John Maurer is a 26-year-old writer from Pittsburgh that writes fiction, poetry, and everything in-between, but his work always strives to portray that what is true is beautiful. He has been previously published in Claudius Speaks, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Thought Catalog, and more than forty others. @JohnPMaurer (johnpmaurer.com)  

You Are What You Do

I am the writer I am today
because of the writer I was yesterday
and the writer I was every day
for the past decade

Yet, every day I am not a writer
Until I have done the deed
Salesman sell, managers manage
Writers? Writers write

Every shortcut takes you 
only a short distance
The longest path can't be any other 
than the one that leads the farthest

I like walking in the grass
but I won't hesitate
to walk through glass if I must
to walk through flames and get sentimental

Tranquility in Oblivion

Everyone has a vision, but can you depict it
Can you explain it well enough to be understood?
Let me save you the time, they will never understand
This is old magic, before words, before we turned stones to knives

This is changing the world outside of you from the inside
Deciding you won't be sustained by any food pellet given as reaction
You become untrainable, untamable, you become the un-substitutable variable
The less you need, the less you want, the more terror you create

He dictated by desire or necessity is naturally predictable
He who wants and needs nothing 
still has the potential to be anything
The cat that never climbed out of Schrodinger's box

Baker Act Part Three Hundred and Two

If everyone you love leaves you
Maybe you shouldn't love anyone
If everyone you hate is always around
Maybe you shouldn't hate them anymore

There are internal issues and external issues
The internal solution is the mountain to the speed bump
It's easier to move to another country
change your name, and change your appearance
Than to shift your perspective on the issue

Your entire world is in your head, if your life sucks
My first question will be: why did you make your life suck?
You could be anything and you choose hopeless and miserable
Now those of us who were choiceless in our neurochemical balance
Can't get our controlled substances because you are doing them without control

No one understands how far we are from where they live
because a thousand unappreciative assholes 
see glory in the cross we carry on a longer path
I never meant to make bleeding look beautiful
I would never say I like never liking anything