There falls the mystic moon light
from my room window
into the tail of a kite

The gift that it was
thrown into a corner
not knowing the importance
lied into a shady vagueness

the light beam dwells deep into the tail
and catches my attention
realizing the patterns
that it drew
using small hops and curls
with a pleasant breeze

Brings in my senses to action
to realize and perceive
that, it may be a normal gift
by the giver

But for me it's
a hope
a desire
a wish
a faith

to take the flight
and soar to a new height

Today is more than yesterday

Falling short of tomorrow

Right where it needs to be

Presently perched

On the high wire

Of being present

I’m just passing it along,
All has come – to become gone

But for a fleeting instant at most
love is a guest of an eager host

I become aware that sender I must be,
which is how it now arrives with thee

This golden dove, thy gaze, the time
Carried by messenger from the Divine

Over the Bizarre – this cloud passing by –
Is a trader’s exchange across a bartering sky

Tis only suspended by my arresting eye
Then off again, I let it fly

A poem, a song, a painful illness
Ecstatic whirling around the axis of stillness

Gone from gone, as gifts unwrap
What’s given is done, to be given back

Finding it’s way to hand and heart
By hand and heart once had a start

So you who arrive had come before
I saw another close a door

Waiting, a package sent to ourselves
arriving like stars in a hearts black well

I lean over the edge of introspection
Down to dark waters of a captive reflection

In the ripples of light and shadow I see
A present returned, and the present is me

Am I light emitted or light received
Where am I on the wheel of destiny

All I seek is its cycle’s center
Blessed reunion of recipient and sender

God undoes everything
From interstellar crystalline
To keep a distance in between
Each fair feather
in gusting flocks
in shifting weaves
with sequenced wings
numbered bezels of the clock

ripples role in circles, serpentine
spilt in pools of synchrony
beneath the melt of icicles
drop by drop, a metronome
ticks echoes in the vacancy
and tocks within those secret spaces
of snowflakes falling
and that between
a billion stars reflected, all,
in separate eyes that
once had seen until
all light went out in unison
with one wincing blink,
so darkened skies.

Such well planned placement,
where all things converge
into the vacant.
Where all things converge,
Into the vacant.

Distraction! The skirting board is alive.
Last year's grit at the back of a desk;
you have a story to write,
a good friend to deceive, phone calls
to make to indifferent ears.
Dirt accumulates, black algae
in the carpet, and nothing on your mind.

There is an ****** in the sidelines,
it will have to wait – a soap opera,
a bath of salt, a supply of coffee:
catalyst for the morning,
some razor blade, a brand new face.
“A necessity!”she drools, a fragrant potion,
whilst children cry and die in Gaza.

The cigarette falters in its promise,
the fantasist friend, last year's prophet;
you have a life to live
but that can wait another year.
Love sits in your mouth, fat accumulation;
tasteless reprieve from hunger, a motion-
anything to escape stillness, immediacy.

Men in drag lift their skirts to the screen,
the fool is on the hill, the billboard; a dream
of fame litters your focus, your self-hood.
There is a pyramid built for better people,
all these old institutions – indefatigable ladder!
The rings of tea caramelise on the table,
married to the places you have been before.

Elusive enterprise – unfulfilled spark,
you suffocate in oxygen, heat lost to air,
embrace yesterday's comfort, tomorrow's snare.
Take another day inside this indistinguishable prison.
The walls are glass. Eligible, you vote for Hope.
For the drug of the future, a disbursed present
for minimum wage, accepting slave; your eventual grave.

And when the bell tolls, as expected, I imagine
an unconvincing ending and quick new beginning
fighting my instinct that tells again and again
it's just a nonsense we force ourselves to embrace
obeying an illogical prompt never once questioned

I am a thinking person, a logical person. Yes, that is true, but with that said, I am also a feeling person, with emotions intact, yet I am well able to reason and come to solid conclusions when emotions need that counterbalance. Sometimes, I succumb to the emotional side, but I always try to keep that in check with my logic based thoughts.

That said, deep inside somewhere, apart from my intellect and ability to think properly, is an insidious, dark hole that I don't want anyone to penetrate. For if it is penetrated, it takes shape and form to reveal a monster in its lair, like a fire breathing dragon, one that cannot be reasoned with. I know well of its dangerous effects.

That monster is shame. It has been tapped into before. It has been pervasive. It roars its wounded, angry bellow and wishes to take over everything that is about who I am.  It overpowers logic and tells me that I am no good, that I am a failure, that I should just hide away from everyone.  Shame tells me that I am hopeless, helpless and of no value whatsoever.  It doesn't want anyone to come in and cleanse those wounds, for it knows no trust, knows no compassion. So it licks its own sores, soothing its own pain, has opted for self-preservation.

I want to slay that wounded dragon within, to bring it out of that dark, stinking den that it lurks in. I want to seal up the hole and cleanse away the infection, hopefully for good. I want to overcome that battle, to destroy the fierce fire breathing animal that took root early in life, from an ugly childhood, from school bullying, from life experiences that were ungodly.

But I am tired, and feel almost completely defeated. Yet I just exposed that secret to you, and ugly secrets revealed and exposed to the light can and do set us free.

So the battle continues, because I want to win and won't give up until I have.

I was just remembering today about one of the hardest times in my life. It brought me to tears.  My estranged brother—the second brother—had committed suicide, shot himself in the head out in SeaTac, Washington. He was pretty isolated from my family, angry for a long time about his upbringing and was also hiding a secret about his sexuality. As I see it, my brother always tried to act macho, and gay was not macho. It was obvious he was very depressed, and I think he was running out of money due to being out of work.

I recall my father calling me on the phone, and asking, “Dottie, are you sitting down?” Then he told me my brother killed himself. “I expected that”, I think I replied, as if I could ward off the shock, the fear, the pain and the guilt. The tidal wave was yet to come.  

I never tried, made no attempt, to **** myself. I was far too fearful of what was beyond that decision.  That doesn’t mean I didn’t want to do it. I surely thought of it as a way out, a final solution.

They told me in the hospital that I didn’t want to live anymore, not that I was directly suicidal. I believe they were right. I had a death inside, a sinking hopelessness that I could not believe would ever change. It unnerved me so that my brother could have easily been me.

I had checked myself into the psych ward, and it felt I was locked in and the key was thrown away. You would have thought that I was in for three months instead of three days.

This all took place almost seventeen years ago. In spite of feeling like I had nothing to live for. Instead of dying, I lived on. In two, easy words:  I survived. I could never adequately describe—really verbalize—how low that I had felt, at times. Words don’t do it justice.

I never dodged a bullet. I never felt my life flash before my eyes. Nevertheless, I feel like a survivor. I did have a few close calls in life--as a pedestrian in an encounter with cars. But what really makes me feel like a survivor is going up against the great wall of depression. What really makes me feel like I've made my way is fighting with that emotional giant that has threatened my very being.

No one need have a story like mine to feel like a survivor, either. Life isn’t easy for plenty of us. And really everyone comes from survivor stock—people who came before us that had to struggle to make it. With such things as slavery, high childhood mortality rates, and so on, one can get the gist.  

And one can surely believe what they want, but I believe in God and in heaven—of much more than meets the eye—of a purpose. It might not be a purpose shining in neon lights, but it’s a purpose, nonetheless. I’ve fought with the concepts of having meaning, and in my faith, at times. I mean I really struggled, intellectually as well as in gut wrenching form. But if this world is it—and then lights out—I would view my life as no more significant than a swarm of mosquitoes or a grey rock in a pile of other grey rocks. Some might scoff at that. I beg to differ.

That’s what gets me through the hard times, and keeps me going.