I never felt ok
I never felt not ok
I found a way

I swam backwards, against the grain and granted my pain the grace to keep me sane while feeling so outside my brain that novocaine and Kurt Cobaine could barely find the vein of comfortably numb I need to stay inside my lane

Like Bane I was born in the dark and somehow I found a spark, the light at the end of the tunnel if the tunnel was more like a pit
It’s amazing how much perspective matters when you’re inside of it
The gravity overwhelms me when I’m at the helm, but sometimes I can get my feet in the air and my head on the ground and vertical seems a little more horizontal this time around
Perhaps that’s the trick
A trick of the light
A way to finally fight
A way to come undone from holding so **** tight

Let loose but still in boundaries, that’s what I always had to do because true freedom confounds me
I don’t know what to do when I feel so blue that even pure O2 couldn’t bring back a normal hue
Suffocating and ice skating cold as ice maybe that’s why 11 minutes won’t suffice, I’m the ice man with my ice plan maybe a cold bath will clean the blood from my hands
I can’t stand a headstand ‘cause the feeling of being free has always escaped me, locked in the trunk like Stan, and surrender sounds so sweet until I feel the pain that hides behind the sweet release
How much pain have I endured and how many people have I cured without ever helping myself
Too many to be sure
Healer heal thyself but I’m the biggest hypocrite on the shelf
Mental health or mental wealth I never know I just show myself the way of zen and keep on diving in
Sometimes it’s healing that sends me reeling, sometimes it’s joy that transcends feeling
Keeling over from either I choose neither, I want to be numb but something inside me tells me that’s dumb, don’t succumb, don’t just *** but be the sum of all the pain and like the rain fall back to earth find rebirth and recycle through the trees and the clouds no longer shrouds but part of being pure bright seeing without fleeing perfect being without me-ing am I leaping to conclusions or transcending my delusions I don’t know I’m just here spitting typing fire words for myself in thirds

Me myself and I
I always wonder why
Myself and Me can’t get on the same team but who is the wonderer when my attention wanders
One under the other I discover it’s a self collapsing doll, turtles all the way down after all
Stop and stall when I will but I still find a thrill from the jagged little pill of self-knowledge that I hate to acknowledge
I get to the ledge and say no way, not today, I can’t take the leap I’m too afraid
That’s why I stayed, alone in the dark for so long
Trapped in the pit of my despair
No one there
Maybe they were but I didn’t let them in
I didn’t let them see my sin I sent them away and prayed that someone without judgment might one day help me see the gray
I don’t know how else to convey that this black and white mentality is insanity and calamity and the only thing that ever made sense to me
I want to change, I want to be the man that I sometimes can see
But sometimes he is blurry for the tears
Blurrier still for all my fears
Blurrier yet again for all the years
So many that I let slip by and now I finally find the strength to try

To be the light at the end of the tunnel, the top of the pit
To be the hole and the funnel, gas finally lit
An explosion that propels me onward and upward
I am not throwing away my shot
I will not run away and hide
Finding a reason for these tears I’ve cried
Pit or tunnel, I’m no longer inside
One final thought for me to confide:
Aiming toward the sky is the best thing that I’ve ever tried

The mystic missed the mist

For he was focused on the most

The waterfall, the all, the awe

No longer just the grist, the gist

He was the mill, the real, the wheel

No longer knowing, he could fully feel

Past the taste, the snack, and to the meal

So freely given he could not hope to steal

Sun and moon

Flower and bloom

This is a cartoon

But also in tune

With reality

The stream flowing freely

Merrily, dreamily

The me flowing me-ly

Mealy

Milly

We are Grist for the Mill

That’s the gist, I’m just a shill

In the mist, I don’t shoot to ****

I aim my arrow with love

To heal, I wield this skill

And I point my pistol high into the sky

I will throw away my shot

Again and again

So that others know where to aim

I am but a photon blasting into and out of the sun

I am all and I am one

Just begun, yet fully spun

Not just having fun, I am become

All is well as I respire by the fire
Residing in my recliner
Nothing finer
Nor diviner
I’m no miner
But this is gold
I’m not a whiner
I’ve been told
But even so
**** this is amazing

