I am afraid
I am exited
I am wounded
I am healed
I am new
I am different
I am many things
One of them IS NOT
DEFEATED
Yes I've lost
but I have won
the experience
The bravery of the fear
The fun of the excitement
The lesson of the wounds
The hope of the healing
The discoveries of the new
The greatness of differences
But you can choose to see it this way
Or see the negative...

From my southern hills
I see creeping pollution far below
Not the fragrance of wood smoke
But the stencid rank smell of coal
Why can't people stop and think
About the damage they can do
When this fair land they do destroy
The death of me and you

Ours was less an Arab Spring
and more a half-hearted coup d'état.
There was no immolation,
no burning desire on your part;
no passion in the streets of you.

You stole in at night
through a window I'd left open,
a crack in my need
for something more than mere
existence.  From me there was
no resistance.

I let you lead, and followed blindly;
my voice I raised on your behalf
against all that I had known before.
Your words, your whispers
alone could incite me to storm
against the strongest walls.

Now, as summer comes
and this sectarian affair,
this spring uprising
that we called us has ended,
I sweep the streets of our debris
and wander down
the empty avenues
of you, half-hearted.

r ~ 6/5/14