Acquired passion is manageable, has a schedule of your own making, and adds a new dimension to life.

Combustible passion takes over every part of you. Nerves exploding. Vision magnified. Touch is painfully exquisite.

Sometimes the line is fine, one melding into the other without your permission. Different colors. Ice and fire.

The fiery passion destroys.  Entry is one way only. Once scorched by the sun, no return but to the  beige life.

No kaleidoscope of colors, no tingly frissons. No flash of brilliance nor ******* heights. Just three meals a day.

For whatever it is worth...
_____

Once upon a time
I came upon a flute;
chic, delicate and fine -
fashioned impeccably
from exceptionally fine wood
hauled discreetly
from the flourishing forest
of fumbling youth.

‘twas just one of its kind.

A surrogate to which
you would never truly find.

One scale at a time
one throb at a rhyme;
its notes ripened into
mesmeric, beatific rhymes.

✽

The day was Wednesday
and December was the month.
My fingers had gone all numb.

Aquiver...

I held the flute nimbly -
the dew on my vernal lips
caressing it gently,
when the clasp came undone
and the comely flute
split in two
or maybe five or seven.

The tally is incidental
but the occasion,
for sure,
was nineteen eighty seven.

A proxy I could never find.
‘twas just one of its kind.

✽

Just this verse remains
like a tease that dwells
amidst lost reminders
of contiguous yonder.

I've been unicyclist before,
balancing myself on a tight rope,
juggling to perform when losing hope,
oh wait, its not my new slippery *****.

Can I wear a mask?
take the clown to task,
you needn't ask,
the smile will wear on
despite a tearing cask.

I don't need a ringmaster,
I keep my own show,
magically will pull through,
'tis true there is nothing that you owe,
except maybe a friendly hello.

I am not looking good,
I am not looking bad,
I am not looking at all,
I am sleeping.