You have to forgive yourself for past wrongs
Or they will hold you back forever
They become the specter you must face
The space behind your face
That voice saying no
That barrier to flow
Your greatest foe
That just can’t be so

If the present is all then why not just fall?
Why look to the past, to all that you lack
You could just stand tall, straighten your back
With focus and attention there’s room for ascension
Transmission to a higher plane
Where there is no pain
Nestled in the lion’s mane

Same same but different
When you say religion
I see what’s missin’
No believing in fiction
Just feel this friction
Nuclear fission
The energy between you and me
The heartbeat of the universe
The electric thrum
The tribal drum
Or two spoons on a tub
The beat moves right through me
I can’t hold it back
It taps into something I no longer lack
This rhythm flows freely
I’m no longer just me
I am that i am that I am
Endlessly spiraling
No longer dialing
But tiling this world with the love at its core
Painting the shore with light from the ocean floor
The love that I found when I stopped looking for more
The love that finally opened the door

No place to go
No thing to know
Only, flow

The spine
The antenna for the divine
A straight line
Define and refine the signals to and from the mind
Find the vibe that makes you come alive
Light the fire, the livewire, that you transmit ’til you expire

From root to crown
From up to down
This flow of energy
A life force
A coursing current
Sometimes a torrent
A constant stream that means so much
And it manifests through the sense of touch

Vibrations, reverberations
Localizing in our nervous congregations
Stemming from the spinal cord
These chakras strike a chord
Soul patches
Energy clusters that muster so much energy
And when in flow, they all shine with light
But when in doubt, tangled up
These tentacles of energy can glow too bright
When the flow’s not right
When the foe’s in sight
Fight or flight
In the world or in our mind
When we leave the flow behind
We weave a tangled thread
Which may focus in our head
Or our heart
In the root, the sacrum, the solar plexus
The throat, the crown, the third eye nexus
These energy centers out of whack when we aren’t centered
How do we get back from the twisted stream we’ve entered?

Remember
It is all sensation
Machinations in the mind cannot unwind
The neural fibers of our spine
A focal point for energy
A chakra
Resistance is a trap that keeps us coming back
Stuck in a whirlpool
That wants to flow free
But resistance blocks the stream
When there’s a disturbance in the force
Turmoil or avoidance that distorts
That chakra glows too bright
Instead of flow you start to fight
Your chest gets tight
Butterflies in the stomach
Something stuck in your throat
Remember
You can just float
You need no boat or moat or antidote
It’s all sensation, vibrations
Traveling up and down your spine
Manifesting in your mind
And in that flow there is a freedom
Sit up straight and breathe in deeper
Energy flowing freely
Resistance yields persistence
So give up the fight
Dissolve into light
Stop floundering in the whirlpool
You have found the portal
Let it **** you in
You’ll find an ocean deep within
Your mind will open
You can breathe the water
It was water all along
No longer drowning
You can just be
Resting in the deep
At peace with seven pieces of your body
Portals to the deep
Or whirlpools that will keep you stuck
You decide your own luck
Make them a locus of control
Let focus be your goal
Seven pieces finally whole

Conversations are like hikes in the realm of thought.

Multiple people traversing ideas, concepts, memories, emotions. Together.

Once the conversation ends, it’s like a completed hike, a route you can re-trek, go back to explore even further.

Like a tracing of a route on a map, the conversation is almost like a work of art. A map of the world of thought created and experienced in-between those conversing.

Some conversations, like hikes, are scattered, going all over, making many detours.

Others are a nice straight path, easy to follow.

Other conversations can take many interesting turns, detours, and leave you somewhere totally unexpected.

Some are like climbing a mountain, difficult to follow the trails, requiring great effort, but the view from the top is extraordinary.

