I will forever drown in your love
As we rot away on our couch
In the home we built together
Surrounded by our treasures
Our slice of paradise

Illumination,
Not only lighting my way
Opening the pathos for my ethos
My memory is on full display.

Feel the course of knowledge
Coarsely exfoliating my pretense,
Cognizant of the folly—
Of never seeing through to the end of the show.

Illumination,
Not only chases the shadows,
But shows off my deep scars,
Rooted systems of traumatic plants
In a garden, I hide behind secrets.

Sacred thoughts,
Priceless feelings,
Caught in vine-riddled ramparts
I can’t be bothered to open a draw bridge
Can’t trust that the enemy isn’t calling from inside,
Chasing me like a phantom,
All my pain in tandem, nerve death like a bad tooth.

Illumination,
Not only a granter of knowledge,
But a memento mori of a past life,
Reminded of innocence at it’s last rites
Buried so far beneath the core of the world,
I’d explode like a neutron star over and over
To relive a single moment over.

Illumination,
Illuminate all that is dark in me,
Warm me with your cruel heat,
And make a better man of me.

☔️

Don’t forget me all at once
Let me slip away in pieces.

Lose my voice today,
Tomorrow, my laughter,
Then that flicker in my eyes.

Let my words fade like old songs,
Let my kindness dissolve in silence.

I want to fall from your memory
Like raindrops
Dripping from a soaked branch
Not like a lifeless corpse.

☔️

It is so easy to get lost in the ether
Floating in the thick of doubt
Or contrived little demons poking holes in confidence.

I tether myself to the wild,
Breathe in verdant meadows,
Covered in vivid colored petals,
Tickled by butterfly wings and busy honey bees.

I am anchored —
To the orchards,
To the ancient oaks
Whispering knowledge through shaken branch
And shaken leaves under a zephyr breeze.

I am renewed in the river currents,
Water splashing, dashing along my dirtied palette
Cleansing the soot and sulfur,
Refreshed by drinking her endless waters.

It is too easy,
To let the past be a shadow
But I chase the sun,
Basking in the glory of it’s conflagration
How it warms and bakes olive tones to golden browns.

I am safe within the cornfields,
At home within the caves and waterfalls,
Unstoppable amongst the arboreal giants.
A timber wolf, howling at moonlight
A blue jaw calling in the distance,
A boy healed from a world of pain,
A man has grown to shower love on nature
A father who watched his flower blossom,
A man who didn’t let toxicity ruin wonder
Imaginative, in the ways to create.

A new day comes,
The light cascades
I coalesce with the green,
One with nature,
One with life,
One soul,
Anchored,
But free to roam.

The worst they can say is no
The worst that can happen is I'm wrong
The worst that can happen,
isn't the worst at all
The world will still turn,
the sun will still shine,
the moon will still listen when
I'm not feeling fine
I can move on or learn something new,
I don't have to fear the unknown,
I can be me-
not what's wanted from you