Are you lost inside nostalgia,
blinded by its call

Self convinced the past is king,
old romance to enthrall

The facts proclaim much different,
in science and the arts

Awareness of what we’ve become,
the most illusive part

What you bought for fifteen dollars,
that CD with thirteen songs

Now can buy the music world,
Ipod’s carry on

The doctor’s diagnosis,
beyond mere life or death

An MRI can then confirm,
and protons will arrest

The scope of human nature,
to hold on and not let go

Ties us to a bill we’ve paid
—resent from long ago

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2019)

An initial burst of all of life
Light and its lack thereof
Brilliant spheres clash and combine
A Titanomachy of the heavens

A man and his rib, serpent and fruits
Being and consciousness, in choosing
The poison one picked, its effects hereditary
Awareness was forever won, with death carried

To escape the great flood
Limps and torsos, ashes and dust
After time, baring the great black mud
Black as the Raven that returned, not

White as the dove that returned, to Noah
White as the east flag that bore a warning
A warning against the cunning snake
That will soon become Totem of the Dragon

As all hungry bodies search for a new land
A new land of great plenty and distinction
Four beings arrived on this new world of old
Of mountains and valleys, and ancient sea

Bore two lives that soon combined into me:
I was oft called in terror by the violet nights
And a white dove in azule trinket appeared
I even held the shedding snake in yesteryears

I held my gaze to the sky and felt ever close
To the wonders unseen, unsaid but promised
In silence and unmistakable feelings to me, till
I am safely grounded by the faraway unearthly

I was instilled with the desperation for greatness
But only ordinary quietness gave me any peace
Why, through all of creation did I arrive with
So unsteady and vague sense of mission

And why did I ever so gladly indulge and suffer
Through all of the joy, loneliness, and ailments
Just for this impractical soul to deeply dwell
Ceaseless upon a naive idealism of words

Still, I mustn't've passed by life, just to leave
Still, I mustn't've woken in life, just as a dream
I feel something brewing profoundly within
What and when, I know not of, but it will be

Perhaps I am not yet ready
But I am forever waiting
One day, I will reach the end of this shadow cave
And having accustomed to light already, I will see

Understand,
Without fear, and pain
Everything

Like the initial burst of all of life
Light and lack thereof, will combine
And become of one mind with me
The Perfect Circle of Being Complete

After laying awake for endless nights,
with the shattered pieces of my heart
leaking into my veins
and carving away at the life
I used to share with you,
I realized that you are not one
worth suffering for

By Chloe Elizabeth