" Don't walk behind me; I may not lead.
Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow.
Just walk beside me and be my friend." - Albert Camus

Beyond the Telegraph Toad

The telegraph road circled through the foothills,
arising towards the majestic mountain high
It’s been a long and twisting passage soon forgotten,
with the pavement abruptly dead ending,  
just below the timberline

The dawning blue sky’s heavens look so much closer now
Just a step away from standing within reach                                  
The birds uplifted on the telegraph wire rest atop me;
perched overhead on the final material traces
disregarded by a dubious world

My awakening soul is ascending
beyond the distant alpine horizon  
At the threshold of a trackless pathway,
climbing up above the clouds

It’s exhilarating to look back and know
there is no turning back around
I’ve never been higher
and can never get back down

What unknown frontier lies in wait before me now?
Just on the other side of the impossible dream?
The last step forward to find the next step beyond the bounds
There is not that much that changes,
when we just repeat the same old song

The atmosphere’s thin air leaves me gasping for wings
Like dust and ashes free to soar with the tempest breeze
If only time would sever these loathsome ties that bind
The ones that enchain the weight of this load unto me

While understanding the pace to a long journey’s rhythm
The only barometer you have to trust is in your heart
Adaptation is at the core of freedom's survival
But it feels almost like running away  

I have felt the fear of falling with nothing left to lose
I’ve climbed as far as flesh and bones can reach
I've come this far always feeling subtly afraid
It has been a great distance back from the beginning;
knowing I must take these last steps alone.

Understanding it was love that brought me here
Naturally tugs at the spirit in my soul encouraging me on
I'll keep searching for the shining light of guidance
Listening for a voice that softly beckons me home...

A misplaced Oxford Comma
Lead to perilous trauma
She drifted into an Oggsford Coma
Then turned into an awful aroma

The Ceremony held in 1980
Resurrected in 1 A.D
In the lumbering town of Hudson's Bay
Majorie chose to stay

Never feeling so free
She sat within a tree
Enjoying all she could see
The girl decided never to flee

Established in 1995
This dream came Alive
A tree home called heaven
Would stand until 1997

Slim used to be a Jackline Skinner
Lumberjack was more of a winner
Quickly forgot all about Walden Pond
Long before a new light dawned

"The wind that blows
Is all that anybody knows"
Even goes for pros
Or vacant minded 'hoes'
Just patiently listen to those
Who know where a dick goes
Don't make needless foes
Leave that for the 'pros'

Slim stood uttering horrible slurs
At the request of a woman in expensive furs
Majorie stood on bended knee
Pleading for them to leave her tree

As she reached the bottom of the ladder
Silence was breached by a clatter
All the rats began to scatter
Knowing exactly what was the matter

The lumberjack had missed his mark
Added slightly too much ark
Caused the Oak to prematurely tumble
Left Slim's body to instantly crumble

In the hustle and bustle of a metropolitan city, I searched you down. Stalked, hunted and fished you out. Out of the 7 billion people, I found you, and that was all which mattered. You. Your hair still soft and ruffled with care, you lips still pink without usage, or so I hoped, your eyes, sparkling as always behind your thin framed silver glasses. You, with your bold look, walking across the streets like you own them. You, with you heavy and slow steps walking to your destination with a purpose to conquer. You.
And in that unknown city, so far away from the root of our existence, with mindless honks of drivers and a play of lights everywhere, I found somebody that I used to know. A face not forgotten, yet changed, eyes which haunted reappeared and a voice which lingered rung in my ears. I found you.
I would purposely bump into you, pretending to be in a hurry, pretending to not recognize the only face embedded in my soul, drop my valuables, say something like my identification card, give you a quick smile and a sorry and run off and disappear into the wave of the crowd.
You would just stare at the card. Be reminded of a life so distant, possibly a life forgotten, probably forcefully. Be reminded of how a girl, crazy and wild, young in her years, had come and gone from your life. Be reminded of the question you always used to ask yourself "what happened?"
I would hide to see your face grow white. You had just seen a ghost. A ghost of your past, who you had forcefully left behind. Now, after decades of separation, years spent not even giving it a second thought, years spent away, you were reminded again. The fire was lit again. The fire which made you pick up the card, stare at the number and automatically dial it up. I would say "hello", at which you would cut the call still unsure of what you would say. Scanning, devising a plan, you would call again, only this time you would talk.
"Hello", I would say confused.
"I found your wallet miss, remember you bumped into me earlier?"
"oh yes thank god for you sir. Tell me where you are and I shall come and pick it up."
and with that you would let yourself go.
after all, a "hi" i all we need to melt, to fall, to die, all over again right?
and with that I woke up to the alarm screaming in my ears to remind me that reality still persisted, and that it would take more than a dream to get you back.

