Comfort's embrace is
false and choking.
The masses gag in
their sleep, subdued
by its silken constraints.

I must learn
to travel lighter.

Steps from Nowhere
leading to Nothing
cannot be retraced.

The bounding footfalls
of another sentience
echo through labyrinthine
hallways of consciousness
that never lead back
to a common room—
that central location
where one can sit and
saying knowingly,
"Ahh, here I am."

Wild eyes
hands-to-cheeks
mouth wide open—
we know the look
it's so cliché
those ******' marauders
in Hollywood stole it
from the realm of
authentic expression—
yet there she stood
as if rehearsing for
a midday melodrama
patiently awaiting
the studio lighting,
the face powder,
the camera, the action...
but no set crew was coming
there was no show
nor lines to rehearse...
there was only a frozen moment
in which the life she knew
and the life she could not
have foreseen existed at once,
bound together by an
over-played expression of horror.

I was looking into his
eyes and he into mine
yet I couldn't tell if he
was seeing me
He drew in his last
stunted breaths
as his eyes watched
the Universe opening
to receive him
I was with him
yet so far away
I wanted to cry out
I wanted to feel him
feeling me
Then he was gone.

There is life all around us,
seen and unseen.
How much have we been
stepping over,
stepping on,
looking past?
How much life
have we discounted
has gone unnoticed
has been lost
to the ceaseless
treading of our
restless feet?