Well, they say that the key to life,
Is to simply maintain motion.
              So when you can't breathe the air,
              It's best to emulate the ocean.

I've found that I'm much better-off moving,
So I'll let these currents do the choosing.
             Because I can't decide myself,
              If my self-worth is worth proving.

I've got wounds that need soothing.
                         I'm so tired of losing.
I've lived too much, in too few years,
                        For such a lack of improving.

                                  -    -    -

I need a device to twist this plot -
Some sort of deus ex machina.
I need a key to this lock,
            But, there's something blocking the
            Path to my salvation.
            I still long to feel elation.
But I'm being strangled by the laws
Of this "freedom-filled" nation.

                       I fell under the illusion
                       Of a perfect constitution.
                       But, this justice isn't clean.
                       It's hardly more than sheer pollution.

I scream to drown the noise,
            And fight to hold my poise
Against this sonic wave
            That dismantles and destroys.

This place that I called home…
            It’s all that’s left of what I own.
I fear I’m destined to the desert,
           Or somewhere desolate to roam.

Tried to convince my brain this wasn’t real –
           That lies are all I feel.
I’m not sure why I fear this noise;
           There’s nothing left for it to steal.

                        -         -         -

Yet, I plug my ears and scream;
         Tear the stitching from my seams . . .
I find it difficult to sleep,
         And near-impossible to dream.
I scream so hard it makes me sweat,
And my skin begins to gleam

                        This heat turns smiles into tears,
                         Like water into steam

My head begins to ache.
My hands begin to shake.
If I chose the wrong path,
             I made one hell of a mistake.
While my lungs still permit,
             I’ll keep their volume set on high,
Lifting my head to the clouds,
             To scream at the sky.

I have yet to hear an answer,
        And while I’m not much of dancer
I learned some steps from Lady Luck
        In hopes to cure me of this cancer.

                        -         -         -

Now, I don’t believe in luck –
But she still left me with something . . .
While we danced I took notice;
The noise dulled slightly to a humming.

I looked back to Lady Luck
– and I’m sure this wasn’t just a dream –
But she had vanished to the air,

                             Like water into steam.

I said “I don’t believe in luck.”
She still left me something, though.

She said:
                   “You can’t predict the world –
                      I assume this much you know…
                      But if a farmer plants a seed,
                      In that spot, a plant will grow.”

One day, my throat gave out.
For no longer, could I shout.
And I don’t believe in luck,
             So I was simply left with doubt.

I cursed that lady’s words.
I told myself that she was crazy.
       When something caught my eye…
       There - at my feet - grew a daisy.
A daisy… In the desert…
So despite how bad my head hurt,
I thanked God for Lady Luck.
         I thanked God that I had met her.

The noise I heard was her opposite.
               It was the presence of chance.

I've learned the farmer can’t predict the world,
But, as surely as seeds grow into plants . . .
                     My only choices are my actions.
                     So, I think I’ll take today to dance.

Mother Mary, Mother Mary,
          Whisper in my ear.
Give me something tangible to touch –
           Something audible to hear.

Send me a sign, so I know I am alive.
I want to know it’s not in vain
The I let the world inscribe
           Such a mark upon my soul.
           Give me a sign to make me whole.
Help me find peace through the chaos.
           Just let me know you’re in control.

Mother Mary, Mother Mary,
Whisper in my ear.
I know each breath could be my last –
Yet, my death I do not fear.

I’ve been shackled by my questions
And I’ve watched them as they’ve grown.
I searched endlessly for answers –
When all along I should have known
That the answers I seek are not ones that can be found.
So I pray that you’ll whisper. I pray I’ll hear the sound.
I pray that death holds more than what we bury in the ground.

It’s been nearly twenty years, and somehow I still have faith.
But I fear the truths I know are lies; I fear that virtue is a waste.
Still, I wait for your whisper,

Mother Mary, Mother Mary.
Despite how much I’ve suffered; this burden I still carry.
Because I trust this world holds reason.
I trust my struggle wasn’t worthless.

Mother Mary, Mother Mary,
I pray I suffer for a purpose.

Deplorable and horrible;  
              Despicable, abhor-able;
It reiterates, evaluates,
              Desiccates, and exacerbates . . .