No longer beware
Be aware
Be here now
Be clear
How?
Attend
Tend
Cultivate
Meditate
Grow
Flow
Don’t know
Don’t no
Just go
With reality
Perfect clarity
Sweet sincerity
There is nothing to fear but...
There is nothing to fear
There is nothing to fear
So be here, now

I can see the grass that carpets the sky
I hear the waves, never once asking why
I watch the birds as they effortlessly fly
I know one day I will die

Like a wave returning to the ocean
Like the water in perpetual motion
My form will change, dissolve, disperse
And then perhaps it will reverse

In and out
Like the waves on the shore
Like the breath from my lungs
Like the day and the night
A cycle, cycling, recycling

I’m one with you
And you with I
So if I expire
Yet you still respire
Am I truly gone from this widening gyre?

Duality is not reality
Illusory fractality
All is one in actuality
Merely flow, factually

We spew distinctions and categories
Reinforced with teachings and allegories
Form begets function and hides the true junctions
Structures simplify our senses so we do not swiftly die

To live as one, connected to all
Is oddly not compatible with life
When peace is necessary for strife
The rise just a part of the fall
There’s no reason to avoid the knife

For survival we must throttle this expanse of information
Categorize and segment
Love, despise, and fragment
Place labels of good and bad
To navigate the moral landscape
To function as one in the part of the whole
But in doing so, we split our soul
These labels surely take their toll
They hide the unity of you and me
Strangle the beauty to simply be
They keep us from being free

There is no light without  dark
No flame without spark
There is no cold without heat
No slow without fleet
No better without worse
No life without the hearse

Death and life two sides of the same coin
You and I seem separate but are in fact joined
These invisible lines divide and try to hide
That we are all beautifully, inevitably, intertwined

To see past these illusions
We must accept flowing fusions
Every cause has an effect
We are spiraling specks
Coalescing and creating
Forming and making
Finally breaking
The cycle continues
Eternally, infernally
Or ceaselessly, peacefully
For me
This connection is a gift
A resurrection from the rift

The void is void when we don’t avoid it
If you are me and I am you
There is truly nothing left to do
I float and live and love and die
I find little interest in finding out why
Instead I just seek to live in truth
Love
Impermanence
Equanimity

Realizing control takes a toll
Surrendering control is the goal
We are all just a part of the whole

Alone I am at home
Apart I am a part
Of the whole
Of the soul
Of the light
Awareness
There-ness
This quality of being
True seeing
When I uncover my eyes
When my quiet mind leaves lies behind
This is when I finally find
Peace
Merging with the infinite
Verging on the precipice
And leaping off so freely
That it’s really no surprise at all
When I find I fly instead of fall

There will be dancing
On that joyous occasion
That moment
When I just
Am
There will almost certainly be dancing
Of the body
Of the spirit
In that moment
When I breathe
Deeply
When the clock stops ticking
When I quit keeping score
When there is no "more"
Or "next"
Or "because"
When there just
Is

Let go now, get lost
Adrift in the sea of love
You will soon be found

Inside this mug of
Fresh brewed coffee I find a
Moment of pure peace

Meandering through my memory
Mangled, malleable history
Misty, muddled mysteries
Wistful, wondrous willow trees

Going with the flow
Yet you do not know
That the flow goes all directions

The natural lines that blind your mind
These barriers of glass
Create channels, rivers, currents
Patterns
Where the water
The flow
Simply goes

When you are always in the rapids
When your point of view is rabid
Only reacting
Not responding
So swept up in the current
You flail, flounder, following
Helplessly

Yet little do you know
The flow goes all directions
You are never alone
You are a node
You are the ocean
Not a current
You are everything
You’re worth it
You are the moment
You are worship
You are attention pointed out
Barriers are but illusions
Your life is lilting, tilting fusions
But becoming the ocean is not always easy
It’s massive, the motion makes us queasy
Most of the time we are in our own streams
Funneled by barriers as real as our dreams
But funneled nonetheless
Carried away

The process of growth
Is slowly raising yourself out of the stream
Slowly
Gradually
Adding moments of response
Instead of reaction
In that act
We find branches
In the stream
And therefore choice
We can paddle
Change our course

The world opens up
We are not the ocean yet
But on our way
As you lift yourself higher
Out of the stream
You do begin to see
The flow goes all directions
Flowing into the sea
Not only are you the ocean
But you are every stream

