The lights shine on
The chatter ricochets off the walls
The wind hits me in my face
And makes me alive.

The curving path leads somewhere else
Those people who leave, with no explanation.
The heart aches to comprehend
Aches to go back, back again to the straight path.

What is beyond -  it does not know
Like the candle that remains in darkness
Even though it lights all the rest.

The shadows remain, the stone walls stand
As I stand to answer the call of my soul.
Illuminate me.

I wish the bubbles on my screen saver were real
I wish the tears in my heart would dry
I want to have a good, bad fight right now
I want to have a good long cry.
I wish the world would right itself
I wish there were stores of sensitivity, and feeling
So everyone could have a bit of them
I wish people weren’t poor. I wish I could wish away all deprivation.
I wish life was all that happy, and people all that good.
I wish everyone would wish for all that I wish, so it might just come true
I wish the bubbles on my screen saver were real.

Often I have wondered
What must it be like to die?
How does it feel?
Painful or painless?

What does one think?
- Of achieved glories and exploits,
Of debts unpaid,
Or of emotions buried?

Does one feel sad to leave the stage,
Or happy indeed in the final act of the play?
But alas! Who shall tell me this?
For I know none who's
dead and come to demystify this truth of life
Known to no scientist, answerable by no teacher ...

But one thing I know
A long life is not my desire
To be wretched and afflicted is not my way
With disease I do not want to sway

For now my friends, let us
Not choose our requiem
For we have books to read, and
Places to see
And miles to go before we sleep.

A shield, seemingly impenetrable
of mind games, of
false safety.
Struck once, and fallen.
For this, all these years?
Make a wall to break it?

Except LHS is not equal to RHS here;
Cos the wall has broken what was growing on it.

'Push yourself up' - they say.
On what?
What was built upon a fallacy is now in crumbles.
'That was real' - you cry:
Who hears?

Left with a mess.
'Left with a test;
For your strengths'
Or for your courage?

Will that collapse too?
If it is false.

Who's the judge? - you demand.
Who knows?
The doubt lies. The judge stays veiled. Your courage is burning.

But wait! is that a phoenix coming through?