Say something. Say anything.
My mind is a war zone.

Ammunition loaded, open fire on my sanity.

We think we’re invincible.
We think we know every dusty corner
and boarded window of this existence.
We think that we are impenetrable.
Not even we can penetrate ourselves.
Until we do.

Until we find the one solitary loop hole
that exponentially increases to ten solitary
loop holes to fifty solitary loop holes to
such an infinite number of solitary loop holes
that you cannot even form a complete thought
because you know it’s targeted directly at your
own consciousness, at your own dignity, at your
own fucking heart.

We manage to discover these loop holes
because we predict their outcomes.
We predict the god damn future with our
careless decisions and our too proud attempts at
happiness.

And suddenly, we’re humbled and broken
and irreparable because of our own fucking
psychic minds and our own naive
ideas of happiness.

And now we’re all lying in a pile of rubble.

Our souls ruined and tainted with no one
left to help us pick up the pieces of ourselves
because we were all too fucking selfish and
proud in our attempts at satisfying this
morbid existence.

Then we wait the eternity it takes for these
self destructive ruins to lose their pulse,
to fade into an alternate universe of silence
so we can quietly slip away from this
vial consciousness.

We wait
until the heartbeat of these run down,
dirt covered left overs of ourselves finally
goes still.
We wait
until we learn to live in the pile of shit we call ourselves;
until we realize that we are our only destruction.

1
Like the  turning sheets
of a monthly calender,
life has layers after layers.

How would he know that ,
just a callow youth on  sea shore
playing with  smooth pebbles,
that was when he saw her first.

She was the woman who
taught him, whole cities lay merged
within a woman, like wave after wave,
of inhabitants over time, leave their
archaeological markers of periods,
she was a mystery like life itself.
There is no way to decipher.

2
They first met
in the city of light,
Diwali lamps were lit
in all courtyards,
It was an immortal moment
in his  life, he realized,
leading him gently to the light
which evaded him though he assiduously sought,
she parted without a word
Did she belong to someone else?
3
The city of sorrow,
yet again brought them  face to face
Ridden with angst of existence
he stumbled, was about to fall, then
he  could experience her iron will
more than a woman, she stood, like a pillar of strength,
she took his weary head in both hands, pressed to her breast,
pulled out the crown of thorns, their paths
diverged again, inexplicably complex, was their relationship.
4
In the city of guilt,
an unexpected meeting again,
they were surprised. Here, they were on their own.
They  wanted to take their lives in their hands,
in spite of the currents that pulled them to different directions.
But he knew all the while that her self, was divided between
three cities within  in her.They co-existed, Light.Guilt.Sorrow
will their love survive? Not all loves are intended to live long,
a parrot in his tree of loneliness always whispered.He pretended he didn't hear,
A game of dice, almost was their lives, mysterious forces did bet on their love,
Having traveled through fire and water, she was beyond pleasure and pain,
Kali with a fiery nose stud, female power that overcomes all pain,
she became, that shattered his dreams for them.
He was thankful, to be awakened by her,
the light she lit, burned bright, within.

Now or never.He crossed the river.
Deliverance comes from an inner source,
otherwise all will end as an idiot's tale
signifying nothing.
Her flame lighted his wick, liberated him.
5
Fire spitting dragons one can tame,
but in the duel with demons of life,
it could be a blood letting end,
call it play of chance or what ever
they are the  easy game here
He  packed his backpack and
started to move eastwards,
Westward bound was she, invariably,
her heart had still a song left for him,
the void was filled, the pain was stilled
with anesthetics of mind.
Just for one last time they went to the beach,
watching the sunset was their good bye to each other.
They never met again.

I believe that there are some souls
born into this existence tormented
by truth.

A truth that will never falter.
Branded into their beings is the truth
that without love,
we are nothing.
We are meant to love and be loved.
Our sole purpose is to fall in love.

These troubled souls are faced with
the realization that once love has left you..
there is nothing left.
Life loses its color. Suddenly,
everything is dull
and the fire within you extinguished.
Life is filled with emptiness.
Empty words, empty promises,
empty lies, empty cycles,
empty sorrow that engulfs you and
becomes you.

Without love,
we strive to fill the bottomless
pit of our souls. But,
it will perpetually amount to nothing.

We are nothing.
We are mindless creatures searching in all
the wrong places.
We are hopeless.
And the only way to live fully is
through love.
So, where do we go when love is lost?


We become sorrow at it’s best.