you did not recognize me
I am glad you did not  
maybe you did not see me,
standing by the salad bar,
sentry over the slaughtered greens
but I think you did,
when your blue eyes met mine
they did not pause  
surely they would have
if you knew it was I  
my blonde hair about which you wrote verse
is now as gray as the winter sky
the same sky that gave us cause
to hide in your cozy room
roll in each other’s arms
and believe those silky moaning moments
would last forever
forever, though we never said that word
I  w h i s p e r e d  it, watching you sleep  
knowing your dreams were not of me,
perhaps they were of the mountains you climbed,
the men you had to ****, the mother you never had
whose ******* my own could never replace
but you cradled and caressed them
like they were treasure,
like you had supped from them
and they sustained you
and allowed you the exquisite vulnerability
I saw in your young eyes
forever, I must have whispered
but  
you were of another time,
barely older than my spawn
and now under florescent  firmament
with other anonymous dreamers drifting by
pausing only long enough
to choose their own fruit or bread
I watch you become smaller with each step
watching you again with a w h i s p e r  
forever,
forever,
though you did not know
who I was
on this...winter's eve

I identify as the black ink that fills your pen, as dark and wondrous as the secrets held behind your pupils

I identify as the raised skin that marks a scar, holds a memory, and refuses to go away

I identify as the rain on your window that silences your thoughts to sleep

I identify as everything you want your lover to be

The only thing
I don't identify as

Is me

Familiar taste;
sort of like popcorn,
but without butter
and somehow...
trippier.

So much more precious than mere popcorn;

Break down my barriers of sense and intuition;
make raw my calloused mind of predisposition.

Take me back to primordial mind
before anything knew chains;
unconfined.

Please, oh please let me be a prism for the Divine
even if for a short window of time
tear down the barriers constructed by and for Mind
and once more remind me of what I have yet to lose.

Shadows sway and morph and overflow
as Shadow morphs and sits for tea;
please, oh please let me learn from this
slightly less than blissful experience
for I know that I've yet so much to learn.

I feel like all that is worth writing is lost on most who can read;
it is futile to write certain feelings and insights for I know that they just as easily arise elsewhere.
The truest of truths will be thought of by another prism.

Even so, it is best to drudge through this sense of folly
and try to reflect upon the truisms that feed away at my waking mind
in hopes that they will find a host amongst deserving minds.

I wasn't always so easily discouraged.
I used to bristle with enthusiasm.
I glowed with it.
It didn't matter if the task was simple, or tedious, or daunting, or boring.
As though on rails, I slammed into each and every task with terrific force.

But I got older.
Things that used to come easily grew slippery.
What I used to do without thinking twice, I found myself over-thinking.
I threw the brake. I ground to a halt.
Finally, I became idle. A left-over husk of a kernel that's already been popped.
I drowned myself with doubts. Hypothetical situations that might never happen.
I lived in fear of what might go wrong.

So I began to watch everything go wrong, as though I was helpless.
I was no less able. I was no less compassionate.
But I had grown wary. Of what?
What was it that, out of nowhere, caused me to slow down?

I guess I looked down and realized that if I fell, I would not be getting back up.

When you're young, you have no worries, because nothing is relying on your success.
So you mess up a math problem. You'll get it eventually.
So you botch things with that cute girl who sits across from you. You're young, you'll get it.
Re-assurance, faithfully, unwaveringly. A safety line should I fall.
But I never really fell, did I? So why am I laying down like I have?

Get up.

Get up.

I worry about everything. I worry that I will fail.

I dread what comes, what I can't avoid. But time, and time, again, it comes, and I miraculously don't die when it hits, because I've been bracing for a train-wreck impact, a force that will really, truly, finally, definitely lay me flat for good.

I close my eyes, and brace. But the crash never comes. The silence that was continued to be.

I turn behind me, but there's no train there.

I'm starting to realize, with relief, (with horror), that maybe all I needed to do was step off the track.

I look down, and realize, with a first-creeping then-howling laughter that I was never on the track to begin with.

I look off where the track is. There's no train there, either. Maybe there never was.

Maybe there never will be.

I am a mountain,
Yearning to soar with birds of flight,
But I am twined with the earth,
Whilst animals ***** empires upon my back.
As a volcano lies dormant,
I, too, murmur gently,
Solemnly observing
My frustrated and polluted vigil.

Oh how I tire of the games that are played.
The useless lies veiling truth.
In shrouds of weakness.
How the fear overcomes reason.
Foolish as they can be.
We allow their fantasy to remain.
Standing our ground.
Holding strong to what we know.
Waiting with patience and persistence.
As we always have since the beginning.
Maybe once they open the blind eyes.
To the reality presented before them.
They'll see how to mature and evolve.
Into a superior being.
Only then will they learn true happiness.

you slept on the inside of the bed
I on the outside
you were cooler
I was calmer
and we talked of everything
but of course - mostly - nothing
you left early in the morning
I slept while you readied

you eskimo kissed my nose
to say you were leaving
and leaving me there
and before my smile reached both ears
you reached the door and were gone
but still there in my head
heading toward my heart