From everyone. Everywhere.
Why do they not see the good in what I have done?
By choice they label me, persecute me.
The pressure.
                 Pushing
                 me
                 down.
So heavy.
I’m strong but it seems as if this battle was designed for me to lose.
I cannot lose!
There was something inside me that I couldn’t let die.

Why are they doing this to me?
Are they scared? They fear what they cannot control?

                 ‘Yes’  My soul whispered.
         ‘but so are you’  he continued.

I faced them, all of them. Alone!
They buried me in the earth that day.
In a dead and lifeless landscape.

The earth, warm. Held me.

                  ‘Why have you taken so long’  she whispered

I couldn’t answer.
She collected my tears with caution and precision.
The more I cried, the more the landscape flourished.
Life sprouted, excitedly.

I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore.
My tears ran out.
Under pressure to maintain the new life.

I turned to her, already knowing what I was going to say…
                
She answered;
                    ‘Be still my child, your time of tears is over,
                     there is another, like you, who will be here soon.’

© John Paul Fraser

He achieved great things.
   And so did she.
     They stopped wars; Fed the hungry;
       Clothed the naked; Cured diseases;
         They chased after their dreams
           and in doing so they changed the
             world.

                What motivated them?
                        
Time;

                 They knew that time was
                impatient;
      
               They knew there was no
              negotiating with time;

            They knew that this World was
           waiting impatiently for them to
         reunite with the Earth from
        which they Arose.

      Every night they whispered a
     reminder to each other;
       'Time is  r u n n i n g    o  u  t'

   Until one night it.
.....................................
Go now, child! Do it!
Change the world around you!
We don't have much time.

I close my eyes.
I remember the day.
My heart barren and dry.

I caught a glimpse of happiness in your eyes. In your smile.
It was the first time I believed that maybe I could be happy too.
It was the day you set my heart's dry landscape combusting into flames.

                                     You promised me you’d stay.
                                                           ­ …

I tried to hold on! I did!
But every memory of your scent, your soul, your touch, melted through the gaps in my clutched fist.
reduced to ash.
Just like the rest of me.
The flames. Still burning, but aimlessly, searching every inch of my being for you.

But there was              
                        
                                Nothing

to be found in an evacuated heart.

You watched...
From a distance.
Your smile no longer recognizable to me, as the insatiable flames grasped and clawed its way through my soul.


Then, it stopped. Your fire, suffocating itself to sleep.

. It was done.
..   I opened my eyes. and saw
.....   from the ash of what used to be,
..........
...............
....................
................­...........
..................................
A brave soul sprouting...