianpoetry

Panic Disorder

“Panic Disorder”

By Bob W Christian

Here we are again.

You.
Me.
The silence between us loud enough to rupture my ribs.

I call you companion because calling you monster
feels like admitting defeat.
Feels like saying you win.
Again.
Again.
Again.

You’ve given me so many nightmares,
I should be charging rent for all the nights you’ve made a home in my head.
I wake up sweating through the sheets
like maybe if I soak them enough, you’ll drown in the flood.
Spoiler alert:
You don’t.

Your memories play on loop in my skull,
like a cursed mixtape I never asked for.
And every time I press eject,
you just laugh
and rewind.

I thought I’d outgrow you.
Like acne.
Like imaginary friends.
Like bedtime fears and monsters under the bed.
But instead, you crawled into the bed.
Under my skin.
Built a goddamn shrine in my mind and lit candles for every time I tried to forget.

Aren’t I supposed to be a grown-up now?
Aren’t I supposed to be brave?
Aren’t I supposed to know how to lock the door to my own brain?
Because that’s where you live.
That’s when you thrive
when I’m alone
inside my own skull.

You’ve haunted me like clockwork,
never missing a season,
never skipping a visit.
We’ve grown up together, side-by-side.
Not friends.
More like…
cellmates.

I’ve tried evicting you.
Kicking you out.
Burning the lease.
But you always come back,
like a cockroach in winter,
like bad WiFi,
like me.

Still you’re my oldest companion. I’ve tried
Staying awake, hoping you’d sleep before me.
Tried drowning you – you’ve learnt to swim.

Always awaiting your return now.
I guess
this is what forever feels like
when you don’t get to choose who stays.

(c)BobChristianpoetry

Here lies

“Here Lies”

By Bob W Christian

I remember the day that
Time, like your life,
Stopped. Your body,
Laid out like your
Obituary.

Paragraphs of your
Life for all to read.
Documenting the lies
The excuses, the games,
Played.

Hide and seek champ
37 years running
Away. Stretching
Truths, ducking all
Responsibilities.

When it’s my time,
I’ll can rest in peace
knowing, I may be no
angel. Still, I’m nothing
Like you.

(c) BobChristianpoetry

Hoarding

“Hoarding”
By Bob W Christian.

Misplaced. Stashed. A collection
There’s a use for everything here –
Lost but never forgotten.

It’s here somewhere, Amongst
Ceiling-high papers, seemingly
Empty boxes, or In a cupboard.

Searching room by room, almost
Drowning in a labyrinth of memories.
It’s here somewhere, I know it is.

I can’t dispose of it, I might
Need it one day. Until then it
Sits with the rest, gathering dust.

Memories, heartache, evidence of
Past mistakes stack up Hoarding
Emotions, never letting go of pain.

No longer needed, still I’m unable
to discard them. Until they’re too much –
Crashing over, pulling me under.

It started way back in high school. A break
up, losing a loved one. I
Kept them all, not wanting to lose anything.

Ever again, no matter what, how ever
Much it hurt. But it’s time let go now. To Spring
Clean – declutter, before it’s too late.

(C) BobChristianpoetry

Old School

Old School

by BobChristianPoetry

I’m an OG.
Original Geek.
Back when geek wasn’t cool—
it was a quiet kind of rebellion.
Back when liking sci-fi was a secret handshake,
and knowing how to fix a floppy disk
was basically a superpower.

I was 8-bit before it was retro,
before Sega had Genesis dreams
and Nintendo hadn’t even found its Power yet.
We had cassette tapes—
forty-eight kilobytes of pure imagination.
You don’t know the struggle
’til you’ve heard the hiss
of a game loading like it’s whispering
its soul into the screen,
’til you’ve waited minutes
for a world to appear—
pixel by pixel—
while your whole weekend
waited behind a dungeon door.

We lived in basements and back rooms,
summoned dragons from graph paper,
fired imaginary bullets with our fingers,
painted miniatures
like we were building gods.
The dice hit the table
like war drums,
like thunder,
like the heartbeat
of a revolution
no one else saw coming.

Mayor West was Batman.
And Batman?
Was everything.
We didn’t just watch heroes—
we became them.
Every lunch table a secret lair,
every hallway a hidden galaxy,
every insult we ate
was just fuel
for the origin story.

I’m talking
D20-wearing,
Sindarin-speaking,
comic-con-craving,
MMO-grinding,
keyboard warrior
with a spellbook in one hand
and a joystick in the other.

I was lore before TikTok.
Canon before cosplay.
I didn’t grow into this—
I was born with it,
wrapped in a cape,
rocking light-up shoes
and quoting Yoda like scripture.

So yeah—
you can wear the title.
Call yourself geek,
nerd,
fanboy,
fangirl,
whatever fits.

But try walking in these pixelated shoes.
Try carrying this legacy
like a lightsaber at your side.
Try loving a thing
so hard
you built whole worlds
just to live in it.

Because me?
I’m not just a fan.
I’m the blueprint.
The origin story.
The one who rolled initiative
before the world knew
what the game even was.

NB You can also call me Rhiluron of Rivendell

(C) Bob Christian  

Poetry 101

(C)Bob Christian Poetry

Poetry 101

Searching deep within me,
Down where the light never dared to go
Not in the surface shine,
but the murk, the dark corners of my soul
where the echoes of forgotten selves still whisper.

I’m searching my memories
Flipping through the dust of who I used to be,
Finding pieces like old letters
folded between the pages of time,
never meant to be read again,
but here I am
reading them aloud.

Exploring, revisiting
Reliving feelings that got buried,
that got lost in the hustle,
crushed under the weight of time.
I’m recording them anew,
I’m resurrecting what was dead,
spitting it back out,
like blood on metal
red ink, sharp and raw,
burning the page with the fire of truth.

Words flow out,
like a flood that’s been waiting to drown me.
I stand here, vocalising
terrible, beautiful, brutal,
my feelings laid bare
waiting for your approval,
but knowing I don’t need it.

Head down,
leaving the stage,
it’s over now
I’ve given it my all,
laid my bones out in front of you,
like a broken mirror reflecting everything I am,
everything I was,
everything I’ll never be again.
It’s over.
But I’ve said it.
And it’s all still alive in me.

18 Minutes

The earth is 4.543 billion years old. Man, as a species, is a baby at only 200 thousand years old. This means that if you were to take that time, Condense it down into a single year, then man has existed for hardly any time. Just a little over 18 minutes.

What have we done in those 18 minutes? Arrogantly declared ourselves to be alpha species in a world full of incredible plants and creatures that all existed peacefully for aeons before we arrived. Those we don’t destroy will outlive us. Yet we humans believe we are clever?

Maybe we are. Some intelligence is good, but not too much. We’ve recently made leaps and bounds in science, technology – spending billions searching for a new planet to Call home. To ravage. While using Our “intelligence” to destroy this one.

In 18 minutes we have wiped vast numbers of beloved animals off this planet. We have accelerated the extinction rate to a staggering 10,000 times above the base rate. These creatures connected to us all in DNA. How many must disappear off this planet.

Before we open our ears to mother nature’s screams for help? All the while continuing the constant neglect and mistreatment. Open your eyes to all her warning signs. Global warming. Larger storms than ever. Rising drought. Deforestation. Acid rain. The cause of this destruction? It’s us.

Thankfully, this tale is not completely bleak or apocalyptic. Some people are waking up, realising there’s a sacred connection between Mother Earth and mankind. They refuse to Let it be destroyed – for its beauty to be ruined -For future generations. Can she be saved? Or are we responsible for writing her eulogy?