Oh, how I wish the world could simply see my view,
If for nothing but admiring
                               The infinite shades of you.
Your blue brings me down,
                               And your orange lifts my spirits.
Your voice shines bright like yellow,
Yet, I’m the only one who hears it.

I know some days you feel colorless,
Like a lackluster grey…
But I swear you’re more colorful, than the finest bouquet.
Sometimes I sit back and admire –
Simply watch your colors sway.
Because I know I could stare forever,
And they’d never melt away.

If I didn’t know better,
I’d keep her picture in my pocket.
I’d put another in a safe…
I’d double-check that I had locked it.
But her colors chose me, as their only admirer.
And mine chose her too,
So I pray that they’ll inspire her.

It’s a beautiful thing we share…
This reciprocal arrangement;
If you gave me a million chances,
There’s not a chance that I would change it.
It’s enigmatic and strange -- infinite and moving,
Your love’s the only truth I’ve ever felt,
That never needed proving.

I don’t need proof it’s the truth.
I can feel it in my soul.
I just wish the world could see the way
Your colors make me whole.

Since the day I saw your spectrum,
My world gained a fourth-dimension.
I saw your colors rise up; I watched their ascension.

I couldn’t help but stare…
To this day, I’m captivated.
Once our colors intertwined,
I knew our forever was fated.

I want you to know you’re my infinity…
I’ll live eternally with you.
Each time your colors grace my eyes,
I swear my soul is born anew.
Every day I grow older… Yet, I’ve never felt younger.
You color my world;
You’re my life’s biggest wonder.
You’re the paint to my canvas…
And the lightning to my thunder.

“You know, son… There’s a reason...
God had a reason to give you broad shoulders --
It’s so you could carry this load… It’s so you could hold up all these boulders.”

“But these boulders aren’t my own, so why did He leave me them to hold?”
I can hardly hold them now… surely I’ll collapse when I grow old.”

“You can’t think in terms of time, it is not a restriction by which He is bound…
Instead you must think it as your cross, think of the thorns upon his crown.
He will not notice the time; that’s a human concept we’ve created…
Instead he’ll judge you by the size of the burdens with which you’re weighted.”

“Well, that’s a relief, but how can you be so sure?
He’s never turned the night to day; I’ve never seen a disease he’s cured.
Excuse me if I’m wrong, but I struggle to have faith
When the world that he created has become this wretched place.”

“I can’t convince you that he’s real, I can’t show you how to feel.
But if I showed you cold and silence, would you say that they were real?
Yet these aren’t real things, simply the absence of others…
So you must look to the voids, when you wish to discover.”

“I hope that you’re right. I hope he’s up there listening…
I hope there’s golden gates I can admire, I hope that they’re still glistening.
I hope God can take my hand, and tell me ‘Son, you’ve done well.’
I hope to God there’s a heaven – ‘cause I’ve been living in hell.”

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.