If I could just love you as much as you loved me on days that i didn’t react to you,
I would hate myself- just a smidge less…
I would forgive myself for how I no longer get butterflies when I hold your hand,
Yet I can hear your butterflies flutter just as they did when we had our first kiss…
Just a few of the moments I’ve stolen from us,
All because I can’t seem to get over the things that have been stolen from me…

my father sat in a pool
of mid-morning sunshine
on the raised patio
overlooking the garden
an open book in his lap
the dog asleep at his side
the lightest of clouds
decorating the horizon
and a whisper of leaves
his only distraction

as i rushed to the kitchen
for a hastily made
better-than-nothing version
of a flat white
that i wouldn't even enjoy
only ten minutes to spare
before yet another meeting
i paused for a moment
to take in this scene
resplendent as he was
peacefully present
behind the radiance
of diaphanous lace
breeze-rippled curtains
suffused with sunlight

a pertinent reminder
of something which
i didn't have time
to consider

Why is pleasure measured in moments,
while work is measured in weeks or years?

Pleasures are like insubstantial fictions, sweet treats gone
in the tasting or perhaps flowers, that once cut, wither.
So don't be enthralled by fickle snippets of passion.

Work and service have the weight of reward,
by labor's honest toil, we fashion, forge and provide.

gilded a prison
in the moments of
yet was is

Humanity is in us all,
We care but we sometimes fall,
We must be there for others and stand tall,
Can we be the ones that set up that stall,
Live and breathe humanity,
For we can teach the young,
The song we know can bring happiness when sung,
Believing we can sustain,
Remembering we can refrain,
Humanity's call is amongst us all,
Lets us see it through and repeat the call.

How can I begin to wonder about life further on
when all I see is a poor man continually struggling on
How does a person seek riches when thy neighbor is down on their luck
How can I look towards the years of me without coming unstuck
These shoulders I bare thoughts upon lay heavy full of guilt
To think I once had everything from what once I had built
A fine man I used to be until they came
The people in body armor struck, it was a day of raw emotion and downfall
Of a man with everything who ended with nothing
A life that was but seemed a dream
We die the same with the last tear in our eyes
Oh lord please take me now I am ready to fly.