In a wakeful contradiction, it lays fact between my fiction,
Tangling subatomics, it unravels as its tricks spin
deeper toward the outward...
                                      it won’t let up, 'til I give in.

Over matter, lay my mind…
I tell a lie to pass the time...
But there’s no reason nor a rhyme --
                                            Less still, a purpose?
I search for something to remind my mind
                     that there’s truth that isn’t worthless…

But as always, failure appears;
                              in a sort-of amnesic continuity.
And my reality lies to my own mind
                              Just as well
                              as it succeeds in its futility.
With destruction as its manifest,
It tells me that I stand my tallest
                              Upon two buckled knees.

And just as faith will find one’s doubt --
                  a search within has left without.
It seems that an answer, once sought out,
                  will be left lacking its question.
My truth divides itself,
                   as a product of infinite misdirection.

I try to substitute a reason for a rhyme.
But with no lies left to pass the time...
                              I swallow a dose of ignorance.
It goes down smoother than the truth.

In a war that started with a truce,
This world betrayed my faith to show me:
                                 that I'm only tall enough
                                 Once I’ve been
                                                         cut
                                                             down
                                                                ­     slowly.

A pill too large to swallow,
                I think I’m choking on myself . . .
Or the irony of asking,
                     “How could I be so careless?”
Here I stand, Barely standing,
                   Consumed almost entirely
By my own dry-heaving self-awareness...

Left to fight the fears that my nightmares create;
I’m still running from my past,
                          yet, haunted by my fate.
They walk beside me always,
                          shadowing wholeheartedly —
Existing as a duality, both apart from,
                         and a part of me.

These ghosts have taught me very little...
                                    Aside from what I hate.
But, I've come to learn not to fear
                                    The forceful hands of fate.
For I shudder not at the thought of destiny,
                                    Or the inevitable in time...
Instead, I fear the eventuality of the choices
That were solely, and entirely, mine.

I fear that my will may be of enough influence, alone...
That fate itself may collapse beneath decisions like my own.
Or that I, myself, might be constructing
What destruction I will find
Among my shattered spirits and convictions,
In these depths to which I climb.
​

Both latter and former, contrary and congruent
Neither gas nor solid, the river moves fluid.
No end and no beginning, just water moving… swimming…
A formless former that is a powerful latter
Contradiction through symmetry and space within matter
Passively energetic as potential becomes kinetic
Transparently reflective and silently phonetic
Thermally dynamic and fluidly frantic
The waters maintain a static chaos through mathematical mechanics.

Mechanically architected and architecturally mechanic
Water seems the perfect medium for analysis of a dynamic.
Dynamic existence and persistent resistance
Statically chaotic seems the architect’s insistence.
Equilibriomatic, with addition subtractive
Empirical measures fail to analyze the passive.
What simply is, simply is… Invincible to mimicry or microcosmic reenactment.
Experimental methods seek to unify the synonymous
Attempting to prove the objective with a subjective hypothesis.
Learn from the water, let its metaphor be imminent….
For the divine externality lies not without, but within it.

Ignorance, bliss, an indiscriminate kiss
Gracefully balanced atop a bone-crunching fist.
A sleuth in the shadows, a looped rope in the gallows
Awaits to hang the one who climbs it toward the hallowed.
The stairs on which you ascended with the promise of heaven ended
Abruptly, unjustly, and with heavy fists corrupting
The body and soul, your constitution…
In contrast with your ego’s delusions,
Have shown themselves to be
The antithesis to illusion.

The reality belief is a cold-blooded thief,
That will rob you of your senses and leave the Self defenseless
To the distortion of optics, the twisting of oral…
Succumbing to illusions of evil and/or moral.

Of course, one would ask, “What am I to do?”
The answer is simple: Do not look within,
For the sought-after lies through.
Heighten awareness to see through the hallowed,
For the beast in you cannot be drowned
If it forces the waters to shallow.
Consciousness is heavier than the act of mere existence
If it is heaven is you seek, you’ll need much more than sheer persistence.

I’m in my prime; at the cusp of my development.
A few more years of growth make decay a lot more relevant…

Glass Elephant,
Glass Elephant,

Irrelevance, benevolence,
Compassion, or malevolence;
I’m one of few who sees it sums no difference.

Glass objects.
Or Elephants.
Irrelevance,
Irrelevance

Striving for motion, with motive elusive
Each thing I endeavor is far too exclusive
I need something inclusive, objectively singular
A sinusoidal wave with a mean lacking integers
Peace in zero and equilibrium inclusion

Glass Elephant
Glass Elephant
Delusions, Delusions

You led me down the mountain just like a raging river
My soul had no path, no less a nomad than a drifter.
You carried me as if there were no other way
No slow pace down the mountain – in your current, I will stay.
We’ve built an interdependency, your water begets life
But be gentle, my dear— water cuts just like a knife.
You maintain and sustain, bringing life within the rain.
Carving rivers into rock, your blood pumps through my veins.
Body to blood, and earth unto water
Propelling each other, we’ll make us stronger.

