I was looking at shoes, as I was two and a half years ago
Off to mark a milestone, as I am now,
And somehow, as before, the shop owner becomes my advisor,
Sagely dispenses wisdom, asks sage questions, a sagesse that I
Do not know, though I feel older than the hills - the lies for
A true veteran to realise, though I will never be older, we can't deny
Than I am now, yet also never younger, in this moment.
It is easy for one that has seen many to guess the torment
Of a young soul - My life is decided in my teens, and I stick with it -
Or not, as they keep telling me - the door isn't closed - I am young;
It doesn't feel that way - it isn't long I was a babe, it isn't long
I have to live, I lie to myself, savouring little and nothing
Except the wine that dulls me further; It doesn't fit;
Nothing fits, into the time-frame I have constructed from something,
A rate, that isn't constant - the change in the perception of time:
There was a time that hours were days, and now days are hours;
And one day, they will be seconds, and soon will years.
It's all too fast, even when I complain it is too slow; where's the rhyme
And reason and rhythm to all of this? I was conceived; the die was cast;
I'm not going somewhere slowly: I'm going nowhere, fast.

When a soldier marches, where does his focus go?
Forward? To glory or doom?
His mind filled with stories of honour and pride of wars long ago?

Backward? Of the life, they left behind?
To the wife, the child back home?
The medals to be shown as trinkets or to speak never more?

Have they ever stopped to look around? Of the country, to be or not to be? The mountains, the rivers, the towns and to the sea.
The damage to be caused? The life preserved?

Regardless, the solider marches

Once i thought I knew something
and then knew nothing at all
Climb the wall or break it
fly on wing or fall
Somewhere in between
I've heard that balance is in tow
Something about ducks
being neatly in some row
Evades me, this enlightenment
pervades me does the doubt
Essentially there's always something
that we do without.

The curls are cut and gone
The past falls away
Swept up with a broom

Pent up in my room
Slowly changing
Long hair
And short sleeves
To sweatshirts
Rearranging

A beanie to cover up
The dread I feel
Looking in the mirror
I hope to see change
But I don't know what of

This is my dysphoria

It breaks like waves against the cranium
Again and again the syncopated beat of my heart
Is it magic? Is it a miracle?
Is there madness behind such a glowing word?
Ramblings of a madman, I'd rather me insane than comprehending extreme sanity.
What sanity is there in a world that holds no bounds?
What gods can there be when man in turn becomes his own god?
I have no answers, I am all but questions.

Urgent and bursting, it is a sweet fruit that ripens until juice trickles out,
Turgid and thick, quivering and throbbing like breath itself,
Not solid or liquid but a state inbetwixt.

Maybe this is mania, maybe this is something above what I am?
Who am I if not for my breath and my breaking?
It is the gaps that make the solid thing whole.