A lighthouse,
Pure, bold, and strong,
A light in the darkness,
A reminder of things hidden,
A beacon to the lost,
A respite to for the weary,
A friend to the ones who have lost hope.
A lighthouse
Is an object, physical,
Real in the shifting fog;
A lighthouse
Is also a metaphor
And its uses stretch out
Like the light it shines forth.
It governs and protects;
It strengthens and it warms;
It does the job it’s meant to do
And remains a light for all.

I want to write something deep and poetic
About the fireworks I saw.
But all I can come up with
Is the physical attributes—
The seeing that I did,
The hearing that I did,
The feeling that I did,
The experiencing that I did.
Red comets shot upward
In a slight arcing path
To explode in brilliant light
And rain down upon the spectators.
There’s a hush of anticipation in the audience
Between the moment they notice
The curling smoke trail,
The breathtaking visual display,
And the slightly delayed KERPOW
As the firework’s sound
Finally makes its way through the air.
Each exploding fragment
Fizzles through the air with a quiet hissing,
Competing with the screeching
Of the next firework going up.
It’s almost kind of sad:
Each firework aims for the sky,
Reaches as high as it can go,
Leaving behind bits of itself as it does so,
But hits some invisible ceiling—
Some fireworks’ ceilings
Are higher than others—
And that is their maximum.
They can take no more,
They cannot reach the sky,
They cannot reach the stars,
They cannot reach their brethren,
And so they explode in their sadness or anger;
But in doing so,
They light the way for others.

Two lefts don’t make a right.
But I make use of this.
I want to make the left left choice,
Find the left left word.
Because this left left word
Is the opposite of the “right” word.
It does in the opposite direction,
Forges its own stream.
And this is the left left choice.
This is my way.

It’s hard to move forward in life
When Past still has its razors lodged in your flesh.
It’s hard to look to the past for help
When Future’s clouding your vision.
It’s hard to live in the present
When Past and Future are using your mind
As a rope in a game of Tug-of-War.

Clinging to the corner,
The ceiling,
The unused room upstairs,
The dusty cellar basement;
Lurking in the shadows,
Cringing from the light.
Retreating for now
But returning later,
Stronger, faster,
Harder to ignore.
Long, gangly, sickly;
Short, stocky, powerful;
Tiny, flitting, wispy;
Huge, full, pervasive.
Cunning, plotting, patient.
Always there,
Always watching,
Always waiting.

There’s a difference
Between drowning
And sinking.
Both refer to
Being immersed in
A body of liquid.
But drowning
Means you’re rejected.
Drowning
Means you and the liquid
Are at odds—
You’re in the liquid
But you’re not of the liquid;
You are not one
With the liquid.
You cannot breathe,
You cannot hear anything
But your own screams
And your own terror,
You cannot see anything
Other than darkness.

But sinking is different.
Sinking
Means you’re accepted.
Sinking
Means you and the liquid
Have come to an agreement—
You’re in the liquid
And you’re of the liquid;
You are one
With the liquid.
You can breathe,
You can hear everything
Along with soulbeats
And the elusive love,
You can see everything
Cloaked in majestic light.

Thus is the difference
Between drowning
And sinking.
There is death in drowning
But life in sinking.
I’d rather sink.
Which you do prefer?

Eighteen years.
Eighteen long years I've lived on this planet,
Slaving away as another conformist to most rules
(But only so I could survive
And get an education, despite the breakdowns
As my mind couldn't handle the pressure
Of today's expectations).
At times I thought I wouldn't make it;
My lows were... pretty low;
They sometimes cancelled out the highs completely,
Or at least made them seem not so high.
But somehow, I made it,
Along with all the other eighteen-year-olds.
And so I say, congratulations.
We made it.
We may be beaten, bruised, and battered,
Broken, cracked, and frayed,
But we're here.
Brace yourselves.
We're in for a whole new set of challenges.

If trees could speak,
What would they say?
Could they recount the tales
Of all who crashed
Under their boughs?
Do they keep a list—
Even make it a game—
Of how many cars pass
Per day, per week, per decade?
Do they remember
Each fallen brethren,
Move to catch them
When they fall?
Do they have rivalries
About the biggest size
Or the best patch of soil
Or the most growing seeds—
Or are they past all that
And the weeping willows
Took it upon themselves
To weep for us humans
Who distinguish between
Small insignificances?