You float above this aquatic landscape
Coursing rivers like veins across the living earth
And, here is the magical part:
You can choose where to swim

You dive in
Headfirst
You are birthed
This is divinity
Infinity
Each moment of consciousness
A fateful flux
Between ocean and stream
Between finite and infinite
The macrocosm above
The microcosm below
The cosm in between

You are
Here
Now
The barrier between the mundane and the divine
The band of fluctuation
You are the frame
In which
This artwork unfolds

That is what happens when you can choose
When you lift out of the stream

On one level, you choose the next moment

On another level, you choose any of the infinite realities that your mind can imagine

On yet another, you are consciousness, the great ocean of light
Choosing which point to dive into the universe
Which river to course through

To enter a life of conscious experience
To sing the body electric
Be born and live and die
Be born
Live
Die
From ocean to stream and ocean again

The stream will be your entire experience
While you are underwater

But never forget:
This is Water

David Foster
This is Wallace

Meditation is learning how to swim
To realize this is water
And dryness is within
Then you learn to rise
Float above the water
Ascend
Transcend
Fly
So high
Then choose your stream
Dive in
Up and down
In and out
Like a dolphin merrily moving through the ocean
A smiling sine wave
Flowing seamlessly, dreamily
No wonder they are smiling
As free as one can be
They are the ocean and the stream
A realization that is probably easy
When one is born under the sea

We are the water in the stream
And the sea
Stretching across infinity
We are the force flowing through the tree
Splitting, branching
Diverging from the whole
But connected at the soul

In actuality
We are fractality

Silver speckled specks sprinkle the night sky
Spectacular sparks
Spots of light, flying by

A meteor shower

I stare up at the sight
Lying in a quiet field
The cities light far in the distance
Delighting in the darkness
A portal to another dimension often hidden
Paradoxically, a reality obscured by light
Away from the truth the light reveals
I now relish in the truth of the dark
The view of the night sky
A portal to the past
Yet also to the present

Back supported by the cool, firm earth
My visual field consumed
Filled with infinity
I soon realize
Here, now, in this moment
I have no head

Where my head should be
Is the night sky
Myriad stars and the endless space between

When juxtaposed to infinity
Actual, immeasurable infinity
Even my stubborn ego
Cannot keep up the fight
I dissolve into the night
And each gleaming point of light
Sometimes streaming across so bright
A glorious glint
On a short fated flight
Undertaken anyway
Without even a hint
Of spite


Each ephemeral illumination
Mirrors the spark of creation
The egoic conflagration
This meandering mentation
Of thought
Pure invention
Now caught
My attention
Now an ought
Instead of is

Rumination replaces reality
In between the stars and me
Not physical, still I cannot see
My attention follows helplessly

Infinity recedes
Thought impedes
Advice I do not heed
A voice I do not need

As suddenly as it began, it disappears
The thought vanished, my mind clears
Again I have no head
My bed is the earth
My view is infinite
Each star a blazing hearth
Billions giving birth to light across the galaxy
In this small piece that I can see
I peacefully float
In infinity
No self at all
No head to call my own
I make the world my home

Inside of every line there is a meaning hard to find
A moment of the mind
A breath of sacred life
A body not to bind
A sharpness like a knife
Pure attention
Not a weapon, but slicing through each second
Severing summoned notions
With smooth motions
Leaving only seamless being
Flowing like an ocean
Coming and going
The ebb and flow
Of life under the light
No longer lost in night
Now caught in perfect sight
For but a moment
Where the flow went
Before returning to the sea
To effervescent infinity
With equanimity
You are here with me
Flowing
Like the ocean

Perform
Per form
Performing
Per forming
Putting yourself into a form, forming
Putting your intangible, expansive, nebulous, spiraling, luminous being
Into a format
Expressing yourself in a way that transmits
A form that transmits
Per forming
Per form
Perform

I am a surfer
A peak seeker
Looking for the next crest
The very best
The time better than the rest
The time when the energy
Flows
Grows
Glows

