I used to think that without a partner
I wasn't whole
that I needed someone to complete me
what I didn't realize is that
I am 100% by myself and
a partner should also be 100%
200% combined
I am complete by myself
I don't need someone to make me whole
I am whole
a partner should be an addition
not a completion
I am whole by myself
I am complete

Lying here,
again, in the bath.

My thoughts turn
To the Ancient Romans
Gathering together
At their community baths;
Sitting naked,
Talking politics, pottery
and…poetry of course…showmen?!
Did they have no shame?
Did they let it hang
For all in sundry to speak
Their ancient prose
And then finish up
With a wash-down, cold hose?

My voice may not be sung.
But tis in the things done
In the choices I make — 
Good, bad. Unknown, they leave their wake — 

In the stories wrote,
In the battles fought.
In the colours I paint,
And decisions without constraint.

On the quiet places, it resonates,
Growing deeper with faith,
The tune changes,
With the new victories, He arranges.

Are we but pawns on a chessboard
That God just moves about haphazardly?
Or are we placed strategically;
And through God’s plans can claim: “Checkmate!”

They say with age comes wisdom — 
Yet, I am now at the stage where I know less.
I have piqued and critiqued
Myself and others, to the point of illness,
Sublimating for acceptance,
serving and fighting for the rights of the masses,

But — 

Killing myself quietly;
Loving others and receiving stress
Oblivious in blindness.

Wide eyes now,
And on the eternal quest,
to love wholeheartedly, subjugating wild-brainless
And embracing my divine mess.

Why don't the heart and mind
speak the same language?

Is it because-

the mind matures
and
the heart remains a child?

Uncovered consciousness,
truth from time stories stones tell,

great madnesses, raging troops of boys,
whose fathers wandered off

vacat

we wait, we wet the thirsty clay
we wait, we let it dry and become scripture.

If I know anything,
it’s that I’ll wait—
silently,
without reaching out,
without calling.

But if you return,
I’ll open my arms
like they were never empty,

and love you
with the kind of heart
that forgets
who broke it.