i want to
c r y
but i am in a crowded room

i hold back
t e a r s
but they fall anyway

now i am
a l l  a l o n e
but i cant get the tears to come out

i want to
c r y
but i cant
not at all

Stuck on blackened spikes
and under stormy seas.
“Let’s go for a hike,”
my wife said to me.

Her sliver of sunlight
breaks through my fog,
a sparkling invite
to go for a little jog.

On a bed of autumn leaves
and crisp wisps of dew
the trees us receive
while I from black withdrew.

People dream of being a scientist
Meanwhile, I wish to be a therapist,
Not for the foolish mortals
But for the myriad-glittering stars;

Thousands of years apart
They're lonely, are they not?
I'd like to listen to their flares,
Be a being that for them cares,
And find a cure for their despairs.

Isn't that absurd?
A longing that this life couldn't approve.

Through twisted bars of dark wrought iron
I see the shining golden home.
There once I’d been in my personal Zion
from which I’d freely roam.

But now I note I’ve lost the key
to this imposing gate:
I stand outside, trying hard to see
what caused this change of fate.

When and why did I turn my back
on this inner keep of peace?
How to drop the sackcloth black
and find a new release?

Now I must pull me up
and scale these castle walls
that I myself had built
before I took this fall.

For my sake and for those I love
it’s time to find my way
back to where sounds of cooing doves
becalmed me, come what may.

An ice floe made of gathered up snow
that fell over thousands of years:
The snow’s source water had achingly grown
from billions of sweat drops and tears

But now the floe turns and starts to flow
in rivers of thawed out heart-ice
and emotions once caged start to angrily glow —
An avalanche loosed from its vice

The glacier crashes, a tectonic shift
as mountains of blue-white burst the dam:
The inland is transformed by dramatic drift —
Who will find new order in the break of the jam

trapped words that I cannot  
scrape from my mouth  
spread like poison.  
radiating tendrils  
running under skin.  

I stab the pen into my arm,  
draw out the black bile  
coursing my veins  

and use it for ink.  
pouring my pollution onto the page,  
scribbling the bleak and vicious  
cogitations  
the nefarious abstractions  
that dig into the hushed  
corners of my soul.  

I hope to drain myself-  
enough to return colour  
to my veins,  
bleed red once more;  
taste joy and love  
on my palette  
in place of ash,  
and the ruthless regret  
that clings to my tongue.  

I am fading,  
withering like a husk.  
I fear I will run out of ink
and find nothing red left