I know you were trying
In your own way to help me
From washing  away in the tide
Getting lost in the vastness of the sea
Holding me so I wouldn't crash
Splintered on the rocky shoals
To become the latest victim taken in
By the siren song like so many other souls
You believed I was helplessly floundering
And its true that I always needed you
But not as an anchor to hold me down
What I was in need of was a co-pilot
Together as we sailed to where I was bound
To help me watch the horizon for a sign
     As we sought the new world and the riches
            I believed were our destiny- YOURS ....
                             And mine.

Sometimes the world moves on without me
And I try to pretend that I just don't care
Sometime I think that I move way too fast
And I'll burn myself out from the pace that I know can't last

And I know that there are things that I've been missing
And I feel like I may never know what they were
So when I found you and you seem to be able
To keep up and pull me back when my manic times do occur

Its so weird to know that you don't want to try to change me
Into some cookie-cutter version of a person that I should be
I don't feel that you now wonder if I'm worth all the confusion that I spread
As I paint with no regard for the numbers or the colors
In pursuit of the vision that I see going around and around in my head

I've never thought of myself as being normal
And I resigned myself to the fact
But the places that I've let myself wander
Led me to places from where I never ever came back
The gypsy road never took me down to memory lane
No such road even exists for the things that I missed
So now I look forward to looking back on us
And a memory as simple as just walking in the rain

I've never been as ready as I am at this moment
To create for myself a past
Where together we paint the paintings
Those memories that I never even saw
And to feel normal .....
..........For the first time....
                           ......At last!

Like a gentle gossamer fog
This feeling of calm enveloped me
As I finally found .....the triumphant breeze
That gave me a sustaining breath
It was as if I came alive
For the very first time as feelings became realities
Soft carressing words soothingly validate
A worthiness I believed would always evade
Leaving me void and hollow as an empty glass
With only trace amounts of the taste I craved
As I died of thirst a thousand times
While drowning in the river of my dispair
Convinced I would be gone and forgotten
Washed away and out to sea
Without ever knowing the utter ecstasy
How it could feel to know someone  cares
About my life my hopes and  my dreams
Turning the raging river of my doubts
Into the calming flow from which your love
So gently streams.

There's a hole in the wall where I stare out at space
Somehow it always leaves a bad taste
As I watch the colors of blue and purple and gold chase
Each other into the folds of that which Darkness soon  has replaced
Often pausing long enough to call it's Bluff
By slinging the remnants of an artist's watercolor palette
To coat in disregard the days dying light through cotton fluff
Or a mad array of angles mean and twisted that as yet
No abstract artists has met
matched least surpassed
With equivocal skill the hands of time lay waste with hues
A pastel haze of grey's pulling down Velvet black amassed
With the billions of twinkling lights that dreams Infuse
Of all those who lay under staring with wonder and awe
Into the Infinity of time and space in all its awesome grace
Of absolute imperfection without a single flaw
Eternity from first spark to modernity all wrapped in God's embrace

A question is simply a question
Unless taken as a slap...
Then refusing to answer is a confession
And the question , they suddenly turn it into a trap ....
....that never existed
       Or ever would have
If answered.... instead of resisted.

I've never spent too much time
Worrying about the future
Then suddenly you came along
And I began to feel I was late
I was late
I was late
I was late in growing up
I was late in finding success
I was late in everyway a man can be
I was late in noticing
How much my life was a mess
I've tried to change
The way I live my life
I've tried to rearrange
The strange...way
My priorities were arranged
As they seemed to be
Suddenly painfully
Stacked up against me
Up up up against me
Constantly blocking my way
Wasting my day
Making me stay
Here ... Living like
Some poor stray
I never have worn a collar
Or been led around
I never would save a dollar
Or even think too far ahead
I never did let myself
Be kept for very long
I never saw..how
Just a little bit of security
Could have really set me free
Not till I met you
Did I do..that thing
That every man should do
Straighten up
Fly right....and become a man
A man with a plan ... A future
A hope a dream and a thought
A cause a reason
To make life seem like
It can be more than
Just acting like some silly pup
That's trying so hard
To spend an entire life
Playing in the yard
Just rolling in the grass
Letting time pass
While chasing his
Or someone else's tail
Giving no thought
To where life is going
Trying so hard to stop himself
From ever growing up
So say... No no no bad dog!
It's time boy..for you
To make a man out of what
Is no longer just a pup
And hasn't been for a long long time now

I never was the kind to
Spend too much time
Worrying about or thinking
Very far ahead
I had no future
Not until you came along
Not till then did I even notice
That it was a fenced yard
That I was happily living in
Not till then did I realize
Just how late I've really been
Once I did ...I did then see
That the fence also had a gate
So yes babe ...I knew just how late
I am
One day you came along
And seemed to notice me
You opened the gate calling to me
By my name
So I hope
I hope it's not too late for me
To start living...my life again
Living right
And to start right
RIGHT from the start.

You somehow got the notion
That you know who I am
But the picture that you've painted
Is nothing short....
         ......Of a sham
Abstract interpretations
Has absolutely --resolutely
No resemblance to me
No image of anything
That I'd ever....even.....want to be
So where did you get
Your Information
Certainly wasn't from
Any true observations
Reliance on opinions
Outside of your control
Gives a SLANTED view
That you used to find a clue
So what you finally created
In your mindless revelation
It's probably more like
A  self -portrait
Than you would ever
Want to admit.....to yourself....
....much less ...to anyone else
Look..... look....look....I say
At the picture
Ain't it getting clearer
Funny how it.... Suddenly
Feels like you're staring
Into a mirror
NOW THEN......
....Do you get the picture?
Do you see the flaw?
It's in your inability
To think outside the box
Those four walls that surround you
Really don't exist
Unless they're something
That you need
To help you to resist
Seeing beyond the boundaries
Opening up your mind
Moving past the mundane
Realizing that
You've been blind
To the bigger picture
To all the colors that exist
Besides the black and the white
That right now
Is muddled into a grey
That surrounds you......
.........JUST... LIKE....A...MIST !