Hello Stranger

She was smiling at me while turning the pages of the book
There she was on the bench frowning
And then while making the mundane choices
They were all there, she is still here

Huddled up inside me, jostling for space
Faceless and nameless, they grew
Disjointed and disconnected
Rearing their heads
Dominating, struggling and then cajoling and comforting

In their world, madness is unreal and sanity delusive
Pain is surreal, so is existence
Happiness, mythical and sadness an unwelcome stranger

They are hostages of their essence
Enjoying the power struggle
Busy, Floating around in chaos
Sweating in mundane
Waltzing on the void

My, happy children of mundane
For them, Negotiating confusion is survival
Blocking the deafening noise of history, winning

Buried in the hackneyed beauty of life
With each for the other

In this crowd
Their aches are still trace less
Pains don't leave any mark
Tears are hollow and screams silent

Suffocating in a teeming crowd of self
Their search for one other,
Just Any other, continues

This is the beauty of condemnation
That the teeming crowd within fondly calls Life.

My heart ached

For a voice I couldn't unhear.
For a touch as familiar as the suns light.
For eyes that could only see my soul.
For promises I could never hold him to.
For answers to questions I couldn't ask.
And for comfort I didn't deserve.

But most of all my heart ached to just not ache
For one day
For one hour
For one minute
Without him.

And the problem was that
While I was always without him
My heart ached

And ached

And ached

And ached

And has never ceased it's aching.

I need you to know
that I no longer write about you.

see, what confuses me
is that i'm most often kept
on the outside
of your shining brilliance

i don't get to experience
the marvelous rays of
your genius
and that's alright, i suppose

i instead get to glimpse
from the outside
when i get the chance
and i've settled for that

standing out and looking in
is where i’ve grown accustomed
it’s okay, don’t feel bad
i’m used to it

( it is now a case of the day-to-day
rather than the out-of-the-ordinary. )

it surely isn’t your fault
that someone like me is
so plain, that your greatness
overshadows my own
mediocrity.

-d.m.