I am both the puppet and the puppet master.
I dance to the will of others while subtly controlling them.
I sometimes make myself dance,
The two halves of me controlling and obedient simultaneously.
The shadow that lurks in my shadow—
I am that, too, seeping and oozing over the ground.
The forces in my heart are battling for control—
The shadow and the light are battling.
My heart remains the ****** battlefield,
Littered with dead dreams and riddled with holes.
And all the while the puppet jerks,
Obeying the tug of strings,
And all the while the puppet masker jerks,
Controlling the mass of strings.

It’s the dark creature crouching in the corner.
You know it’s there, but you ignore it.
When it first came, it screeched into the room,
Clawing at your face, your chest, your arms—
Anything and everything it could reach.
But you fought it off, somehow,
After a long, sweaty, arduous journey.
Now it just sits there, brooding in the blackness.
You don’t look at it.
You don’t acknowledge it.
But it’s there—you know it’s there.
You can feel its presence like a vortex.
And it knows you know it’s there.
And sometimes it reaches out a gnarled, clawed hand
And grips your clothes or cups your cheek,
And ice inches down your spine
And crystals cascade down your cheeks.
Soon the creature will fade from its corner,
But replacing it will be a hole—
A hole in the very fabric of the room.

There's a room full of vases
And each one is different.
Some have cracks,
Others, fractures;
Some have crumbled,
Others, shattered;
Some have different colours
In a patchwork pattern.
Some look whole and well
But only from a distance;
Others' cracks are so fine
Only the vase can tell it's broken.
But each vase is beautiful.
Each vase can be useful,
Be patched up and hold something.
This room full of vases
Appears sad to some,
But it is also
Brimming with life.

The dust and grime and dirt and death—
The darkened gloom of corners near—
Invade the mind with waning breath,
Steal peace of mind with petty theft;
And lightless grins rise up and leer
Until you think there’s nothing left.

The dew is frozen.
It glitters on the ground like crystal,
Diamonds to those who see.
It brings an edge to the world,
As though everything’s in sharp focus.
So ephemeral, this frosty dew,
Gracing us only so long as it’s permitted.
Its cold beauty is breathtaking,
And demands silent reverence.
So why, then, do people find it
Nothing more than a nuisance,
And yet gripe when its life expires?
Beautiful even in death,
The dew blesses our sight with its grace,
Reminding us that every so often,
Silence must be kept,
So that the world may speak to our hearts.

If you see a set of footprints
Leading off into the distance,
Do not follow them their course.
You may follow them a ways,
But make sure it’s brief;
Do not follow them their course.
Turn to the left, or maybe to the right,
And forge ahead, my child—
Create your own set of footprints.
You may use the other footprints
For warnings—maybe models,
But it’s important that you make your own.
If you follow not others
And instead follow that which is in you,
You will see sights no one else has,
Accomplish feats unique to you.
Climb the mountains, cross the rivers,
Sail the oceans, survive the deserts,
Thrive in forests, and tame the tundra,
And your footprints will leave their mark
And you will be remembered.

The river runs fast and swift,
Churning and boiling and frothing,
Foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal.
But inside my study, I am unaffected.
I look up as it batters at my door.
The hourglass on my desk
Has been upset once more.
It’s lying on its side, the sand askew.
I stand to fix it but my head whirls—
Must not have eaten enough,
Or must not have slept enough,
Or must not have calmed enough.
The reason matters not,
And it keeps me not from my task.
I set the hourglass back on its feet
And sink back into the cushioned chair,
Curling up once more with the tales of old.
I’ve lost track of time now—
The hourglass can only lie to me now—
And I have that river to thank.
Blasted thing.

In and out, in and out.
The seagull cries.
Colors blend and wash ashore,
Drifting in from beyond the skies.

In and out, in and out.
Clouds drift lazily o'erhead.
Winds blow soft and harsh,
Touching where no foot has tread.

In and out, in and out.
The sea salt sprays.
Solid shapes are distorted,
Becoming lost in the haze.

In and out, in and out.
The waves lap the shore.
The sea foam leaps up and o'er,
Dissipating with a silent roar.

In and out, in and out.
The seagulls cry.
In and out, in and out,
The sea will never die.