When every neuron in my mind combines and unifies
A grapevine fire
Each power line burns with the surge of electricity
Reconnection without surgery
Neural plasticity
Electric elasticity
In this new configuration
My mind becomes a conflagration
I glow brighter than the sun
My life has just begun
I am infinite
Yet I am one
With all the world
And it’s with me
Wireless
Electricity
Connection
With infinity


That is just the start
I am but a part
Sometimes a spark
A beacon in the dark
But often just a speck
A mote afloat in a dark ocean
And so I search, a shark in motion
I swim
I feel
I open myself to the sea
I see all the possibilities
Rippling with realities
Feeling through the frequencies
I intermingle and interact
Imbibing vibrations to guide exploration
Going with the flow
Until that flow shows me freedom
When I swim in the deep end
With a pool of other motes
Each of us just one note
But when we sing in harmony
There is no beauty quite as free
Each of us ignites
Fire on the water
Glowing oh so bright
Entangled, getting tauter
We connect and intersect
The energy demands respect
The motive is beyond suspect
We live, we die, we resurrect
We flow together
Create a wave
The wave
My favorite
I savor it
I crave for it
I was made for it

Because I am a surfer
I ride this wave
I am this wave
One of many molecules
Sparkling with untold joules
Electrical, aquatic
Our flow so hypnotic
Clean, fresh, non-toxic
Neon, tidal
Unfinished, untitled
Undiminished, unbridled
A perpetual motion
In this vast ocean
Once we were alone
Now we’ve found a home

I sought this peak
And now I summit
Eventually we all plummet
Back down to sea level
And yet I still revel
I unwind in the undertow
Beached when the tide is low
I still bask in the wonder though
Awash in the afterglow

Beauty and sorrow
Splendor and misery
Fruity but hollow
No center in history
No end to this mystery

Into the unknown, I tumble down the road
Stumble and fumble but forward I’m towed
So full of life-force, this energy flowed
It may run its course until I explode
Or implode
Or decode
Or decide not to hide
Not divide, not denied
Come ride, come inside
Flow with me
Life’s easy
With blinders removed
With the surface un-grooved
We flow we flood we spread together
Never severed, sometimes channeled
By the forces of reality
Shared nature, humanity
And once we accept this perpetual motion
No longer a drop we become the ocean

Friction is a fiction
Resistance an illusion
Transcend confused delusion
Escape into this fusion
Of you, me, and reality
Wavelets in the sea
Floating, flowing, free

My head is a snow globe recently shaken
A flurry of thoughts that would best be forsaken
My mouth is an envelope sealed tightly shut
Attempting to hold back butterflies from my gut
But utter my feelings I must finally do
And when laid out bare, my thoughts are of you
Your smile, your laugh, the way that you move
Your soul etched in matter, like a record’s vinyl groove
My whole sketch is splattered with emotion and sparks
But the painting in my mind’s eye comes straight from the heart
And as soon as my lips finally do part
Your name will be the ending, the middle, and the start

Thinking I see clearly
Comes at a price
I pay it dearly
Spraying windex on glass barriers
Trapped by this transparency
I run wildly through a labyrinth
A prison of my own creation
Crimson, I move with desperation
The direct path overlooked

You are complex and unpredictable
Yet I try to predict you anyway
I put a vision of you inside my maze
I see your actions through an egoic haze
I analyze and interpret in a naive craze
And as I forecast the coming phase
I finally see this labyrinth I must raze

Wisdom is knowing how much you cannot know
Freedom is acting with that knowledge
Truth is the value that sets you free
The only path toward reality

Go shatter the glass
Veer off the path that you created
That you never knew you hated
The false entrapments in your way
So you can finally seize the day

I will not put you in a prison
I will correct this twisted prism
Come join me in this mission
Let’s create a new shared vision

We are nothing but vibrations in the universe
This movement is a blessing or a curse
In some ways, it’s a choice
If my voice is one of honesty
My frequency made of decency
That is when I let love in
Surrounded by my friends
I let my life begin again
With no thought for the bitter end

But I must remember
As I dismember the lies that lock us inside
We all have illusions of agency
Though the control box has a vacancy
And those with misfortune did not choose
Their portion of this world
The atoms with which they twirl
The vortex of thought in which they swirl
We are all along for the ride
We run and we hide
But when physics is applied
There’s no free will there to find

