A liberation
From the permanent
Weight
On your face

Clear crisp outlines
And details
Blur into
Fuzz

Your eyes relax and start
To adjust
The orchestra begins
To play

The players
Dressed in black
Look like dancing
Shadows
The light spaces
Between them
Take up a shape
Of their own

you have no idea what my journey is all about
so don't compare my life to others' because
sometimes life isn't fair but it is still good
so realize that life is too short to waste time
hating anyone and make peace with your past
so it won't ***** up your present and know
that everything changes in the blink of an eye
so get busy living and know that mistakes
are just lessons of wisdom because
the past cannot be changed and the future
is yet in your power.

I wanted to be a writer whose words touched
and changed those who read me
and I write and many read what I write
as they just try to get it right and sometimes
I might over prepare but mostly I just go with
the flow of words that come to me
from the inspiration that I get from those
who surround me but no one is in charge
of my happiness except me.

In all of my life-changing situations
I have chosen life when it would have been
much easier to go the other way
but I have forgiven everyone everything
and given time time and however
good or bad something was
I knew that it would change
and that I would be loved not because
of anything I did or didn't do and I  finally
realized that growing old beats the alternative
of dying young while realizing that miracles
are waiting everywhere so I show up and try
to make the most of life.

All that truly matters in the end
is that you are loved and I know that the best
is yet to come realizing that life
isn't tied with a bow
but it is still a gift.

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way
and I as a poet/artist say hard things in a simple way
knowing that it will all be over much too soon
and sometimes I am impatient and sometimes a little insecure
and sometimes I make mistakes but if you
can't handle my worst then you
don't deserve my best.            Jon  York         2013

Not understanding why people make the choices that they do. Why aren't the consequences weighed beforehand? Why can't we understand that our choices don't only affect us? Why do we lie? Why do we steal? Why do we skate around the truth with our "little white lies?", when they turn into something dark and ugly. Because sometimes honesty isn't the best policy. And sometimes the truth won't set you free. Not at first. "it'll get worse before it gets better." But when will it ever get better? Will I always have to expect the worst? Why must the ones you love the most be the ones who hurt you the most? What do I do when I can't be sure that my best friend will ever come back to me? Not just my best friend but my first friend. My only friend for the first 13 years of my life. The only one who defended me? The only one who understood me and my weirdness. The only one who could provide the comfort I so desperately sought? Why can't you choose us? Why can't you choose me? Just this once? Just this last time? I would still choose you even though you've let me down, insulted me, disappointed me, pushed me away when I stood by you, and cut me out of your life. You didn't choose me and now I've been left to pick up where you left off. I've become the provider, the comforter, the support, and the love for these 4 you've left behind. Y.es the 4 you left behind. I am one of the left behind. I am one of the ones that loved, stood behind, and supported you. But why me? Why must I do it? I am an adult but I am just a child. I am a child in an adult body and I have been forced to care for a family before my time. I never wanted people to depend on me. Because I know I've got good and bad things from you. Such as my eyes, my ears, my lips, and my smile. But also my lies, my ability to disappoint those that love me, and the way I can say such hurtful things and go to sleep and wake up wondering why everyone is so mad and disappointed in me. And after all I've endured from you and the wrath you brought upon our family, I would still let you choose me. Even when the others won't

tears fall from the eyes of heaven
healing the pain of bittersweet memories
wash me away in tranquil melodies
of morning rain

the stranger led me to the edge of the cliff.
he pushed me.
i flew.
i wonder how he knew
i would.

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
   03.07.2013
   Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

death is laced with colours no eye can see
i saw it yesterday
resting on a twig
on a cold manhole cover
against which it looked so alive
-- it seemed to be comforted
brown wings pulled close, tips almost touching,
against the tiny white shell of its chest,
speckled with black
a tiny beak welcoming the chance to grab
at an interminable silence
--neither ugly nor morbid
but gently pretty,
the presence of death
affirming life.

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
   06.07.2013
   Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

(Written to be spoken to babe-y)

When it comes to putting what you are
into words
do you trust yourself?

I understand there are many ways for another to mistake their symbols
for your sound

I've been wrong about more things than I care to count

and I still try to count on all the things up in the air that I haven't nailed down

but my love is so unreal it's getting kind of hard to figure all this unreality out.

Harder than stilling shaky hands from all my mental pacin around

and impossible as that one poem I read to you aloud.
You know the one
 about how heaven and hell
are also just trying to figure each other out.

I can imagine the view
 from up there and believe me
I know my sleeves shouldn't be so ******* filthy

because from this distance and from what I wear, some may confuse 
my heart for the muck

all the love I've tasted with a pinched nose trying to stem disgust

I could never wash any of it away 
but



I should remember

I do remember and recall much

that has made me into someone I love.

Born of dirt and trying to be enough.

Just two in the running tally, 
of my error.

There is no volume control for my daydreams

and there are no knobs for this kind of radio

so when living poetry around the clock

you either you dont like the song 

or your driving foot gets a little heavy and the windows come down.

Faster, faster coming to me faster 
across lines that blur into the trees

that blur into the blues. 

My favorite song,
a kindred color that without

I wouldn't be able to see you

Dancing on the edge of my vision 
blowing bubbles in a see through room

I've made out of the words beauty and grace

glued together with tiny memories of your face.



I remember.



One eye staring from over a pillow full of a moment we'd rather stay awake for.

A tangle of your hair bolting across your cheek I liken to drinking black coffee  

and those electric lips owning the words that almost drown

in the wake of your thunder

but I'm listening

and oh god I hear you. 

Sounding down my spine with lighting striking from your mouth into mine.

Under a storm of blankets and mixed limbs that become the eye

A perfect stillness

a weightlessness

where there's not enough gravity to go around 
for all my weatherfall still there

rain snow and shine stuck hanging mid-air 

you are a timeless weather woman

with no need for percentages

because you give me

what I've always known to be real

that the other forecasts 
predicted only to exist in a halo

eternities chance approaching zero

the circle that's but a fraction of an instance colored in you totally

smothering me slowly in a symphony sparing no noise

impossible to be wrong about

the correct answer

nobody ever told me to jot down

and baby I've been tested

I graduated from broken records

and the bad side of town

from black sheep flocking to 
darkness
with clothes shaven from the light

Top of my class with a degree in acceptance

at a university where we take left and use it to make right.

My friend, these are some heavy credentials 

so I hope you understand the weight 

behind my certainty in your footfall.

I'm some authority on mistakes and heartbreak

so treat me like a scholar 

or a weatherman with forecasts known to account for everything and the decimal.

A dotted i

Hear me place the you in me down to a point

the one I'm making

with all I've ever been wrong about

beckoning us

but never doubt.