Who am I?
I am the Imposter.
I creep inside your body when you’re not looking
And I snip your soul from your flesh
But I don’t let it leave,
Oh, no.
No, no.
I keep it tethered,
Feed off it,
Absorb its very essence—
Absorb your very essence.
And I act in its place.
I change you slowly at first—
An odd action here and there
That you feel is wrong,
That you feel is not you,
Because your tethered soul knows it’s not you
Doing those odd things.
But you think it is you doing those things,
Because who else could it be?
And so I change you,
Bit by bit,
Until you finally open your eyes and realise
Who you are outside
Does not match who you are inside.
Who you are outside,
The one doing these things,
Fits in with the others,
But who you are inside
Is several years younger.
And slowly that gap widens
Until you can’t do anything about it,
Because by then
I’ve made a nice little nest in your flesh
And you don’t even remember who you are.
You can only sit there,
Trapped within your own mind,
Wondering where it all went wrong.

If you believe you are worthless,
You are wrong.
Ask your friends and family—
Ask the ones around you.
They’ll be able to tell you
At least a little
Of how you’ve influenced them.
Maybe talking to you
Brightens their day.
Maybe they come to you
For advice.
Maybe you provide
That critical listening ear.
Maybe your smile
Puts them at ease.
Maybe you have brilliant ideas
That remind them to discard The Box.
I speak of all these Maybes,
But I leave it up to you
To find out exactly how
You’re needed
You’re wanted
You’re loved
You have worth.
Write them down.
Look at them again and again
When you’re hovering in the Void.
Maybe it won’t bring you out,
But maybe it’ll keep you
From falling further.

The fish flies with fins of fire,
Following fellow friends
To the depths of the sky.
A sashay of the hips,
A flick of the fins—
Cast embers to Earth.
Melding, molding, moving—
These fish of flames flee
The wet bonds below.
Free at last, the fire fins grow.
Gold now—blue—
Brighter than the moon,
Brighter than the stars
That beckon them forth.
And so the fire fish fly with fins
And reject the world’s reality.

If life is a tunnel,
It’s long and narrow.
It’s a maze of networks
In the bowels of the Earth.
Sometimes the tunnels
Are used for sewers instead
And you wind up slogging through muck.
At other times,
The tunnels are high and dry
And everything seems good.
Since the tunnels meld together
Into a near-endless labyrinth,
One can make many choices
And will dictate where one ends up.
The end result?
The Light at the end—
The opening to the surface world—
Or be trapped forever,
Wandering the heated, boiling center
With your life picked at
By nightmares.

Free-floating, gliding around,
No up, no down, no left or right.
A big jumbled mess
That makes perfect sense.
Rocketing at high velocity,
Colliding and sending sparks
Flying in all directions.
The sparks float aimlessly
As the objects that created them.
They leave a sparkling trail
Of stars in their wake.
Trace it back to the origin.
Recreate the collision.
Witness for yourself
The sparks as they fly.
Maybe one day you, too,
Can be part
Of that glorious bang.

If there’s a group of people,
And each one has an imaginary friend,
And you put those imaginary friends together,
What do you get?
Do you get a Super imaginary friend?
Do you get a real person?
I’d like to know.
You see, I think I’m one—
A compilation of imaginary friends.
I’m real but I’m not
There to interact with anyone.
At least, I think I’m real.
But doesn’t every imaginary friend?
Or do they know they’re imaginary?
Do these thoughts of mine
Prove my imaginary status?
I don’t think real people
Imagine they’re imaginary.
Do they?

The whispers in the corners of the classroom
Rise up like the quiet hissing of serpents,
Swirling around in verisimilitudinous eddies,
Less quiet, less quiet, less quiet, less quiet,
Whispers becoming cacophonous.
The silence screams for quiet;
The silence screams for itself.
But it clings to the forgotten corners of the classroom.

Pigments cascade down the canvas,
Coating the blank white with imagination.
Drip, drip, they fall with grace to embrace
The pocked surface beneath their bodies.
They intermingle, form new forms,
Yet continue to go their own ways,
Unaware of the driving force.

The artist stands off to the side,
Watching his creation swirl.
He created a storm, a beautiful storm.
He folds his arms, his face stoic,
For the pigments express his emotions.