So what do we do
With this ultimate view?
Let’s embrace each sensation
Pay attention to creation
Not simply seeking elation
Or striving for elevation
But flowing through the sine curve
Merging with each twist and swerve
Through the ups and the down
Thankful to be around
Gratitude for a connection to the ground
The mellifluous magic of sound
The technicolor infinities that materialize
When I bat open my eyes
Or begin to fantasize

In this boundless ocean of beauty
I can weather the storms
Simply passing waveforms
Bolstered by the knowledge
That nothing last forever
But hope is here to stay
Merely a second away
And even when my skies are gray
I remember I am just a string
Energetically swinging to and fro
And when I touch my fellow threads I glow
A spark of connection
I make a mental correction
Weaving myself into this web of life
I am not alone
I am safe at home
My down is another’s up
I cannot understand this pattern
All I know is that it matters
So I will be thankful every day
That I have a chance to play
That I may not have a will
But I know I am the way

This pain inside your heart is just a part
Of this art installation
This life we start and soon depart
We love and we lose
We fall and we bruise
We think that we choose
But we’re locked in our views

Until we break free there is no way to see
The trinity of you, me, and infinity
The gorgeous  galaxies inside the passing pleasantries
The wonders of humanity
Cloaked in plain banality
The marvels of the mind
Hard to find when so confined
Meaning not divined
When we are close to blind
Regretful and resigned
The contract that we signed must be refined
Updated, redesigned
To remind us of the soulful spark of the sublime
Do not settle for subprime
Set a goal and start your climb
All you have is time
So do not waste it, copy paste it
Stop and taste it
Savor the moment
Step up and own it
All you’ve ever known has blown away
There’s nothing left to say
There is no other way
But to view this life as play

Float around inside your mind just to see what you might find
Close your eyes and be surprised
The chaos crystalized
You take a mental picture
Of a momentary stricture
Of mind manifest
And you are just the guest
Along for the ride you reside in this home but it’s not your own
You wander and roam but every tome has a different theory and it’s hard to see clearly
So you nearly lose your head as you skip off the tread
Trying to understand you cry out a command but meet shifting sand
So instead you embed and let your mind expand
Higher patterns emerge far above the prior yearn
No avoidance or grasping
No clinging and clasping
Only wonder and awe
As you float around inside this new way of being
Flowing is freeing and life is so fleeting we might as well dance
Take a chance and find romance and sink into this trance
Enhance the life you’re given by paying close attention
Let the moment **** you in and show that you don’t ken
You do not know, and yet you win
Letting go, you now begin

Future falls apart
The past is full of terror
Solace in the now

Alan Watts knew the secret to life is that there are no secrets to life
There is no answer, and there is no question
There is life. There is an infinite playground to explore
We are offered a window into this world
A body and a mind
And we have one life to live
We have but love to give
So we dance
We play
We make intentional decisions about how we construct these visions
We create
get inventive
We share
our perspective
We care
       Without incentive
We connect
get twirled
We dissect
this world
We dance
to feel alive
We thrive
when together
So get tethered and get swirled
Into novel combinations that rearrange our observations into brand new constellations
A new form of reality
We accept the plurality of interpretations
The ambiguity of our sensations
One of infinite iterations
We dance gracefully with the many ways in which our world is an illusion
And we take solace in the fusion of the stars
The knowledge that sent machines to mars
In basic science, we make sense and rationality
We reason that reality is not cheating, it follows certain rules
And in that order, we connect
We share the same constraints and operate in shared space
We can look behind a face and see infinity
Wonder and divinity
Meeting in a moment of this multiverse
We converse in true connection because we share a few atoms
You are not lost in a sea you are right here with me
Dropped on this crazy earth you did not exist then you were birthed
And **** is it confusing but I find it quite amusing and I love to share my musings
We share enough that we can see each other
I beseech you to see me as your brother
Not just another
Not an other
We all revolve around this sun
Our journey just begun
Divided we are done
United we are one

