Inviting security into your life
invites insecurity into your life.

© Matthew Harlovic

There’s a widow in the windowsill
weeping like a willow, weeping like a willow
while her child tries to fall asleep
weeping in his pillow, weeping in his pillow.

© Matthew Harlovic

Knowledge is infinite, exponentially growing
We learn to live without ever really knowing.

© Matthew Harlovic

Happiness is not something you seek.
It's not a location or another person.
It's not latent or inactive or waiting for discovery.
It's already there, your invisible garment.
It's a choice you make daily--a perspective
through which you decide to see your life.

Thus happiness is perpetually within reach.
You could be zoneless, drenched in darkness,
hollow-bellied, devoid of material,
the traces of your footsteps long-faded,
and yet,
you could still be
radiant.

A single digital phrase
makes me throb, makes me warm,
raw-
hungry,
inarticulable:
the hunger, the thirst, the clawing through
his hair push him against
the door
with
force.
There was a glistening in the room,
a hard glaze
puncturing every moment
like a swift knife, brute
yet gentle the way
the stinging sharp
cold blade feels
against the seal
of
skin.

It’s not just pain,
it’s hotter,
brighter,
more compelling.
It's heartbreak-love,
the kind that tears you apart inside
and yet awakens you
to the silenced realities to which
most are blind.

It is a pull, a lock that
hooks inside of another
person drawing
them to you
indefinitely.
You feel like a magnet
at all times,
crushed when he looks at you
with those sad, terrified eyes
which beg for hope.
You are crushed for him,
crushed for his pain.
Always wanting
to keep him
close to you, to give him
the warmth you
somehow know
he needs.

No one will hurt you here,
you want him to know.
You’re safe with me, I will protect you.
You want him to be happy,
more than you care
about your own happiness:
that’s heartbreak love.

And it's always the loners,
the lost souls,
the obscured escapees,
the ones with the shaded expressions and watering, orb-like eyes,
the ones with the smiles that don’t quite touch light into the face,
the kind that drains life out of you,
yet leaves you needing more.

He’s my boy,
that’s how you see it,
how you experience it.
He’s yours,
and you would do anything
to protect your child.

Here I am lost in a garden of hearts
Some are taken some are not
I am here just lost in thought

Maybe soon we can be here
Please let us not be in fear

I am lost in a garden of hearts and
some are taken some are not.

Let our feet fall away from our perfectly broken world.
Where the grass dies, children cry, and people lie.
Help us guide the way our world is headed  
and let us not be overcome with complete dread.
May the sky be bluer then blue and the sun shine bright.
So we can be immersed in complete delight.