The black waters lap gently
At the shore of an obsidian beach.
I stand with my feet
Just submerged under the water,
My nails shining with kuro polish.
A shinigami waits beside me,
Its hands clasped behind its back
And its gaze fixed unblinkingly
At the distant, curved horizon.
Friends, enemies—I do not know yet:
All I know so far
Is that we’ve been standing here, together,
For quite some time,
And that every so often,
One of us will reach out
And clasp the other’s hand.

The dryads shake their boughs in the cold half-light,
Their bright, faded leaves leaving handprints on the sky.
They sigh to the wind all their troubles and woes,
Their roots absorbing the wisdom of the Earth.
“Come to us,” they call to the bright-eyed traveller.
“Come and share in our universal knowledge;
“Listen to the croak of the frog, the hoot of the owl;
“Exchange breath with the deer and the lion;
“Remain as we are, everlasting far into eternity.”
Eternity is nothing to the dryads beckoning the traveller.
Their bark shivers in anticipation of the future,
But they know all will be well. “It always is.”
And so they crane their selves towards the travellers,
Hoping they will hear their everlasting message
And join in the blissful peace so oft deserved.

I see the tears,
Of anger, of sadness, of loss.
I know not anymore—
I have forgotten by now—
What happiness, joy, and thankfulness
Mean, what they look and feel like.
There is only darkness down here,
And I have hardened my heart
Against the pleas of humans
Lest my light be extinguished as well.
So when Orpheus came knocking
With his bright, lively music,
My heart was opened,
And I could feel it beating once more.
So this is what Love is,
How Happiness glows from within.
It was a beacon in my dark world,
And rekindled my hope.
It was for him and myself
That I let Eurydice go,
But my heart still encased
A small chip of ice,
And my cynical side
Told me I had to test him.
One simple request I gave,
One simple instruction:
Don’t look back; have faith
That your other half will follow.
I waved them off with pleasure
And a rosy hue warming
My cold blue flesh.
I wait with anticipation:
Their love is strong—
Surely this will work.
Surely they will both make it
To the flowers and the grass above.
But a wail and a sob drift to me,
And I feel a tug in my chest:
The feeling I get when a soul drifts down
And joins me in my dank, dark halls.
Eurydice sails past me, pale and blue;
She leaves a sparking trail behind her,
Filled with sadness and anger
And the faint taint of life.
I can see, in my special godly way,
Orpheus far above, crouching in the Sun,
His hands in front of his face
As tears burst from his shut eyes
And his heart is squeezed by invisible hands;
His golden lyre lies beside him, broken.
I close my eyes and sigh,
Disturbing the flames dancing next to me.
My soul count will increase by one
In three, two… one.

The little lamb totters around on unsteady legs,
Pretending
That its limbs are sure and strong.
It diverts from the flock,
Frolicking and prancing around in the mud.
Oh! What’s this? Grass! Green grass!
Better grass!
It charges forward, fast as its scrawny,
Spindly legs can go.
The lamb’s almost there, when
BLAM!

Silly lamb.
There’s a wall there, you know.
No matter how hard you try,
You won’t get pas—
Oh. You did.

The lamb munches happily on this new grass.
It finishes and looks around.
It bleats in alarm when it sees
How far the flock has gone.
It bleats again, charges forward…
BLUNK!

Stupid lamb.
The wall’s gone and sealed itself.

KUNK!
THWUNK!

It won’t reopen.
Stupid, stupid lamb.

She danced with death.
At times they would wait on opposite sides of the room,
Stealing glances of each other around the other guests.
At others, they would stand so close
Their breath intermingled like the winds in the trees.
They held each other gently,
Both afraid to hold too hard
And have the other shatter into scattered fragments.
They would twirl and sidestep gracefully,
Making others yearn to watch
Yet afraid to do so, for doing so
Might upset the magical balance they’d set up.
And so the two dance on—
Waltzes, tangos, ballets,
Separating briefly to catch their breath
And to let the tension build from across the room.

