The importance of maintaining balance,
in so much as sanity's building blocks.
A personal reflection of your highs and lows, each helpful for creative growth. Some stick around, as others come in flux.

Historically fixed in a similar headspace,
their presence placed for short or long.
We offer grace to those who help us, listen, laugh or object against the angst and tell us to our face.

An overlay in the dreams we hold,
plus those past mistakes which are often made.
These altered goods, associated schoolmates, bands of buddies, compatriots in cousins, a smile from a chum.
All state a claim in the memories of us aiming to belong, like everyone.

Playmates
by Michael R. Burch

WHEN you were my playmate and I was yours,
we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and the sorrows and cares of our indentured days
were uncomprehended . . . far, far away . . .
for the temptations and trials we had yet to face
were lost in the shadows of an unventured maze.

Then simple pleasures were easy to find
and if they cost us a little, we didn't mind;
for even a penny in a pocket back then
was one penny too many, a penny to spend.

Then feelings were feelings and love was just love,
not a strange, complex mystery to be understood;
while "sin" and "damnation" meant little to us,
since forbidden cookies were our only lusts!

Then we never worried about what we had,
and we were both sure—what was good, what was bad.
And we sometimes quarreled, but we didn't hate;
we seldom gave thought to the uncertainties of fate.

Hell, we seldom thought about the next day,
when tomorrow seemed hidden—adventures away.
Though sometimes we dreamed of adventures past,
and wondered, at times, why things couldn't last.

Still, we never worried about getting by,
and we didn't know that we were to die . . .
when we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and I was your playmate, and we were boys.

This is probably the poem that "made" me, because my high school English teacher called it "beautiful" and I took that to mean I was surely the Second Coming of Percy Bysshe Shelley! "Playmates" is the second poem I remember writing; I believe I was around 13 or 14 at the time. It was originally published by The Lyric. Keywords/Tags: playmates, boys, children, schoolmates, schoolboys, friendship, toys, playthings, fate, destiny, adventures, death, mortality

I had given up on love
Or just forgot the meaning
Because for some odd reason
You give me hope.

When I laid my head in your lap
You tickling me with a strand of grass
My eyes closed the warm sun light on my face.

It was at that very moment, that I was at peace
It felt as if you found a way into the gypsy field
Like it was just you and me, even though
Our friends were around.

I felt something,
When you let me kiss your cheek...
But I wonder,
Did you feel it too?