You take more than what you're due
Replacing joy with tears
Compelled to a destiny you thought was yours
Will you ever get it right?
He is a lonely, ****** soul
Delegating his passion from one to another
A back office Romeo
Roll it over and accept your penalties
Replace the tears with self-determination
Toss it all away
Cast it in the fire
Lob it in his face

How many good memories have I destroyed?
Each one, a treasure to another
A string of pearls
And like the portrait of two lovers
I chose to bow out
In remembrance, I have ruined many lives
A kindly soul allowing me to merge
But I was never fully integrated
Always looking to egress at the slightest transgression
I fear I have doomed many an honest spirit
To think hard of me and my character
It would have been better if they had never set eyes upon me
And continued on their journey, unencumbered
Never knowing the name of this lost nomad

A memory not your own is a lie with legs
A story perpetrated by the soul
For its own amusement
It thrashes like a fish on a line
Seeking to breathe life with every gulp
And as time continues on its incessant journey
This memory finds a home
In the permanence of a weak mind
It becomes your truth
And the lie loses its legs

Change is a truth that has many meanings
Many paths that divert and transform
From good to bad
Bad to good
To mediocrity and back again
Change has brought me full circle
Like the seasons
Continually in flux
Aroused by love
Or a word
Or a purpose
Or the realization that I must change
For the sake of change

Life has provided me with circles
Infinite paths that lead to endless crossroads
A maze of possibilities etched in clay
And defined by a tormented soul
I am one that has fallen into hell
Sometimes I wake to music
A familiar tune that echoes from childhood
When rainbows were good omens
And the night passed unimpeded
Now I pray for that endless sleep
Where the night is infinite
And the soul is nullified

A syncopated moment
Drifting, suspended, and finally, evaporated
The moment before the ecstasy
Never completely fulfilling that obligation
But enough to defer for a later time
Yet knowing there will never be another time
Why is it that leaving is always a cold and foggy moment?
Confusing thoughts of euphoria and dismay
All in the singularity of a syncopated moment

Slow and deliberate are the days
Everything new and elastic and hopeful,
I told myself - to remember these insights
Save them for the middle years and reminisce
Use them but don’t abuse
The memories will serve me well
But are forgotten the next moment
As the smell of fresh cut grass distracts me
An opportunity lost will be found in due time
I say to my youthful self
But now past fifty
All is but a vacant dream or shadowy memory
As I struggle to remember the smell of fresh cut grass
This has been a long, cold winter
And spring feels like years away