It never fails, to fall too short,
But always fails as a support . . .

In an attempt to be freed, it misleads to bad deeds
And creates a hunger -- vacuous,
                               Yet, impossible to feed.
It chases the light away,
                               And it longs to be alone.
So I am so ashamed to say,
                               That in my skull,
                               It found its home.

So I'll fight and fight against it,
. . . But I'll always lose the battle.
It seems that even as I trudge ahead,
That somehow I still straggle.
It is the artist, I am the instrument.
Like a light bulb to its filament.
Every day I'm at the bottom,
Forced to climb back up the hill again.

But I think the day has come . . .
When I've finally stopped walking.
I've reached a door that can’t be opened,
And decided to stop knocking . . .

It's me and who I've become;
It's my actions and what I've done . . .
So, as much as I despise it,
It seems my brain, and I, are one.

My hands still ache –
I’m convinced it’s my atoms splitting
No one asked me how I got addicted –
They said the focus was on quitting

But I’m here in the present
So I must have a had a past
It’s too bad “Where’d you come from”
Is a question never asked.

I went through hell to get here
So it should matter where I’m from
I tell them “it should matter what I’ve seen…
It should matter what I’ve done.”
He then responded like a father and began his sentence, “Son…
It’s the shock, not the trauma, that makes the body the numb.”
He said, “The thing you search is silence.”
“And yet you let your monsters drum.”

You start to figure things out. You know --
When you’re locked up all that time.
But you learn not from what you’re taught,
Instead, you learn from what you find.
And I found mine in the written word,
I found it in a rhyme.


Numbers always helped me think, so I looked for something to count
And as I pondered that man’s words, the room’s only light went out.
So I counted the only thing that I could feel aside from air,
And his seven words made sense, as I counted the one thing
That in the dark was always there.
I’m my own favorite number, so I began counting,
“One…”
But this time I didn’t count to two.
And the monsters didn’t drum.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t rely on someone else
For the first time, in the dark, I counted on myself.
I then knew why “Where’d you come from” was never asked --
Both they and I lived in the present; we couldn’t act upon the past.
It doesn’t matter where you came from, or even why you’re here.
For your past dictates your penance, but the present is your frontier.

The rain keeps falling
As dry as a drought.

                       “ Rain drops heavier than water,
                           When it’s laden with doubt. “
He said,
                       “ The ground simply can’t hold it
                                     … So it must go without. “

               ” You’ve never known water to stain,
                  But you’ve never felt this kind of rain.
                  It’s thicker than your skin.
                  It stains your clothes and what’s within.
                  It sounds like hammers as it pounds -
                 And yet, the ground won’t let it in.

          So it flows like a river that only gets bigger;
          It runs like a force that knows no remorse.
                     Despite endless efforts to stop it -
                     It still runs like a faucet…
                                        With nowhere to drain. "

But if the ground holds no plants, is the water so vital?
Is the rain’s sole purpose this lifeless recital?
The ground stays so strong.
It holds fast, like pure stone
But can one stay so long when one’s so alone?
When one is forced to move,
               Will the ground or the rain?
And when the first one has gone,
               Will the other remain?


For now, they coexist,
Each facing a challenge it can’t resist -
Both unstoppable and immovable,
                              They hopelessly persist.
As complements, they combine
                        With the product of a flood.
But the water that’s collecting
                        Has the consistency of blood.

There’s a heart behind this water.
It pulses, instead of flowing.
So you turn to the only man you know,
             for parting words with danger growing.
And he says, as you leave:

               “ I wish you luck where you are going.
                   My son, you’ve only seen the rain . . .
                    . . . The winds are not yet blowing.

A lonely man, broken,
Crawls across the grass.
In his hands but one thing:
A heart made of glass.

His belongings were air . . .
The rest he left behind;
He crept slowly in search,
As time kept its bind.

As he crawled inch by inch,
Time passed the man by.
When he stopped for a moment,
To see his end growing nigh.

There, at last, he broke down;
His love yet to see birth --
When he knelt up from the ground,
And cried to the earth:

"What will be of this heart, what is it worth?!"

He tightened his grip,
On what he ever held dear --
But his grip became loose,
As his death became near.
Withering away, he let one plea be known:

"What will be of this heart? For this heart has no home!"