When did children lose their love of learning?

When they were told to conform,
To forget their being,
To discard interests, agency, creativity

My own complicity
In the stifling of identity

Authenticity, a digression of the self,
A dissolution of swarming
Complexities

When did I gain my love of learning?

The burning crucible
Of curiosity

Set aflame by rejection of conformity

Constraints, curriculum, crushing expectations
and a world disintegrating
fires of digressions

When is conformity an expression of authenticity?

When is authenticity just another form of conformity?

Desperate was the Hand,
To the Fist,
To the Door of Introspection,
To the Mind, to the Darkness.

Pounding, pounding away,
The broken bones,
To the dust of flesh.

A moment before forfeit,
The Great Gate collapses.
Bursting into a torrential tide of Madness,
This scornful swell swam deep into the Heart.
Its suffocating chill, mirroring the growing Dissent,
Resonating all of discord in a living Thought.

Hope's last stand sends deceit fleeing.
Rushing waves, shuttering away,
From the pathetic kindle.
Such a sad flicker, this bastion of salvation.

As with All Things, this too falls.
The Darkness, the Madness,
The Door to all Doors,
Consumes the Light.

Ripples of Darkness
I tire, weary from the day
Nightmares sail forward
Through a storm of closed eyelids

Eyes flutter, dare I sleep now
Visions, lightless creatures
They call to me, more rather
I am sure it is a scream

Haunting me like absent words
The ones which I've buried
That creative self, once more
But we rise again, always

I let these spectres wail
Who am I to stop creation
Paint the horrific, vibrant dusk
And I'll admire this truth

In pondering the blues,
Of folk music, writing, and culture
I began,
"What is my celebration of sadness?"
I thought.
I reveled.
Rebellion and the fall of man.
The toxic man, the cancerous man
Who filled me with hate, behavior
And most of all suffering.
I celebrate this fall,
In the beauty of change
In the beauty of self-love
And as I loved myself, I became
Able to love others, as I always had
But without borders, an empathetic truth.
To understand, accept and to struggle
With the human experience.
Which I imagine will always be the case
Struggle breeds change.
And it is that I am most thankful for.

Passing wind,
a swarm of air
caressing skin
so sweetly
let you meet me
let you hold me
in that prancing wind
that tricks you
makes you think
that the piercing cold -
daggers through your soul
cannot hold you any more tightly
than that smooth summer air
so fall back
and rejoice
in those dancing waves
of wind
a hurried chance
till summer comes rolling
rearing above tepid clouds
to greet in
exalted expectations
that searing blow
of a summer prance