There is a fine balance between
all or nothing,
which is very difficult for me
to embrace.

I either want it every day,
or it to forever go away.
The same goes for anything
that I've ever found interesting.

Its circular face mocks and laughs
at me with that numerical circumference.

Red and black hands reach out and
grab me tight, leaving bruises on my psyche.

I'm helplessly cast deep into my past
where time flows like molasses.

Back when the clocks
took their time
counting down my life
and rotting my mind.

Back when they were slow
and I just couldn't wait to grow
up.

the heavy heart is a heathen
corrupter of better nature
committer of soul-treason

fueled by the miserable notion
that death is twilight
and life is dawn

to flight, to flail
to rage, to rail
to weep, to wail
to no avail

to unhope

and all of this minus the mercy

©Jason Cole

I fell in love twice.
The first, a glorious trip over cheap champagne and the dreams of youth.
Tremendously child-like , desperately adult.
But nothing that burns so bright dies slowly without notice.
And I swore I would never love again.
The second, greatest love
Happened without intention
And saw into the future. And saw reality.
And was a great, great love.
Subtlety spread from an ember to a wildfire,
And I've learned that love hurts more as an ache
Than it ever could as an explosion,
And sometimes feels like loneliness.

It was shallow water, rippling
a watery moon quivering
on the surface seen
It was night fire
burning water into steam
gray smoke screened
It was willful drowning
upon a lily bed of lies
parched a wilted garden
slowly withers, dies