Candy floss and a visit to the arcade:
That's all it took to bring things back an hour
to the moment before a missed step.

Panic, pandemonium, a parallel universe
is what I came to; Landed, rag-dolled on a weather-worn,
rice field imitation rock. What I would give to see myself

From the edge. To see the angles my body chose
while I was away bringing my dearest to my side.
First I collected my sister with a scream that belongs

Only in stories that deal with grief: Guttural.
Come to think of it, that acrid ancestral call didn't belong to me.
I wasn't the one who pricked her from her periwinkles

And guided her over the barnacles to become a silhouette.
It wasn't me who dragged the adrenaline-fueled arms and legs
of an undressed, distressed father from his bed, through the

Haze of his own thoughts: a descent he wont soon forget.
I wasn't there. The things I describe are born of a situation
I have spent fifteen years rebuilding; I'm ashamed to say

I missed it. I never felt the chaotic shift of the wind and was never  
able to expect the worst because I was too enthralled with her face.
It was my sole focus as I lay down.

I watched intently - in slow motion - distortion explode into
her cheeks, tearing her mouth to the seams; scared eyes
enveloping lids and unwavering, taking me all in.  

I have no doubt she remembers the moment as well as i do,
Probably more so, for she experienced the backwash.
She was certainly shown the quickest way down.

I remember that it was beautiful that day:
A real Irish-sunburn peak in Liscannor Bay.
I also remember walking down the garden

To the cliff stenciled on the back of my hand
with the cheerful arrogance only an eight year old
can get away with.

As the day breaks and the shards embed in your soles,
Tread lightly.
Don't be the one to take away the glare;
A blanket that draws you -
Hand over brow for an empty salute -
To the vast empty spaces where
You hold the only shade.

If you're who I want to be,
You'll give it back as you found it.
Calmly picking up the splinters
And trying to make it right;
Right so the slow tick lines up with the
Imperceptible order of things and no one feels uneasy;

So no one shivers as you cast it back to the horizon,
Waiting once again for the ricochet.

I'm not sure who was more dishonest.

Me: who pretended everything was okay because it had to be,
There was no other way;
Or You: who built the person you needed to be on
A foundation of snow.

When our time came it wasn't okay
And the snow had long since melted.

Me: who ran to fall apart and begin picking up pieces as best I could -
I'm not whole, but there are things I'm learning;
Or You: who crumbled to the world, clutching at redemption -
Your fear was always your best friend.

Of all the scattered fragments,
Was it enough to salvage our own?

Me: who gets through the day by day with steady paces and guilt;
**Or You:

Weaving to the pulse of a room.
The thick blend of sweat and passion is cast out to the hungry.
As the assault eases there is a moment of calm.
A deep breath before the machine gun fire.
Seconds before everything comes crashing down;
An onslaught you know well.
Heavy hits from limbs, belts, and bones as adrenaline
Allows you to give as good as you get and show that you care;
Show that you do this because you have to;
That the pulse owns all and has full control.
I salute those who can make a room implode;
Those who rip everything from you so you have to face it.
The bruises remind us that we were there
And we share the fallout,
Because we live for that ****.

I take myself too seriously to go up to eleven.

Wincing at the light, I deprive myself;
Take in an uneven frame.
With lowered brows and interminable thoughts
I pass it all by,

Float and reflect on the detail
Never seen,
Convinced I experienced it all,
Scratching in the rest;

I tear in the blue sky and smear the
Breaking waves;
I become more an object of scorn as the greens
And greys of the cliff side are marred,

Framed in the corner of an eye.

Eloquence has little worth in the steaming hearth;
Where the ropes coil and knuckles crack from the strain.
Others set themselves free and pirouette in the stream
Because they don't carry the ballast on their feet;
Their tongue;
Their nerve.

Endless steps to shifting rhythms in a haze of noise and palpable judgement.
Apologies tend not to resonate when the damage is done and the horse gets Higher, stomping to the beat of a privileged heart.
You learn quickly, and with a heavy sense of defeat, that you can never do Enough.
Expectations climb with a pace unmatched by any effort imaginable as
It's prearranged.
The waltz was always going to play out like this because you put on the grafter's Shoes; paid for with the gritty coin you caught in your teeth.

Hidden among the crowds and the polished leather, there lives another breed with A human face.
One not twisted and distorted by throwaway reproach.
It takes a surprising level of regard to pick them out as they often don the same Paint as the revilers.  
However, these are the gems that can cut through thick skin, penetrating the Mortar, to find flesh.
They pulse with you and quiet the frayed edges.
They are your rhythm and your reason for perseverance.
They see to it that your resentment doesn't have time to settle in your bones.
They are much too few and far between.

What will it be like?
What will you be like
When all of you at once rests?
Will it be a relief?
Will it be sudden or gradual and will you know?
Will you know that breath for the one to bring you into harmony with the Vibrating earth?
The one that will become the breeze and take you with it.
Will it be peaceful?
Or will it make you shudder and your knuckles turn white?
Will that breath burn
And will you try to hold it?
Or will you embrace the value of what you've done?
The people you've loved and the warmth you've given.
Will you wish for one more?
Or will you offer it all willingly?
Out of contentment or resentment?
Will you think of yourself?
Or of someone you'd give your breath to?
Will it feel like falling?
Will it stab at every nerve in your body and will you let it show?
Will it be easy?
Scary?
Clear?
Will it be how you lived?
What will it be like?
What will you be like?