It occasionally settles,
when you least expect it...
after the turbines have slowed
to an alarming rate.
When your patience has exercised
to a formidable state.
An indomitable condition.

We'll talk to ourselves slowly,
comforting and calm,
to ease this transition.
This body is a vessel;
a bulwark of flesh,
enlivened by blood.
Hallowed and haunted.
Waiting for fulfillment.

Ready for something...
even if it's nothing.

-Kevin James

When I was a child
I would walk into the forest,
and wonder how so many things
could remain untouched
and unsullied by humanitys
outstretched hands.
"They must want to."
I'd think,
but there must be strong magic here
to pervert those tendencies.
I didn't feel it then,
or maybe didn't understand
what I was feeling.

When I was a young man
I would walk into the forest
and wonder how ancient
the universe was,
thinking,
"It must be a wise and thoughtful entity, that preserves such places."
Some great magnitism that holds
these places together.
And maybe magnitism
is some sort of preventative magic,
or last resort contigency,
when things grow too desperate,
or too important to lose.

When I was an adult
I would walk into the forest
and wonder why
I didn't come here more often.
The poison of modern humanity
had settled deep in my vessel,
unwilling or unable to reverse
the natural course of the pathogen of time.
Alarmed, I sat thinking,
"Maybe the magic here now works against me."

When I was an old man
I would walk into the forest
and wonder how many more times
I could come back here,
before the void reclaimed
the energy spent on my creation.
It was a simple price
we all paid
for the time
we've borrowed.
And all at once,
I didn't have to wonder
why the magic hadn't faltered
on its duty in preserving
these ancient woodlands.
Because I knew then,
that I too
would soon become
part of this magic.

-Kevin James

"We are more often treacherous through weakness,
than through calculation.",
was my first thought
on that cold morning in May,
when I awoke shivering,
shrouded in sheets and sweat.

It wasn't immediately apparent
when I first lost my will
to keep living
a healthy normal life.
Like most things it crept upon me,
A silent spider.
Meticulously efficient
and patient.

At first it was a simple deception
on my part.
Comforting thoughts and scapegoats,
tethered to posts,
as the wolves of winter descended.
Mangled face of the pack-leader,
torn and bleeding upon his scars.
The trophies of it's dominance.

Carefully I walked to my window,
one hand drawn
to steady myself on the sill,
as I looked outside to assess my placement and position
in this world....
I wondered how many people
on how many other worlds
were thinking the exact
same things.

-Kevin James

There's so little remaining
of my affection for anything.
Even poetry now offers
it's forgiveness
for it's unfullfillment.
I've lost the patience
that carried me here.
I've grown tired of waiting
for something worth
the waiting.

There's so little remaining
of my love for living.
I've exhausted this forge
for its ceased creating.

The universe churns
and remembers little
of its former solidarity.
As gravity struggles
to collect stardust
before the void reclaims it.
Christ, but it must be so violent
and lonely there,
dependant on forces
that shape
and disfigure
on passing whims and fancies.

There's so little remaining
of my need for continuing.
When the morning is a knife
****** keenly in my side.
Before the caffeine cleanses
and imbides it's chemical veil,
to lend a false sense of purpose.
Black urgency,
coupled with a need for exceeding
the accomplishments of our fathers.

There's so little remaining
of gravity's hope for retaining.
When all it should do
is start letting us go.

-Kevin James

I once met a viking girl,
who hailed from Norway.
I usually wouldn't have bothered,
but there was something special about her
I couldn't fully grasp.
It was like some weight had been lifted
to relieve my tired body
of it's former failings.

There was a magic she could wield,
some massive dreadnought of power
she kept sheathed in ornate leather.
Sometimes, when she was nervous,
her fingers would brush it's scabbard,
tracing the embossed symbols,
unaware of what she was doing.
And then this longing would overtake her,
leaving her eyes vacant,
momentarily...
As if her vessel had been abandoned
as she expanded
well beyond it's threshold.

During these brief moments
when she'd slip away,
I saw things I couldn't explain.
A furnace of starlight,
encased deep in the Norwegian ice,
alongside the warships of her ancestors.
Usually well-guarded,
out of habit
or necessity.

Before I was consumed entirely
she returned from her reverie,
tearing me away
from that solace.

I wonder now
if she was aware
of what happened.
Those secret woodlands
will haunt me
long after I've gone.
Long after life has left me,
and into the outstretched arms of eternity
and the worlds that follow.
And like some dream,
it still escapes me..
how so much beauty
can be reserved
and contained.

It sickens me to know
that what I'll remember most
was the physical form she'd taken,
and not the things
that truly mattered.
Not the magic she used
to tear me asunder,
wide open and spilling..
helpless in it's radiance.
Not the gentle breeze
that expanded from her wake
as she passed me.

Because it's easier
to be shallow.
It's easier
to forget.

We circle our graves
poorly.
Without purpose or poise.
As the vultures
circle our bodies,
more knowing and keen.
As if the gods
gave them insight
as to when we'll fall
into a heap
of ourselves,
when the spiral tightens.

Like a cat
crouching low;
stalking.
Not because
it's hungry,
but because
it needs to prey.
The tiny movements
drive them mad.

I've never felt more alone
then I do
on those nights
when I lay awake
watching you sleep.
The tiny movements of your chest
as it rises
and lowers again.
The predator inside me
bristles with curiosity.
The same madness
that overcame the cat.
And I distantly think,
I know now what drives them.

I must have startled you
because you awoke
and turned on your side,
cracked eyes searching,
looking concerned
and frightened.

When she asks,
"Is something wrong?"
I think,
"Oh yes, it's more terrible than ever."
but say,
"No, it's nothing."
But it certainly is
something.

She kind of laughs
like we do
when nothing is funny.
Which is fine.

Because it isn't.

I used to know this girl
that expected the worst
from everything.
And although part of me agreed
that the worst of everything
was more prominent
than the good
I tried to believe that the light
always wanted to shine out
with fierce desperation
and far more control
than it's counterpart.
Whether or not it succeeded
in doing so
made me feel
rather indifferent.

The *** was always great
because we were both angry
with how pathetically monotonous
our lives had become
when we weren't ******* eachother over
or under
or against.

When you learn too much
about the person you've decided to
share your life with,
that's when eating meals together
starts becoming uncomfortable.
That's when we'll sit here together
wondering what the other is thinking.
That's when we start feeling the light
desperately trying to claw it's way through to the surface of our skin,
ashamed of it's own captivity
and of the bulwark
it's been tethered to.

We fill ourselves to capacity
as quickly as we can
because we know deep down
the clock has already begun
it's ticking,
for you
and for the other.
We were foolish to believe
that we were ever brave enough
to break this cycle.
And if you were ever anything like me,
even for a moment,
then you never really believed
anyway,
and you went for it,
knowing it wasn't worth
the effort,
hopelessly trusting
in the light.

-Kevin James