Be inspired by many things
but don't get caught by wanting
and wanting to be
everything.

L.C.

I stay behind the screens,
watching from far away from
friends laughing in pleasant light,
while I shrink into the corners
like dust nobody will sweep up.


They talk freely and
my words rot in my throat.
Every “how are you?”
is like an exam I already failed
so I smile with hollow notes.


I want to say I miss you all,
but it hangs like guilt in my chest.
I want to ask can you see me?
But I already know the rest.
I'm just that blur in the group picture
there, but never really there.


It's not your fault that you don’t notice.
I made it easy for you to ignore.
I shrink back into smallness even quieter
than background noise,
somewhere along the way
I started to believe I was less than nothing more.


But still
I watch. I care. I wish.
Even if I can’t speak it right.
Even if my silence
is all that you remember.

I cry for countless things
For birds with broken wings
For toys left by growing kids
For discarded wedding rings

I cry for characters on screen
Personas I've never truly seen
Whose stories echo familiar
With wisdom that I might glean

I cry for broken hearts
For unsuccessful starts
For fields of wildflowers
That are staked then ripped apart

I cry for rivers that can't be crossed
I cry for things not yet lost
And even within remarkable love
I cry, knowing what love will cost

I have a friend who cries
For rose-tinted skies
For the first looks given
From a newborn babies eyes

She cries for happy endings
And noble, generous spending
She cries for torn friendships
That are slowly but surely mending

She cries from staggering laughter
Or jumbled kitchen disasters
Or while attempting obscure talents
That we both know she never will master

I think it's something special
To have tears so freely deployed
At the sight of heartbreak and beauty alike
What a gift, to cry for joy.

What I see in her brings tears to my eyes
I crave that untethered jubilee
And in my longing, I realize
The beginnings of it in me

He once told she is all he desires
She's like a rose in field of flowers
He likes to gaze as is a hawk
His love is chained, she needs to squawk
The love he speaks to, is a peer
She hears his heart and drop a tear.
When she's coming near he gets a stroke
She fades away through the smoke
The clearance destroys his shelter
Another wish, wish to depart.
He falls and cries, seeks for love,
A needle in a haystack she's now
He breaks bad realize he is mad,
Turns to God he makes a vow.
He loved her more than he could define
Stepped into the dark he’d left behind
Whispers in the midnight are all he left to find.

Once anxiety hits in
It spreads around like lava
Projecting negativity
And causing so much drama

So I increase awareness
To end this pattern's madness
Restoring back my mindset
Slowing down, gentle reset

Breathing consciously
I remind myself
I am the one responsible
For my mental health

Comparison arises
It causes an earthquake
This is the perfect timing
To become awake.

Crazy, crazy, crazy.
It is tiring trying to tackle this Q stuff,
From a first person perspective.
All this far out quasi side-history,
Drenched in hate of every kind.
Divisive as all hell,
A kind of game within itself
To distance us from each other more
Rather than bring us close.
Together we stand, divided we fall
In on ourselves as like
A house of cards

The wind blows, nothing

happens, maybe unless you --


look to see something.

My attention, where

does it go, what do I want --


to see of the world?

Visitors give me,

as a sick person, knowledge --


of human nature.

Start with self.
The others can wait.

Thoughts are just passing clouds for which to meditate.
Observe the world as the observer, not the taker or receiver.

Judges are for benches. Do not sit alone.
   Stand and walk into the songs of birds.
   Free within your self called home.