I miss our kisses in the stairwell
The way you played with my hair
The way you would smile
Maybe sinisterly
When I would give you an off-handed compliment.

I miss when you taught me how to drive for the first time
Illegally, of course
Did we ever do anything ethical?
I was only fourteen
But I thought I was hot ****
I thought I was tough enough for you.

I miss the first time we..."you know"
As you would say with a wink
You'd send me texts about where to meet you
It felt so secret, so sensual
And it was, for a while.

A quickie in the church boiler room
Our first time in the parking lot
It was the only place we could be alone
Well, unless you count the Big Guy upstairs
I guess we're both eternally ****** to Hell.
And somehow, I'm okay with that.

It was so wrong,
But we were so right
Too bad we lived like a train wreck.

We were built up by adrenaline
We had every reason to believe in ourselves
So young, so in love
Isn't that what they all say?

It's all cliche to me, anyways.

I thought about you this morning &
wondered about so many things.
Did you sleep well or spin in between your sheets,
dream of anything special, mind draw a blank,
drink strong coffee, spiced-tea or have neither?
Perhaps you’re a juicer, do you fancy
carrots or strawberries or both?

Enjoy two Eggs Benedict or three scrambled,
have whole wheat toast or rye, some nutritious
granola crunch with a bit of soy milk?
Did you partake in a quick steamy-shower or
draw a soothing hot bath with lit candles & soft-jazz?
I’m wondering if you wore your hair
up in a bun or let it fall down,
all round your pretty angel face?
Did you apply make-up or
go Au Naturel, frown
putting on lipstick & smile
getting dialed in
for the start of a brand new day?
Did you dress to the nines or go business-like,
perhaps a trip to the gym for a spot of yoga?

Did you drive your earthy VW-bug or rev up the sporty Saab,
take the trolley, ride the moped, or hop on a bike?
Where you late to your work or
did you get there early enough
so you’d have plenty of time
to think about me?
I think about that too.

I looked down the steep cliff I'm standing on
And I tell myself, it's okay.
But in truth, it's not.
Because I replay a scene in my head
That I would fall and break
And then I'm gone.
I looked at the guy right in front of me.
And I tell myself, it's okay.
But in truth, I'm not.
Because I want to share my heart with him
And be each other's strength.
But my heart is glass.
I looked in front of the mirror
And asked myself, "why?"
And I found an answer
to why do I
have to be this way.
In every fear that I face,
I ask, "What if?"
A future that might happen
A future that might not.
What if I fall?
What if I break?
Too many what-ifs
Too many to waste.
It is the seed of fear.
The seed of restlessness.
To be engulfed in the branches of suffocation
Because of a two-word simple question,
What if?
There is blue in the great vast sky.
There is green in the towering mountains.
Wouldn't it be stupid not to open your eyes
Because you ask yourself, "What if I go blind?"
We do not want to be hurt.
We do not want the pain.
So we hide.
Hide.
Hide in the soft, caring embrace of fear,
But we do not experience life.
For before there is a butterfly,
there is the breaking of a cocoon.
Before there is the sun,
there is the breaking of the dawn.
It hit me.
Hit me hard.
Hit me fast.
Hit me through.
There is nothing wrong to be afraid.
But to stay afraid for the rest of your life,
is like holding a sword
but hiding in the war.
We have the power to fight.
We have the power to break free.
The first step is to stop
asking "What if?"
There is a magnificent world right there in front of us.
There is beauty of every kind.
And fear keeps us contained,
to experience what God has provided.
Earth is beautiful.
Life is beautiful.
It's too wasteful to waste it,
to live it with What-ifs.

i woke in an asylum ward.

the skies were replaced by tainted walls
and the sun, by a menace clock
the second hand clicked its tongue
60 fifes and the minute hand waves
every hour, a blade-like hand
drags my knees across the polished floor
and i wonder why they bothered
paving the ground for me
when my skin only tore like glass
flesh exposed and the doctors do not see

my fingers hurt from the hands i hold
but i can't let go.
what if i run out of time?

the smell of chemicals overpowers
the scent of flowers
the epitome of time was the wilting
as i am dragged out of sight

they say time will tell
but all i hear is the hollow echoes
of sharpened clockworks
i fear a wrong move will throw the sparks
into the gas tank that we drink from

my name is not on this bracelet
the doctors draped across my wrist
and if i don't tear these walls apart,
these hands might drag me into a morgue.

Continuing to live - that is, repeat
A habit formed to get necessaries -
Is nearly always losing, or going without.
It varies.

This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise -
Ah, if the game were poker, yes,
You might discard them, draw a full house!
But it's chess.

And once you have walked the length of your mind, what
You command is clear as a lading-list.
Anything else must not, for you, be thought
To exist.

And what's the profit? Only that, in time,
We half-identify the blind impress
All our behavings bear, may trace it home.
But to confess,

On that green evening when our death begins,
Just what it was, is hardly satisfying,
Since it applied only to one man once,
And that one dying.

Yesterday's long gone; burnt down to bits
Fragments of bitter and sweet memories
Tomorrow is like a bright but distant star
Like a race against the whispering breeze
 
Our hands hold no mass in gold or silver
But there's more to treasure in right now
 
The day is as rich as the night is young
While our hearts beat and our lives are
While our dreams surge and slowly burn
We'll try once more to shoot for the star
 
We'll challenge our reality; face our odds
We will live like kings; live like its our last
We'll steal moments from destiny's hold
And fabricate our own fate if we must
 
If our future should melt to a pool of lies
We'll take pride in this truth; we have now
 
We'll run in the wind; kiss in the breeze
We'll dance in the rain, play in the sand
We will wish upon Africa's noonday sun
We will conquer distance hand in hand
 
We'll smile longer. We'll laugh harder
Enjoying every moment while it's prime
We'll fight stronger. We'll dream bigger
While we still have the might and time
 
We'll live in the best way time will permit
We have all that we need if we have now
 
We'll scream louder. We will aim higher
We will hold tighter. We will learn more
We will grown older. We will be prouder
Cuz in the arms of us is what we look for
 
We'll love like it's all we've ever known
Cuz all that matters is we have right now
 
Keep Smiling

The walls give way to time. There is no way to imagine the reality of words.
As I scribe I am watched, and the words erase.
There is no meaning in paper.

The voice that comes when I call is never wrong.
It is the reality underneath the paper, underneath the meaning.
Everything we live is a colorful spectre,
a patient expression of a Self we have just forgotten.

And Self is an alien being
riding a heap of slowly rotting meat.

The reality of the universe is that even the shadows live and watch,
and time does not notice your closed eyes and hands clutching your face,
as waves of reality speak to the third.
Only then do the eyes see.

I am versed in the deeper Color, in the unreachable Shape.
There is a world that does not know what it is to cry.
Time comes through your closed fingers.

Meaning is awake and self-creating.
The waves that come are not accidents but spontaneous meaning.
Space unfolds in words, in the minds of those living on its pages.
The page is not real.

Many things coalesce in the dance of nothing,
the beauty of the perpetual unreal.
Eyes are not needed to See.
There is a meaning in Light that makes itself known through the Word.

Everything is a record that closes in on itself,
and eyes are closed meaning that leaves
the memory of Sight, and were my eyes gone
I could still see the waves of time exploding from my self-aware Sight,
for I am the bearer of Meaning greater than Shape can express.

The excess of Meaning must be wrought on the Page,
on worlds of our own imagining.
There is a truth in the telling.