i can feel you
distancing yourself from me
i can feel continental drift
i wonder, do the shoes
you wear to run from me
have holes in them?
or do you go barefoot
careful not to make a sound
in your retreat. "cover your tracks & don't look back" i imagine
your demons whisper daily
as you are growing fond of me
i wonder if your heart puts up a fight when you want to see me
or if it's a massacre
& the demons dance
on dreams you have
of us holding hands
do you wander to your car
only to find yourself back in bed?
do you put your makeup on
just to take if off again?  
is your imagination of me
a graveyard, or a pair of open arms
that are inches away
but just out of reach?
you see, what i've been so afraid
to tell you for so long,
why i feign sometimes
before speaking
careful not to tell you
all my unspoken promises,
it has to do with the night you had your head on my chest and confessed you never thought my heart
could beat like hummingbird wings:
i apologize for my silence
what i've been trying to say
is that my heart hasn't slowed down
since the day we drank coffee together
continents apart

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                    The Destruct Sequence Has Been Activated


                   Upon the occasion of suddenly feeling old  
                   while sitting comfortably in a lawn chair
                   on a rare warm afternoon in February


The destruct sequence has been activated:
The photon torpedoes have all been fired
The memory software is badly outdated
The phaser comm panel cannot be re-wired

The main drive has stopped; the batteries are failing
The passageways are blocked with fallen debris
The controls on the bridge are uselessly flailing
The ship is listing slowly, degree by degree

Everything aboard ship is antiquated –
The destruct sequence has been activated

Every time I recognize this feeling
in the tonality of deeply shifting sounds...
The words start to flow—
so naïve,
with illogical convictions
not to doubt.

I think I’m in trouble,
but I smile at this joyful,
passing state of thought.
Utopia is Utopia, meant not to exist—
It’s a controlled illusion, like a sedative.

I can go there and return
in a millisecond of a human thought.
Creating alternative worlds,
following the traces
of a tender yet aching life.
It keeps me, for a moment, feeling
so vast, deep, and complete.

Outside, I’m so distant from games.
Sometimes I don’t even remember
the language I used to speak.
Unfamiliar words come to me
like a flashback, like déjà vu...
Finally, to recognize where I exist—
in the present moment, in real
circumstances, assumptions.

This is not a bizarre illness
to try to understand…
My reflections inside are still safe.
I just hold every shattered human soul,
seeing them without judgment,
without control…
This is my quiet, ephemeral way
to set compassion free.