I'd love for you
to feel the love
the way the love
feels for me.

A slow and steady crescendo
Of blended melody and rhythm
Grips the edge of reason and
Pulls it softly, toward contentment.
It feels and folds its way through
Storming emotions and insecurities.
Ushering their voices to calm and follow.
Harmonizing against the pizzicato
Of over stimulated heart strings,
It flows outward from her core.
Its cadence steady and sincere.
As it rushes to alter her face,
The sensory orchestra of
Memory, thought, fear and hope
Culminates in the most subtle of smiles.  

She exhales.

This is LOVE.

Stand me still in swaying grass
on the crest of a smooth esker.
Numb my ears to synthetic noise
so I can embrace the earthly chorus;
Green blades clashing swordlike.
The creak of trees, rooted in the battle.
The flip and twist of a passing bluebottle;
Awkward and disorientated.
Let me breathe deep the same wind
that lends herself to these instruments.
Let me hear the crackle of sun on skin;
The sound of hair electrified,
The thud of chemicals leaping across synapses.

Let me feel truly alive.

I look down at the arcs of white;
at the tattered bows which skirt my fingernails.
They signal the very edge of my extremities.
Each one with unique imperfections
owed to the muck and dirt lodged underneath.
They're hideous; soiled and grotesque from
digging deeper into my love affair with mortality -
my lust for the knowledge of what happens
when we are 6 feet below sun-lights' reach.

It seems so far from here and now,
Both in distance and in kind.
That place I found, through winding ways;
The time when I cared not for time.

When shadows stretched meant day was new
And as they shortened haste was made.
Butterflies played and danced and flew,
Distracting minds in need of shade.

Pain in toes and knees and hips
Dissolved all ailments of the head.
Stories poured from sun kissed lips.
Easing aches in time for bed.

I wandered back to times gone by
To grief, to love; so bittersweet.
I played them out, I laughed, I cried-
To the echoed fall of dusty feet.

In all the things I've so far learned,
Of all the 'me' I've yet to know
I've found that peace and calm is earned
Through open minds, on unknown roads.

And if the names, the talks, the places;
If they try to fade with time
I'll think of all the smiling faces;
Kindest hearts, now kept in mine.

There was once a flickering flame,
Its rising heat causing no pain.
But a shadow it cast,
telling tales from her past.
Now she runs to escape it in vain.

If I am to face this life
in the dim of your shadow,
I'd rather it be where harsh
rays of sun beam from crystal skies;
where looking outward
would blotch your vision
with patches of black
and make taut your skin.
Then, tuning back, your eyes
would behold my sunlit face.
You would see me,
flaws and all.
Together we could emerge from the dark.

Your leeward left lays
steeped in shadows,
as a perfect line flickers
outlining your silhouette.
Incandescent light makes
porcelain of your skin.
Its honest touch embraces
you with artificial moonbeams,
airbrushed and pale.
I watch your chest rise,
as you inhale the
atmosphere you have
created with your presence.

A brief notion today,
it brought me away.
It took my consciousness from me.
Glazed eyed and amazed,
head-first into the daze;
to a life and a love laced in fantasy.

With a rush like cold air,
through freshly washed hair,
I was swept back through worlds - to the present.
I glanced round in a rush,
and embarrassed - I  blushed.
Awakened, to a view much less pleasant.

My left leg
is draped
across my right.
I know that
pretty soon
the pins and needles
will take hold.
Starting in the
fold behind my knee
and slithering into
a tiring ankle.
I don't much mind.
The rhythmic shake of
a nervous left foot
is mirrored,
as my right hand
finds my lip
and feels in earnest
for a loose flake
of dry skin
to pry off.
It will probably hurt.
I don't much mind.
I've fixed my eyes on
an empty stool,
analyzing the pattern.
Imagining the feel.
Imagining you;
What you'll say
when you get here.
To be honest...

I don't much mind.

A monochrome film plays
Over and over.
To a singular audience.
It rewinds.
Pauses.
Fast-forwards.
It sticks on one frame
Over and over.
In the scene
It's me, lost in a
Labyrinth.
It's walls lit with
projected clips
of a monochrome film.
Playing.
Over and over.

Oh gone are the days of white sheets draped on propped up cushions;
Of safety in delicate, wavering structures only strengthened by imagination.

This fort is of unseen iron, steel and girders - bound and secured by all of my insecurity.

Ever catch yourself
caught between
the light and dark?

Has the stark contrast
blinded you, both
from lack of
and abundance of
luminescence.

Ever rounded a night corner
and prayed that the road
materialises beyond you;
that it follows the path
the very way you
imagine it?

And have you ever felt utterly ALIVE in that
frantic millisecond of uncertainty?

I have.