#soulwise
The world is going to end
And we are all going to die
Or, the world is not going to end
And we are all going to die anyway
In the meantime between the two
All we can do is all that matters
Love, live, keep climbing this mountain
Until the birds stop migrating
And they altogether stop singing
Until the creatures disappear
And we are left only with ourselves alone
Until the sun stops rising
And the warmth leaves for good
Though the world will keep spinning
(And we won't know why)
(You'd think it'd stop spinning,
At that point,
Once it all goes to **** for us)
But the world is going to end
And we're all going to die
So might as well keep on living
All the same as before
Fighting for every moment we can have
For freedom from these cycles, these
Cages where we are the birds
No longer singing nor winging
Or, the world is not going to end
And we are all going to die anyway,
Someday,
But as the creatures still roam and
We are not yet on our lonesome
All we can do
Is all that matters
Love, live,
keep climbing this **** mountain
Until one day we are able
To see the sun on the other side
Once more
Feb 6, 2025
Feb 6, 2025 at 12:38 PM UTC
maybe freedom
costs some of your soul
nights alone, coyote eyes
sparkling like stars alight
circling
for freedom wants its pay
teeth clicking through desert air
breezing just past your heels
circling, circling, circling
waiting for its chance
Dec 27, 2024
Dec 27, 2024 at 10:29 PM UTC
like the ribcage
of the deer
lay hit aside the road
now begging to be
devoured
red and gnarled
against greying grass
vultures circling
eat eat eat
take a bite of what
now open bare to see
once hidden
under fragile skin
Dec 27, 2024
Dec 27, 2024 at 10:28 PM UTC
i am cowboy lonely
lost, haunting,
hoping to be found
the searchlight-sun hitting
across canyon walls
sagebrush vibrant
against rust-and-cream stone
or cast over fields of
sweetgrass and wildflower,
i stand on the horizon
with only the wind at my side,
in my ear,
watching the clouds ramble by
Dec 27, 2024
Dec 27, 2024 at 10:25 PM UTC
born in a suburban valley,
but the appalachians raised me
weekends consisting of
getting lost in the hills
with my eyes and heart
filled with wonder,
this world soaking in
like rain to dry ground
my home soil was birthed
from ancient mountain tops,
the crests in the distance
having seen eras
far beyond our own
they roll like waves across
this landscape,
fields of grass and corn,
harvested crop with bolts of hay
wrapped tight in bulbous swirls
perhaps that’s why traveling
always feels like i never left;
nature invites my footfalls,
belonging to the earth there
to ponder where a soul is from
how old or new it is
who i was before this-
a deep connection to things,
tugging on my string and pulling me
toward certain places, or people,
connections that linger even when
i am no longer there,
or not with the people whose
bonds i’ve grown, forged
appearing on the horizons
growing close enough to touch
we all ponder, truly,
to know ourselves
who we are and who we
once were,
where we are meant to go
and if we are meant to be
what knowledge i must have
collected before now
what wonders i must have seen
if i yearn to search to find
and lose myself
once again
Dec 27, 2024
Dec 27, 2024 at 10:24 PM UTC
Change is tedious
and does not happen
in a single night
It takes time to
move, to uplift
to push and pressure
into your next form
Remember to be forgiving
it is not as if
the Rockies or
the Himalayas
punish themselves
for taking millions of years
to grow to their height
And it is not as if
the Appalachians feel down
about their change
from sky-cutting magnificence
to tired, rolling hills
Time touches us all
for better or for worse
for building us up
or eroding us away
but in the end
mountains are not
made with serenity.
their peaks are
not carved calmly,
nor carved neat.
we too cannot be made
gently,
or with careful precision.
Do not forget:
becoming
is as tumultuous
as orogeny
Dec 27, 2024
Dec 27, 2024 at 10:21 PM UTC
“what has changed since everything?”
at a glance,
very little.
my room is still
a messy grave.
i am still just surviving,
the way i was before.
but i have overcome
in this process
of becoming.
there is no more pretense
for who i must be.
no tether to
an overidealized self.
it’s scary, daunting-
but i am not alone.
i never was,
despite what i
was made to feel.
what fear was
hammered into me.
not
anymore.
since everything-
Everything has changed.