Inside my brain, there is a train
Near the caboose, a man sits in a noose
Writing fiery lines in his diary
Trying to convince his provincial demons
That he should depart the train
And not this life
So he pours out his struggle and strife
Searching for catharsis
Emotional dialysis
Escape from this chrysalis
Sometimes it is diaphanous
Sometimes he is an optimist
But in the end, the shell remains
His mind untamed
He’s not insane
But he is un-sane
He walks in mental rain
He feels a mental pain
Life is a mental drain
And so he stays inside the train

One day the train flew off the tracks
Everything the man knew went out of wack
He was tumbled and turned
He laughed and he learned
He cried and he died
And on the other side, he was reborn
No longer in hiding
Standing in the wreckage
Shaken but unscathed
The man was finally free
Free to finally be

My love for you does not burn
But it glows
It glows oh so brightly when I hold you tightly
And brighter when you are away

But it does not burn
Because if it were a fire
I would be consumed
And the heat could hurt those around me

So I do my best to glow
But sometimes
Rarely
The voltage is so high that a spark erupts

And then another
And one more
And before I know it a conflagration has erupted
I am consumed

At those moments
My heart burns
The heat is painful
But oh so enticing

Like a warm hearth on a frigid winter’s day
After a long trek through treacherous tundra
This fire beckons me
The crackling a siren song I cannot resist

But no matter how nourishing the fire
If I get too close
A spark may catch
And I am consumed

The cycle repeats

How do I glow and not burn?
How do I keep my distance
To enjoy the warmth and light
Without getting burned

Love changes the game
The players, rules, and structure
In the best of ways

Pine trees grow toward a
Heaven they will never reach
Perfectly content

Flowing together like an ocean
A sea full of emotion
Peace, love, and unity
My new community
I am one with everyone
The night has just begun
I am not just having fun
I am glowing like the sun

I am connected to you
You are connected to me
When we flow together
We can finally flow free

There is enough space for the energy to go
There is enough heat for my cheeks to glow
There is friction-free transparency
I am you and you are me
As we are bobbing in this sea
I spot a rainbow manatee

He is followed by a neon dolphin
And a purple jelly close behind
As we join them in our swim
I lovingly lose my mind

Uniting with my forest fam
I transcend my narrow space
I am now part of I am
I am no longer behind my face

I am part of a greater being
Immersed in meaning
Life is fleeting
So no conceding
Dance unceasing
Merge with grace
To the human race
And find your place
Right where you are
No need for any effort
Effervescent in the dark
Tonight’s the night you light the spark
You shine until you blind
The dark eye that tricks your mind
That warps your intuition
Now you have x-ray vision
You see through false division
You have finally solved fission
You melt into everyone you love
As your mind transcends above
You bask in the radiant glow
Lovingly letting go, you flow

Sink deeply into being
You’ll find it oh so freeing
This life is oh so fleeting
Why spend it just retreating

I’d rather go exploring
The horizon’s glow implores me
Like those who came before me
I will go to find my glory

So jump in without restraint
Rescind each shrill complaint
Evacuate your ego
Fall fully in the fairest flow
Wander where the wind may blow
See just how far you can go

Contorted and turned
My mind is a soft pretzel
Seeking inertia

As I twirl in velvet mystery
I unfurl the quilt of history
I am left awestruck and dizzy
As I let the world shine in me

My senses are assaulted then assuaged
My brain battered and barraged
I tumble in a technicolor tornado
Made from borrowing the beauty of an autumn tree
And as I fall in twilight infinity
I finally feel I’m flying free

The autumn leaves form an iridescent raft
I sail on sunbeams and fly through dreams
I gently float down these fantastical streams
My vessel gleams bright as I part at the seams

My form opens up and I splash on the deck
A filament, a photon, a spiritual speck
My truest self made up mostly of space
No longer hiding behind the mask of my face

Lost in this brand new story
A novel way of noticing the world’s constant glory
The unknown adventure insistent, imploring
I cut loose my mooring and begin exploring

Colliding with chaos I plunge in the deep
I daringly explore the dragon’s dark keep
When I finally lay my weary head down to sleep
I will have made music that makes angels weep

