If I were to be an emoji
For the rest of my life,
I would be
:/

Not :)
Or :( 
Just 
:/

I'm not happy,
I'm not sad,
I'm merely 
Confused.

I'm a combination,
Of the two.
Sad, yet not always.
Happy, but only slight.

A lost soul, maybe?
Confused and sad to be alone.
But I'm happy to be away,
From the cruel, cruel world.

I could be :)(
But I am :/
Instead.

I feel depressed sometimes.
I cover a :( with a :)
Just to stop the questions,
And to see if it could be real.

:) could mean :(
But I can laugh for real.
Happiness can fill my insides.

I feel sorry for some people,
Not always pity, though.
Just sorry I can't feel the same way.
Sorry I can't tell them I know how they feel.
So I become :/

I don't know how I feel sometimes.
Since my mood changes 
by a few questioned words.

Content + Miserable = :/
Hope my maths is correct,
I have never been a genius,
I guess that applies for feelings too.

:/ = Me
I'm just a confused and miserable soul.

Somebody please help me.
Change me.
I don't want to stay the same,
Forever and always.

My marginal dysfunctions like a panther saunter gliding me out to peripheries edge.
We won't comment on loose banter, someone says.
My mind circles the time as the crow flies,
too disturbed for reentry, tweets the parakeet.

Phase out with allegiance to no one,
Phase back in with desperate facade.
I am blank, bleak and broken.

Well...that's just the token to get us back in ...the Dahlia wasn't always black to begin with you know, so many colors remain to absorb our sorrow.

So lost, forgotten and frail...
a ghastly scene so serene and forsaken.
Do not fret my fellow faire, we are ghosts of crimson lore, pathos to the people...morose...together on the edge of forever.

Interlacing fingers, we stand then walk the plank of insanity...who will hold my hand??

I was playing a game with my kids the other day

I asked:
What do you use to see?
She said 'your eyes'
He said 'your brain'
Both right
Next I asked what do you use to hear?
She said 'your ears'
He said 'your brain'
Both right, again

The wisdom of children!

The game ended there but it got me thinking about what we use to feel
The most straight forward answer is our skin
Your brain is what processes the sense of touch so that has to be included
What about your heart?
Where does it fit into the big scheme of things?
Isn't the heart the space where we process feelings?

I have to loosely define things and often turn them upside down
ruminate
reorder my worldview to make it copacetic
I'm pretty sure that I often walk in two worlds
If my mind is simply locked in the western paradigm then people look at me like I'm bizarre
I'm not joking when I say they've wanted to lock me up because of my views
When I allow my mind to get locked into this western paradigm,
I sometimes even feel like I belong in lockup.

That's even worse than being held against your will
You're being held because you've lost your will

So I play with definitions to better suit my needs

When you do this however, there is a risk
Last summer I unlocked a spectre as I drank deeply and greedily from Crypt Lake

Crypt Lake is a real place on this planet
How did it get it's name (you might ask)?
According to the Blackfoot, placenames aren't given,
they come from place

Let's contextualize ~ this is all part of the journey
The physical leads to the spiritual and vice versa
To get to Crypt Lake you have to enter Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park
Found in the southwest corner of Alberta and the northwest corner of Montana
Once through the gates you have to catch a boat at a certain time
You have to be in the physical plane of existence at this point otherwise you're not getting on that boat
Once you get to the trailhead, then you can start to drift

That's what I did
As I walked, I let the stories come into me
I let them flow through me
They were sitting there waiting to be told
A spruce, arm in arm, with a pine
Hawks circling overhead
An ever present alertness for our bear brethren
Always open to the wildflowers
Indian paintbrush (I have red hair could I be considered an indian paintbrush?)
Pollinators flitting about
Oh, the water

Listen to the stories the water told:
First we come to Hell Roaring Falls
Next Twin Falls
Next Burnt Rock Falls
And to reach the Crypt, we have to pass through a mountain tunnel
Opening up to Crypt Falls
and finally Crypt Lake

This is a regular heroes journey if you allow it to be
I was in that place in my mind where I allowed it to unfold as it may

This is a place that's also known as the Crown of the Continent
Not far away is Chief Mountain, Turtle Mountain, and Crowsnest Mountain
Also Writing-On-Stone and the Milk River and Sweetgrass
These are holy names, this is a holy land

What I saw at Crypt Falls was the backbone of the continent
I saw the backbone of Turtle Island

I was floored
I had been on a continent wide spirit quest a few years previously
There was talk that the Deed for Turtle Island was coming due
And maybe it would be produced at one of these gatherings
We all waited but nobody produced it

I ruminated on that idea for a few years
I'm pretty sure that the Deed was there
Those who held it, just didn't realize

I learned something at the Crypt
I wanted answers and I made an assumption
I assumed that the water held the answers
So I drank deeply, even greedily from the Crypt

Right there in the international peace park, on the crown of the continent
With the Old Chief and the Crowsnest not far away
Writing-On-Stone just a sashay away
What about writing in calcium?
If I were the earth, I would encode important information in something
Transmutable

Not blood.
Bones

What I learned up there on the mountain as I gulped down knowledge from the Crypt was that the deed is written into the bones of the land and into the bones of those borne of that land

This is indigenous knowledge

It's in the water, the water is the medium for the message
The bones are the stock
But just like a double helix
A genetic sequence is an expression of time and place
On a certain spacetime continuum this innocuous looking structure
(take a look in the mirror)
Has all the necessary answers

Thick skin falls in pieces
To reveal a molten liquid center
A beauty never gazed upon by another
A glow of heat and pain and ...love
Hidden from prying eyes
Kept safe from strangers and "loved ones" alike
Permanent fists grip tightly
As the center boils hot upon its release
And a trickle becomes a flood
In the right hands...

In the right heart
The stiff grip loosens
And new skin, soft and supple
Replaces the old
Stronger than one could have imagined
Sweeter than one could hope
A butterfly against the odds
And a struggle ends in .....**love