Dec 27, 2024
Dec 27, 2024 at 10:19 PM UTC
time as a slinky
coils and layers atop another
the climb neverending
it did not begin
it will not end
it will continue its descent
down the haphazard
flight of stairs
it was pushed to
walk itself down
does it tangle,
i wonder?
curled over
so that the lines,
the paths of time,
cross so effortlessly
that whoever must detangle them
may not even bother
leaving time in echoes of itself
intersecting in strange,
residual ways
that we
will never
understand.
Dec 27, 2024
Dec 27, 2024 at 10:18 PM UTC
maybe i am so used
to keeping an arm’s length
between myself and others
that death settles into the same role
someone i know,
but who keeps a distance
both out of respect for my ways
and for the times i have nearly met it
face-to-face
the lack of existing
the lack of knowledge on the subject
of course is frightening
it is why we are all
a little afraid of the dark, still,
a little afraid of what is around
the next corner
death, however,
i have known since i was a child
it has been there at wakes
at visitations
at final goodbyes once
the bodies have gone cold
and once the parting words
have been spoken
every time it arrives
it keeps a distance
out of respect
for my ways
and for our familiarity
it does not scare me
for my own sake
(i have known it since i was a child)
(i have nearly met it face-to-face)
(i believe it is gentler than we like to think)
(despite the variety of ways it takes us)
but with death
always comes grief
always comes mourning
and that is the harder thing
to meet.
Dec 27, 2024
Dec 27, 2024 at 10:17 PM UTC
jesus walked into that desert full of doubt
and i’m not really sure if i ever
willed myself to make it out whole
he’s a lucky guy, refusing temptation
i wonder if the thought crossed his mind
when that itch called to scratch
but maybe i can call up that
wilderness, that doubt-filled drought of inclination
and make it all my own
Dec 27, 2024
Dec 27, 2024 at 1:20 PM UTC
sometimes everything just
pools in the back of your throat
feeling like you could drown in
whatever emotion
****** at your eyes,
threatens to drop into your lungs
cold and tingling under the ear
behind the jaw
in a place not often thought of
in the day-to-day
sometimes
we have no words
for the things that happen
to us
sometimes words
are all we have
often
It’s a messy helping
of both-
words we can’t speak
feelings only conveyed
by screaming from
rooftops
messy
is key, here
this is never a clean process.
(regardless of what we crave and
wish and want)
few mops could properly
soak it all up
a sponge is none the wiser
sitting on the lip of
an overflowing sink
it can only do so much
to soak up what it can before it is
oversaturated
overstimulated
falling in the flow of water
as it tips over that lip-
careening over the edge,
full to the brim,
with nothing left to do
but fall.
Dec 27, 2024
Dec 27, 2024 at 1:19 PM UTC
i think i’ve grown comfortable
with my own suffering.
surviving,
and only surviving,
for so long-
anything else feels
alien and discordant.
it still makes the future fuzzy,
out of reach.
it overwhelms me.
drowns hope.
scars and blood
bring me back to focus;
but slipping hasn’t happened here.
grounding has come
in mountain peaks,
desert heat,
the mist coming off the sea.
stagnancy will eventually return
and that will leave me in limbo.
i only dream to keep
peace with the sweeping land,
making hope grow anew.
watering the forest in my chest.
keeping the fire of my soul from becoming all-consuming.
Dec 27, 2024
Dec 27, 2024 at 1:18 PM UTC
if heaven is real, it's an open road
it's a place I've been on far off travels
where the light hits right and the sun is warm, like the love of a friend
it's a moment in time where you remember
that the world is a beautiful place
despite the cruelty, agony, and pain
it's the eye-shine on a deer amidst a
nighttime field, the headlights pass over
it's the vision of a birdshadow crossing overhead, or landing beside you
like an angel checking in
beady eyes bright with intelligence
letting you know heaven is happiness
and nothing more, nothing less
Dec 27, 2024
Dec 27, 2024 at 1:15 PM UTC
perhaps i am just
a harbinger;
a bringer of things
making way for a
breakthrough.
in this i myself am not lost;
accepting the change
natural to life,
being one with a
catalyst.
sharpened teeth,
curving thorns,
knowing and prescient;
no prophet nor god,
simply something
monstrous.
looming.
majestic and terrifying.
from the rose bush
and her bloodied thorns:
a reminder that blindly grabbing
for the plush flowers of
life, love, and future ?
means sacrifice.
yet all grow shocked,
gasping aghast
when they are pricked.
when blood is drawn.
when change occurs.
Dec 27, 2024
Dec 27, 2024 at 12:16 PM UTC