I approach you with love
You reproach me with hate
I share infinite positivity
Which you somehow negate

Say hello to your goodbye
I’ll never die I’d rather fly
And if I’m down here asking why
You better bet an answer’s there to find

I look up at the still night sky
I feel small enough to need to lie
Then I see there is no try
Only do, so I breathe a sigh

Sweet relief from this grief
I have a promise I will keep
I will not look before I will leap
I will ascend by diving deep

Deep into my psyche
I find nothing there to bind me
So now I travel lightly
No more gravity, I float free

Will you come with me?
You’re all that I lack
I’m holding you sweetly
Stop holding me back

Do I know a thing
Of which I did not yet know
When I was younger

Stuck in the past you look aghast at what already passed
Your brain relentlessly reminds you
Blinded by what’s behind you
You cannot look ahead
Trapped in needless tread
Stuck inside your head

Freedom’s found not from the future
But from finally finding the present
The now that shows you how to turn your head around
To leave what’s done as done
Shut off the nagging re-run
Open your eyes to the sun
Now you have beautifully begun

The moment surrounds
Clears away clouds
Fog fades away
Dismissed by the day
And freed from your chains
Only options remain
A blissful release
What I would call peace

I don’t need a crutch for creativity
I am clearly clutch creatively
Knowingly nurturing
Flowing, I’m furnishing
The room inside your mind
That you needed help to find
The grape fresh off the vine
The soulful spark of the divine
That which you can not define
Unrefined but never crude
Intimate but never lewd
Food for thought:
I consume thought for food
I transform it into rhythm and mood
I transmit it with my attitude
Take you to a higher altitude
Flying oh so free
Through clouds of crisp creativity

No man is an eye
Land and water make each other
Ever intertwined

The rain came swiftly
Cleansing me of past misdeeds
I dry in the sun

Alone we suffer
Together we can endure
Stronger when we are tethered
That I can ensure

Connected together like birds of a feather
We can weather the weather whether we face hell or heaven
We can resonate and instigate a state of inspiration
We can rest and equilibrate, share a respiration

Forming a superorganism we transform
No longer lost in this chaotic storm
We take shelter in love, sharing security
Surging electricity sparked by common unity
Purging our anxiety, embark on a new odyssey
I’ll help you up and you’ll help me see
See how great this life can truly be

Oh philosophy
Throw me into despair, then
Rescue me again

Ghosts are sort of real
False in strict reality
But real in spirit

In the sweet embrace
Of a well-written novel
I am infinite

Waves lapping gently
The wind whispers a sweet song
No one will hear it

To flow is to go where you’ve not yet called home
The unknown made of stone that is bare as a bone
Chaos and mystery jostling wistfully
Not yet confined in the annals of history

At the very limits of human ability
Requiring mental and spiritual agility
Not shrieking discordance but mellifluous ditty
There lies a place greater than the Emerald City

Energy bursts forth to fill this new realm
The body takes over, mind vacates the helm
The movement and choices come effortlessly
Without any trying, you’re finally free

I look into your eyes your heart inside of mine my hands around your hands and my mind full of demands this was never planned but now my love expands and it will never shrink, I sink into this feeling my mind and body reeling my ego’s layers are peeling and when I expose the core my spirit soars my love implores that I connect, I reach for your hand and in that moment your smile lands, my candle flares and I beware for just a sec before I reset it, I cannot regret it, love is love when you rise above these illusory constraints, painted over by love’s complaints I escape this social prison and experience perfect clarity of vision, nuclear fission, but not division, neon fusion, no confusion there was no one using just transfusing sharing vibes of peace and love, rose and dove, we fly in unison and our communion is for two and I will not forget you, my flame will e’er burn and from this place I’ll e’er yearn and you may say I never learn but I know about a moment of connection, there is no question that I have found the answer, I am a dancer, a lover, a poet, a wanderer, a ponderer, a lonely transponder so I will never squander something as precious as this. It is this moment I will miss. It is your lips I want to kiss. It is real inside our minds and that is fine with me, so thank you for reality, thank you for my sanity, and for restoring my humanity.