Begin
Because of it all
Not in spite of it all
Begin
Take the step
Palms softly open
Heart trembling but willing
The gentle, truthful tremor of not knowing
I do not know
I do not know
I love
But I do not know
Cannot know
Should not know
But what you do know is that you must
You must step toward
Don't think
Feel and then act
Fall into the vortex
The flow, the pull
Step into it
Allow yourself to be swept up, holding soft center but allowing the momentum
Allow the undoing
The becoming
Slowly, slowly, slowly

Our mouths are clogged with lazy abbreviations and shortened versions of intelligence.

Hands bound with all the cords needed to charge and sync and transfer data to our brains, empty of original thought.

Our storage is at max capacity with the lies we're fed and the senseless information we're expected to regurgitate to earn our badge of Respected Member of Society.

But you have an opportunity to do things with purpose. Don't jam your pockets with phone numbers and calendars and one hundred versions of the same picture.

If your pockets are heavy, may they be weighted with the rocks you find while you walk beside the river that calms you.

And if your eyes grow tired, may it be from staring into the distance at the mountains you were born to climb.

little boat, I see you,
travelling through the subtle waves,
carrying a stranger across,
greeting the dandelions that are by,
underneath you, the creatures hide,
unable to peak through,
little boat, you aren't so little to life.

Humanistic traits
they are difficult things to find
even in humans.

I think I've been able
to find the sweet delights
of humanity
in the succulent fruits
that delight the dining room table.

They are ravenous
and quite fruitful with
the detailed insides of how
to live a meaningful
and quite delicious lifestyle.

Knowing when to drop problems
and ripen their own thoughts
they are prone to becoming rotten,
but when their time comes
they do not spoil the world around them
instead they spread the joy
of opportunity
to their children instead.

I saw in you.
what I see in her.
The color of hope.

He finds himself hanging again,
By a spider’s thread
manipulated by a master,
A master puppeteer

She caught me, bit me
time and time again, and again until
She left an intoxicating feeling.

As he looked up, he could only marvel,
at the lustrous thread,
an assortment that ran through him.

He didn't care about pain.
He didn't care how he was used.
Huh. It was all narcotics to him.

As he looked up, he saw her daggers.
they were dripping with ecstasy,
as she bit into her lower lip

He just couldn't get enough.

Their soul’s resonance kept the thread strong,
through it, she could feel him.
and he could feel her; Everything.

I knew what she was after
he didn't mind. He has what he wants.
She filled her hourglass with,
the red pigmentation of my blood.

After a long sleep
he saw morning dew on the thread
and the line snapped.
an almost empty shell remained

He landed on the next spiders thread
She was happy
and so was he,
virtuoso at all times.
As they both shared the nectar of life.

Born on the eve of a blue-yellow moon
Days and nights spent looking for you
A fool, a wretch, at best a buffoon
The seas are alive with the memory of you

The sailors they talk of your beauty and grace
But warn of your loves sweet deadly embrace
I’ve won and I’ve lost at the gates of your feet
So my father promised me he did on that day
My quest for your shores would not fade away
He said, you'll die a young man, and he promised I’d meet
An Atlantis to live for, to match my conceit

So I beg and I borrow
I scavenge and rave
Before my own birth was I already your slave?
So my head will rest on eternal tomorrow
As the search stretches on I question, Atlantis, my sorrow?

Alone and at sea, yet still I rejoice
After all of this time the manifest of your voice
and I see it now
It is just in view
Atlantis my salvation
I am coming to you

Purpose,
satisfying, glorious purpose
swells my heart
until it's
brimming,
bursting,
and begging to
overf
          \l
            \o
              \w
onto a page.
...
What
do I do?

Where
do I start?

How
do I direct this
bundle of
raw motivation?

How
do I mold it,
shape it
into a helpful,
useful format,
and
point it in
the direction
I
want?

How do I
use
it?

I never feel that I am productive.
Not productive enough.
Change the world somehow, everyday.
Those are my standards and I have never met them.
So I have to sit with myself every night.
Feeling disappointment and self loathing.
"You didn't do anything great today,"
a voice taunts me.
"Why are you even here if you don't contribute."
But what is contribution really?
Can't it be small?
It has to be small because I can't make it big.
I have to learn to appreciate my small self.
If I make someone smile,
if I write a poem,
if I walk the dogs,
why can't those things count?
I have to learn to count them
because they are all I have.
I can't be great but I can be good in small ways
and who knows, maybe they will add up to great someday.