With a heavy heart and one-luggage-too-many she hurried to her
boarding gate in an attempt to catch her flight.

Just before going through security she stopped and turned, and teary-eyed asked: "will I see you again?"

Unable to speak or console her he held her tightly, stroking her hair gently and caressing her back softly.

"In another life, dear."

In another life.

By the time I was ready to listen to my father's counsel,
I was already haunted by mistakes I made not listening to him.

I wonder, will I only truly listen to timeless counsel,
when my own children shall ignore my own?

Why is rising from the ashes like a Phoenix
inexplicably preceded by our eventual demise?
Is failure truly a part of life,
or have we been conditioned to believe as much,
by those who wish us blissful, and sustained, ignorance?

Even if I had the answer,
would you want to hear it?
Are you even ready?

Do you often, just before slipping away
into a dream, find yourself agonizing over what it all could have been?

Are you not numbingly furious over the things you didn't do,
and the ones you shoud have done,
yet couldn't?

Are you haunted by your past, and sailing towards a hollow future?
Is your present devoid of purpose?

Take comfort in knowing that, aboard the ship you command
sail the rest us of us lost souls,
wandering the endless sea of life,
rowing towards an unreachable horizon.

black can be two things:
nothing
or everything.
black can tell you stories
or stare at you in silence.
black can be the depths of hell
or the limitless universe.
you can get lost in its darkness
or be found in its unparalleled dimensions.

black can be cold and idle
or etch an agonizing fire in your heart.
it can invite you for dinner
or devour you whole.
you can hear your blood rushing in its quiet
or be haunted by the resident banshee.

you can fall in love under the swirls of black ink when your tears touch the wet brush strokes
and you can lose yourself in the intricacy of her black pupils at midnight under the moon.
but you can also look death in the eyes and submit yourself to it
you can feel your heart blackening with the poison of heartbreak and grief.
you can feel the raging sun and the crumbling constellations if you close your eyes hard enough.
thunder jolts through your body like lightning on live wire
intensity builds up leaving  you breathless but begging for more.

black can be the moment you took your first breath
and black can be the moment you take your last.

Why do we write, really?
And where? and when? and to whom?
Does it all matter?

There's a beauty in poetry, in that, much like emotion itself,
it fills us with passion, and challenges us to explicate the abstract.

There's a beauty in attempting to unravel the mysteries of the mind,
in the form of a poem, shared across a world wide web,
of like-minded balladeers.

Why do we write, really?
I ask you to wonder what our lives would rather be
if we didn't.