Dogs roam the streets,
Scraping out a meager living
From the scraps thrown out of windows.
There is a house
In the middle of all the others.
In this house
Lives a man,
A man who watches the dogs,
Tosses them food
So that they would not starve.
At times he approaches a dog,
Talks gently and soothingly—
Though he can rebuke them harshly,
But only if need be—
And he will invite the dog into his home,
But the dog has the final say.
The dogs decide whether to follow
And even when to leave.
But the man is patient.
He will wait as long as necessary.
At times he will change his tactics
And send some of his dogs out
To mingle with the wild ones.
His dogs proudly wear the collars he gave them.
They befriend the wild dogs,
Sometimes ostentatiously flashing the collar,
Sometimes just wearing it
Until another dog shows interest.
At night they return to the man’s house,
Curl up by his fire,
Full from his bread and wine.
And sometimes, a wild dog
Will follow one of the man’s dogs home.
There are dogs who leave the house
And never return.
There are dogs who fashion a collar
Similar to the ones the man makes
And they wear it
And say they are of the man’s home,
But they are no more
Than the wild dogs among whom they live.
However, the man is patient.
He forgives them.
He still tosses them food,
Still heals them,
Still speaks gently,
Still awaits the day
When the join him in his home.

The flow of people swirls around me,
Waxing and waning and ebbing with the light.
They stand and gawk, awe frozen on their faces,
But I can only look serenely on
While my heart of marble flakes inside.
I look down upon them, those children dear,
But I cannot touch their warm flesh
Nor feel their living, breathing heartbeats,
Just as they cannot touch my frozen skin
Nor come close enough to hear my suppressed cries.
Day after day I must stand and watch
Over these lives that flick past before me.
Day after day I am reminded of the loneliness of stone.
Day after day they see nothing but a statue,
A statue without a heart or a soul,
A statue on a pedestal.

What words there are to express
The frigid beauty that’s encased
In the fragile film of frosted glass.
The glittering frost that lies on top
Shines forth with pin-***** stars,
Flashing brilliantly white before fading
To a pacific, powder blue
Tinted with a faded lilac hue.
And housed within its cold embrace
Is a soft mystery of timeless age.
Its fleshy tones swirl, unmeshed, together,
Painting stories within stories
And realities within dreams.
The pearl bows and greets the jay
Who waltzes with the jade;
The ruby stretches slowly
As the coral wakes beside it.
And all above their thin-pressed heads,
A frozen dome of crystal
Breathes its breath into the wind.

The clock in my room is silent.
It’s only in my head—my head—
That I hear the snick of time passing.
Snick snick snick—
It mocks me, taunts me,
Pulls me deeper into the nightmare.
Time has become my enemy—
I cannot rewind,
I cannot pause,
I cannot fastforward.
I want to return to Then,
Skip the Now—
Pausing would be horrid—
And not even glimpse the Soon.
But snick snick snick goes my clock—
Snick snick snick goes my mind.
The window floats before my eyes
And I am forced to look through it
And witness the Soon
That I’d rather avoid.
Soon Soon Soon—
Oh how it looms!
Rivaled only by Now
While Then cowers in the corner.
I wish to join it.
Snick flinch snick flinch snick flinch.
Snick snick snick
Snick snick SNICK
SNICK snick SNICK
SNICK SNICK SNICK
SNICK
SNICK
SNICK

Silence.

They think it so big,
So beautiful, so full of promise.
They think it bright and shining,
Full of some inner light.
But they don’t see it.
There’s a lens right in front of their eyes,
Magnifying it beyond normal limits.
It’s not big, not beautiful,
Not as full of promise.
It’s not bright or shining,
It has no inner light.
It’s just plain.
They get so confused when it fails
To satisfy their demands.
And it shrinks from their confusion.
It doesn’t want to confuse
Or disappoint or anger.
It just wants to be seen
For what it is, without a lens.

Blue and yellow arcs
Of pure energy,
Pure electricity,
Dance dangerous footsteps
On the thin wings
Of the butterfly.
Is it protection?
Or is it a curse?
Helpful or harmful,
Not even the butterfly knows.
The dangerous beauty
Holds audiences captive
As the energy arcs and leaps
To a tune others can’t hear.
Up and down, the wings flap
While the energy glows eerily
In the dark, (un)dreary night.
A flash of azure,
A sunspot spit out—
The black midnight body
Lit up by the light all around.

A single point on a long line
Stretching off into Eternity—
A single dot—Doesn’t seem like much.
At first.
But that one single point
Sends an impact down the line—
Left and right, the impact carries.
Flash forward, flash back—
It’s all the same.
Before and after are impacted.
Neither will ever be the same.
Some people will miss the point—
One small speck it is,
Easily overlooked by many.
But the residual energy resides
And continues travelling
For all Eternity.