For the past year or so, I’ve been hearing some singing –
Or maybe it’s pounding…
Perhaps more of a ringing.
Though I’m not sure what it is, I know what it creates –
Some sort of bond –it would seem… To forge together our fate.
The sound is near ethereal… It combines our raw materials.
And while I can’t seem to find precision in an attempt for definition...
It’s been playing since we met –
It’s music with no musician.
But what’s a musician to music?  We only need nature to infuse it –
We’ve got music all around us, for us to listen as we choose it.

I think we chose the sound of steel in hopes of finding something real –
For as bad as it gets damaged, a simple fire is sure to heal.
This world can be a cruel place, and we’ve got the wounds to show it.
I’ve found life moves too fast, but your soul helps me to slow it.
With how we’ve been bombarded, our steel was sure to be discarded…
But the fires gave us shape… and our work of art was started.

So a sword is what we’ll be, the finest weapon of you and me –
And although we’re made of steel, we’ll keep growing like a tree –
More intricate and divine, as we stand the tests of time.
Free to be shaped, not burned, in our metallic design.

Cheated and defeated –
                  my mistakes, themselves, repeated . . .
A monster made of gluttony;
                  I’ve no option but to feed it.

I saw the writing on the walls,
           But, my feeble eyes had failed to read it.
Still... I’m not convinced that this warning,
        Was chosen by my eyes, not to be heeded.

Perhaps my head was the catalyst
           A byproduct of an acid trip;
           Had split this world in two.
Some for me, and some for you.
Maybe . . . this warning wasn’t meant for me.
Maybe . . . it’s for the second half of two.

“Ye kind-hearted shall not go forth”
                              … is what I believe it said,
But I can’t be too certain.  
                              After all, I’ve lost my head.
Which brings up some emotions -
                               Or maybe, they’re allusions?
But, I can’t tell through the hallucinations
                If these are real or illusory movements.

So the fish hook pulled me deeper . . .  
                       All the while, stretching skin.

                       I knew not about the rabbit hole
                       to which I just dove in.

It seemed a lot more like an alley when I first took a glance,
Once I took a second step, I guess I chose to dance.

               Oh, what a performance it’s been!  
                And we haven’t yet hit intermission!
                 Although, I’m not sure when that is…
                            As I seem to have lost my vision.

The Queen of Hearts shouted,
                              “Off with his head!”
But without a brain to notice,
      I couldn’t hear what she had said.
She said it before the guillotine dropped…
So was my brain already gone
                      When my head hit the block?

I’m not sure where to find the pieces.
                     I didn't know I fell apart.
                     I didn’t know
I was a headless servant
                    To the heartless
                    Queen of Hearts.

Now, without a head,
                   I’m trying to piece it back together.
And I’m worried that this rabbit hole
           just may have me trapped here forever.

So, I’ll trace my steps backward, to try to find my "forward."
But as I set my pace faster, I find I'm moving slower.
Things turn upside down, when you’re this far down . . .
And the carousel just spins – around and around.

Gaining speed, with increasing malice
I hopped right on
        And chose a different path than Alice.

Here we arrive again at choice, but was it one at all?
This is when I found the Hatter – where the bounds of logic fall.
He asked me why I was there.
             He said, “My boy, have you gone mad?”
And as I searched for reason,
                                          I concluded that I had.

Standing on the ceiling,
            we both watched the world, twirling.
Sipping from our cups,
            between the stirs of sterling.
We chatted over tea, and while I was now content with spinning . . .
My content grew simultaneous
with the Cheshire Cat’s grinning.
He looked at me and said,
                                      “Upside down, yet, you seem alright?”
I responded with a “Hm…”
                                        and my spinning turned to flight.

I flew from the table and
       As I questioned if I was stable,
I grasped for the air.
       And for the first time . . .
                                          I was able.

Apart from the question, I now knew that I was mad,
Because I gripped a fist of air,
                             knowing full-well it can’t be grabbed.
I swung through the air…
                                    maybe I flew . . . I’m not sure.
But as I passed over ground, I surveyed it for Her.
I looked for Alice as my guide,
                              but someone took her place:
The "heartless" Queen of Hearts
                                     and her over-sized face.
Was it the face? Or just the head?
                            What’s ahead without a face?
It seems I lost the bounds of logic
                                    upon my fall from grace.

Was I flying?
Or was I falling?
It seems that orbit was my calling . . .
Where, as high as I fly,
   the paradox of orbit keeps me falling.
Maybe I’ll stay out here, where it’s quiet by the stars
And there’s no signs to read;
               no catalysts for scars.  
But did I ever escape?
                Am I still in the hole?
I found among these fragments
          the completion to my soul.

Somewhere between falling and flying,
              I told the truth while I was lying
And found my equilibrium
               between the living and the dying.