Average Joe

He was just a small boy when

he lost his parents to a distant tragedy.

Orphaned hence he grew up

in the streets of society.

Now just a young man,

his life was undecided;

not the dumbest, not the brightest,

just emotionally divided.

He never thought he had a purpose,

always felt a little out of place,

no one paid him much attention,

as he rarely showed his face.

He lived on the edge of life,

never throwing caution into the wind,

he was rife without possession

of anything this world could give.

His talents were not yet realized,

his dreams misunderstood,

but through it all he kept striving,

doing the very best he could.

He referred to himself as “A.J.”,

but for the record --- let it show,

for the sake of all the inquiry,

it stood short for Average Joe.

                           The Designated Hero

Marionette was just an adolescent teen by all respects,

when she found herself all alone,

wandering around, aimlessly drifting,

through the streets that now served as home.

Rebellious by nature, in denial of duress,

she was held sway by the drugs that controlled,

the mind, the body, the soul, and the spirit,

leaving her nothing to have and to hold.

Now just a puppet, committed to the thugs,

who were wedded to the devil’s command;

turned out was her innocence, violated by all,

rooted out were her dreams by the strand.

Shattered was her hope, and faith was diminished,

she sank further into the depths of despair,

imprisoned was her heart by the absence of love,

long-lost was the compassion to care.

With tears in her eyes and distress in her heart,

she overdosed on her needle of blight;

resurrected from pain, she fell out in the rain,

and abandoned the realms of plight…

So wretched was the sight of this girl on her own:

head hanging, disheveled, looking starved to the bone,

her hair was all wet, shoes were well worn,

dismal were her clothes, all ragged and torn,

That a man on the corner just across from her way

read more into the story than the picture could say,

for long suffered had he through the windfalls of life,

hard sought to the deliverance from the perils of strife…

He rushed to the girl who had stumbled into the street,

just before the mass of a truck could utterly cheat

the life of an angel he knew he must save,

second chances weren’t given from the gloom of the grave.

She fell into his arms incoherently dazed;

so helpless, so pretty, her blue eyes glazed,

lost in a dimension many light-years away,

gone from the reality of the here and today.

Like a prize to his heart he held the girl tight,

and whispered in her ear that everything’d be all right;

thwarted was death from the burdens of Woe,

by the designated hero named, “Average Joe."