War—
War is ugly.
The cries of the fighters
Meet the cries of the anguished.
(How easily the two intermingle.)
Life bleeds out upon the ground—
Or in the air—
To be lapped up by the animals
And absorbed by the plants.
The reds of rage
Meets the reds of wounds—
And the wounds weep
As the heart weeps
And the heart weeps
As the earth weeps.
War destroys so much more
Than what is before the hunters.
War sends echoes
Reverberating through the ages.
When will everyone hear these echoes
And put a stop to the cycle?

Plants
Feed off both the darkness
And the light.
They are planted in darkness,
Grow in darkness,
Survive the darkness.
They reach out through the black
And manipulate it
And thrive on it.
Then they reach the light, they still remain
Partially buried in the earth.
Just as an iceberg
Hides itself under the water,
So, too, do plants
Hide their amazing network
Of sturdy roots
Beneath the soil.
Many look at a plant
And marvel at its wonders
Without a second through
About the maze of life
That supports that
Which lives in light.

The silence is calling.
The silence is beckoning.
I can hear it.
I can feel it.
My lids grow heavy
And my head nods against my chest
In time with my slowed heartbeat.
The silence is around me.
The silence is everywhere.
I embrace it as it embraces me.
Silence, silence, silence,
It calls.
*Come, sleep.
Fight the foes of your world
And vanquish them in your sleep,
For when you sleep,
The troubles will come,
But you can fight them,
Defeat them, overcome them.
Come, and be the hero you never dreamed you could be.

Sometimes when I’m walking through the house,
A face floats up from the shadows, scaring me.
I pause and turn, looking at this other girl.
Who is this girl, this girl I keep seeing?
Who is this girl, this girl who keeps following me?
She seems familiar, somehow, almost as though
I knew her at some point in the past.
I raise a hand to touch her face, her cheek.
The girl does the same to me, reaches up and out—
Both both our hands reach only cold glass.
Is it really only me? Only my cold reflection?
But that’s not what I look like—
That’s not who I am—or perceive myself to be
On the inside, beyond flesh, muscle, and blood.
This person is a stranger to me, and I to her.
So why is her face on me, I in her body?
Why must I live a stranger, when it’s only me inside?

Death, my friend, your hands are so cold.
You cup my cheek and ice ****** my teeth.
You’re so cold, Death, my friend. So cold.
Don’t you want some heat, some warmth?
Will you take some from me?—
I’ll gladly give it, you know—my warmth.
I’m not using it. But you can, if you want.
Death, my friend, you look so sad.
Your eyes are drawn, your cheekbones haggard;
The corners of your mouth are downturned.
Smile, Death, please. Smile for me.
I want to see the flicker of colour in your skin.
Will you smile genuinely for me?
I’ve seen your wan smile, you know.
That is no way to smile—monochrome
Has no right to alight on your face.
Death, my friend, you look so lonely.
You’re not alone, not forgotten.
I’m with you, I see and remember you,
I am not afraid of you. I like you.
You’re my friend, remember? Your friend.
Friends want friends to be warm,
To smile with every colour that has ever graced
A paintbrush, a canvas, a child’s dream.
Death, my friend, why are you holding me?
Is my warmth helping? Have I made you happy?
Death, my friend, your arms are so warm.
Or am I just cold in comparison?
Death, my friend, thank you for smiling so beautifully.
I’m glad you’re warm.

Frozen.
Ba-dump.
Red
And blue.
Ba-dump.
The blue leaks
While the red pools.
Ba-dump.
The red smears
While the blue streaks
Its way through.
Ba-dump.
It’s all purple now.
Ba-dump.
The purple drips
And falls
And tumbles
Through the sky.
Ba-dump.
It plips
On the air
And separates
Into blue
And red.
Ba-dump.
They merge
And flow
And streak
And pool
And are
Ba-dump
Red
And blue.

You contemplate the past,
Revel in the present,
Envision the future.
Hope is in your steps.

Wounds do not disappear,
But slowly, over time,
They are soothed,
And they are healed.

You make a beautiful Venn Diagram,
Where the overlapping section
Is about equal
With your separate sections.

Love is love,
And once you’ve found it,
You know.

