carry my joy on the left.                                      carry my pain on the right.
                                    the devil collects it with a grin,
                                         our love in a ball of yarn.
[and] lavender ribbons of rain sang,
ridding my heart of mortal fight.
                        so try[ing] to be somebody, so try[ing] to feel somebody,
                        so try[ing] to leave somebody, so hard to be somebody
      [so] rock me mama like the wind and the rain,
      rock me mama like a southbound train.
                                    and if you're still breathing, you're the lucky one[s],
                                'cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs.

i am fighting a disease,
so i became a ******.
my drug of choice: just to run.
to run each day with an unfeigned grit.

the medicine for my mind.
no need for a doctor to fill the prescription.
my morphine.
my high.
ease my anxious mind
and uplift my heavy heart.
calm floods my insides,
immersed in quiet rapture.
****** exhaustion settles in
and silences the disease-
those incessant, enslaving urges that regulate my every move
are replaced by stillness.
this
is bliss.

setting the stage:* driving through this tiny southern town i call home, i saw a man.
out the window i saw him, mid 60's, walking up to a small white box-shaped house.
a word, with no obvious association to this man in particular, came to thought.
the word: complacent.
i proceeded to conjure up an entirely (insert appropriate emotion here) story about this man.  
(the story of this man being a symbol for [what i believe to be the majority] of humankind.)
the entirely (insert appropriate emotion here) story goes:

his entire adult life, the man has spent each day working hard at a job not his passion .
this job has enabled him to provide food and shelter to his family for 40 years.  
as a young person, his face lit up when he spoke of his dreams and aspirations.
the light has since gone out.
he is not unhappy, no. (complacent)  
he has accepted this is the way of life.
he works 8-5pm, gets home and watches a bit of television, eats supper with his family, perhaps smokes a pipe, goes to sleep.
and repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat,repeat...for forty years.  
he never gets angry, never raises his voice or fist.

now here is me.  
my life is an emotional rollercoaster.  propelled by my heart. one second of blissed-out lightness is followed by deep-gut sadness is followed by adrenaline-fired passion is followed by bone-hollowness is followed by complete calm is followed by intense panic... and on and on for 25 years.

complacency is something creative minds envy during the hardest times.
the days of existential crisis
the sleepless panicked nights of 'what am i doing with my life
the tender kisses transformed to screaming matches with our respective beloved.

i need something to wake up for each morning.
i need art like my lungs oxygen.
i need feeling too much like my body blood.
and in the hard times, if i were to try complacency for awhile,
surely i would cease to function.  

and surely a deep-hearted sadness consumed me as i thought of the 'man' and of all of the people living perfectly complacently on this earth.

and then again, is there no admiration to be found in this 'man' who has worked so hard, poured some much sweat and blood into a job not his passion so that he can provide for his family?  the tears swell in my eyes as i type these last lines.

expansive untold body revealed in moonlit splendor.
obscure and nebulous.
seductive and serene.
offers relief from the swirling, ever-whirling thoughts in my head.
if i were to desend, and beneath each crest remain, i could escape
existence.

my eyes: see nothing, yet see everything.
my arms: reach out and feel nothing, yet each fingertip electric.
thighs, knees, calves, ankles, feet, remain solid and strong.
propel me forward sans fatigue.
they are present, powerful.
carry me.
carry me.
these other parts, they are at home here.
my back softens, each rib *dissolved.