How to mark time now?
Does waking happen with deliberation, or visit whimsically, awaiting last dust of dream to drift past?
Am I to eat at the appointed time? Does sun dictate anything anymore?
I have noted days’ passing with laborer’s clock ticking for so many days, weeks, years.
What if I am less without this calendar?
Free-floating, do I have the same substance? Maybe I have been carried by throngs of clock followers. Without their slip stream, perhaps I will go invisible.
That sounds wonderful. For a time.

I was so desperate to believe you I fed my gnawing gut a decorated lie.
I sat fidgeting in the hard place,
pretending to watch tv, glancing instead back toward you
tinted blue-electric, shadows dancing on your socks where they held down the floor.
I wanted to be sure, to let it go, to be anywhere else but here. To be someone different.
But I had no voice.
It was the dream I couldn’t wash out. It scratched me from then inside when I tried to smile and entertain you with my tricks.
It did not help when you told me to look next to the bed, where it lay. How could a Bible live here? I wondered.

You’ve never been on quite the right side
Breathing too deeply, turning too wide
Eying you there as you recline in your space
Never looking me full in the face

Your place there is held by a tightly clenched fist
Your casual smile loosing a hiss
This bitter hate looks at home in your soul
How long has it been since you have felt whole?

Wishing is something you can no more afford
Betraying your pain you pretend that you’re bored
I sit over here and I watch how you try
You say you don’t care, but there’s fear in your eye.

I wonder if you’ve ever had a soft touch
I wonder if anyone’s cared all that much
Would you welcome one now through your hard, bitter shell?
Could you let yourself climb from your self-imposed hell?

I don’t know where you went after I walked away
But I’ve often thought of you there on that day
I saw my own heart as you stung with your eyes
And I know, just like me, your heart told only lies

Curious Spaces
Crumbling Places
Everyone Paces
Behind the closed door

I saw Death today. He was riding a bicycle.
And I was frozen there, struck by his casual confidence as he passed me. I could not stop my gaze, afraid his image would mark my eyes for him.
Further down, he faded into blur, past people task-busy, unaware that Death was near.
Finally I was released. I turned to walk to my own busyness, shaking my head to clear the slow-motion pull that held me.
A smile dared to start in relief that Death did not want me today. Two more steps and I felt the crunch of a busy bug under my foot.
Death and I are companions.

I am scarred with hesitation marks.
I have to die to myself, and so I keep trying. But my will to live keeps winning.
This time, I close my eyes and determine to slice through my wrists.
Breathing hard and gritting my teeth, I go for it. This is right. I must die so He can live.
But again, something stops me and I leave only another nick in my skin. My will to live is strong. My will is strong.

These nicks are ugly. I am left alive and scarred. If I must live, I will need plastic surgery. Much easier.
Why can others do this and I can’t? I sit in silence and stare at the floor.
I tell Him I’m sorry that I cannot do it. I pretend the effort is enough, but I know it’s not true.
I cannot find the strength to overpower my own self.
Whispering defeat, I throw down the knife. It is hopeless. Each time I create more scar tissue, and it is tougher to cut.

He picks up the knife and puts it in my hand. He covers my hand with His and I feel the strength in it.
The slice is deep, complete and precise. In glorious light, He finally lives. I cry, at first from the pain and then from the beautiful release. It is finished.

I fall down, and through my shaking voice I cannot find the words to thank Him.
He lifts my head and looks at me, penetrating my being with His eyes. He speaks and my soul drinks deeply.
His voice is deep and strong as he says, “Same time tomorrow?”

Deep, dark, thick tar on my heart.
I drink water to wash it away,
Yet it clings like sticky stubbornness.
I pray to rid myself of it, but it knows my name and will not leave.
It whispers to me when I long for stillness.
It is elusive when I search for it to cut it out.

It knows me and yet I cannot name it.
We are familiar, but it controls.
Like a parasite, it feeds.
It bites at me- provoking, leaving little marks.

Am I not able to be cured from this heaviness?
Was I brought to this earth with a shadow in me?
I do not know how to dress with this, and present myself.
It is prickly and I poke at others out of frustration.
How is this Lightness?
I can’t let a ****** thing go.

It looks like I’m soaring
Riding the updraft of traffic below
Never going up..just incrementally gliding down

But I’m in a slow-motion flat-spin
The only control coming from gravity and momentum
I’m not scared or frantic
Just observing, knowing I should be feeling more

I am trying to live with my faith
Not gone and not here

I long for passion that would force me from my trance
Of swirling
The passion of a fierce fight
Of hungry ***
Of unexpected joy

But there is no color or music
There is no scent; floral or putrid
I miss the smell of God
My God