The tree is bent.
It stands tall,
But it’s bent.
Water drips from its barren branches,
Hot, stinging droplets skewed by gravity,
A deep, rich, sapphire blue.
Drip, drip, fall the droplets,
Falling from an unknown tree.
Below waits an invisible basin,
A basin that provides optical illusions,
Illusions of being filled
Even though the droplets quickly drain.
Yet still the tree stands,
Shedding these sapphires,
Trying to remain tall in the storm.

The fires of war will burn
Deep within the heart.
Ev’ryone the ache of loss will learn.

The enemy we spurn—
Their blood spreads far apart.
The fires of war will burn.

“Bring us death, sir. Please,” the wounded yearn.
“We have done our part.”
Ev’ryone the ache of loss will learn.

The war’s at last adjourned.
Off the fields I cart
The fires of war that burn.

Soldiers pile up in heaps. I turn—
I list the dead in charts.
Ev’ryone the ache of loss will learn.

The past will ne’er return.
The conflicts always start.
The fires of war that burn
The ache of loss will learn.

One card up,
One card up,
Marching over the swirling
Abyss, abyss,
Deep down below.
One card up,
One card up,
Higher and higher they stack.
The dying sun
Casts rays from on high.
No strings attached,
Just precariously balanced,
One card up,
One card up,
Waiting, waiting.
Still stands time.
Shadows lengthen,
Shorten—swirl,
****** backwards
And downwards
By Abyss.

Half-forms, half-thoughts,
Rolling, rolling, turning,
Swirling and meshing and churning and fusing,
A whole chaotic jumbled mess

That makes perfect sense to one.

One brave soul amidst the storm,
One strong figure against the tempest,
One resolute leader, unwavering hero,
Can understand the brew.

The others think him mad
For watching the Halfs flash by.
Him, mad? Possibly.
Be he thinks himself sane.
And who can tell him
“Sane” or not?
They see Halfs, he sees Wholes.
They see tumult, he sees languidness.
They see chaos, he sees order.
They see a storm, he sees peace.
So he smiles to himself as they quake;
They do not understand the humour.
The Wholes shared something amusing
With their steadfast Captain,
But the others see Halfs, so the humour was lost.
This is all the more amusing,
And so this sane madman
Laughs and laughs and laughs.

Swirling around in a cloud of chaos,
Of cacophony and disillusionment,
The person floats aimlessly in deep space.
Atom after atom rips itself away
And goes spinning off into the UnKnown.
Dust created, so return to dust.
The person flings arms wide, wide,
To encompass all of the cosmos,
Revel in that which is complex beauty,
Be at peace with Knowing but Not.
And the face begins to swirl
As the dust environment does
And so the person is physically unKown,
Known by personality only,
For the universe has reclaimed the mask.
The arms slowly begin to fade
Just as the face crumbles in finality;
More and more atoms flee
To rejoice in their newfound freedom
Until at last the heart swirls to dust,
Unleashing the long-imprisoned soul
To fly, unbridled, around the world—
Beyond the world—beyond, yes,
Even the farfetched, unrealized dreams.
Flying, swirling, one with All,
Bound by no chains, child of love.

Dustdirtgrimefire
Burningburningsulfuracrid
Acidshrapnelpainflare­
Whatwhereconfusion
Flashbangsilencedark
Warmliquiddrippingcold
F­lickerdarkalonehand
My hand No
Not my hand
Hand handnoarm
Cold hand
Alone with me
Shallowbreathingbeatingheart
Chesthurtscan’tmove
Explosionchao­ssilencescreaming
Hellonotonguedead
Helpnocrystrong
Wincecoughsta­bhelp
Lightwaitnowhy
Handreachingeyeblinking
Handarmtorsohead
Per­sonlightblindinghurts
Is this the end?

A thin crystal grows over the flame,
Inching up its tongues like ice.
Both burn with a raging intensity,
Contributing to each other’s pain.
The light shines through the creeping crystal,
Casting fantastic designs along the wall.
They dance in intricate choreography,
Twirling and dipping and leaping and flying.
Their lanky ephemeral forms lengthen
As the ice creeps ever higher.
The red burns low and sinks to orange
While yellow turns to gold.
Cold blue fire contributes its color—
Pale purple begins to appear.
Will the flame still burn
Within its cage of ice?
Will the crystal quell its heart
And keep it frozen for eternity?
Will the two become one,
Fusing together at last?