Like an apostle fate called this vessel, Mark.
What is in a name?
Remarkably, I know not how to make my mark.
Let me be frank:
no matter the mask, the self does not change.

Time to slough off a visage of pain.
A lesson gained, never the less:
how to integrate a universe worth of stress.
Grateful I am.
I share space with God.
I am
meshed with flesh body
and nothing
at all.

She asked me
If I had ever been
In love

Then I
Realized that I
Had never not been
In love

I realized
I  wanted
Nothing  
Other than love

I think there is
Only one
Off-ramp
From the journey
Of love

That off-ramp
Is judgment

A critical heart
Combined with
A critical eye
Fills one with
The opposite
Of love—judgment

Judgment colors
The mind with
Negativity

Until the sin of
Judgment
Is displaced
By a lust
For love,
One will not find peace

When love invades
One’s heart
The body finds peace

When love is abundant
And bountiful
There is no fear
Of wasting love
Nor spilling love
For love can grow
Anywhere

So am I
In love?

Yes, I am
In love
Excessively
Wastefully and Willingly

Step by step, up the rail—
submission in the climb,
villain’s fanfare in my ears.

Each step, something more.
Each reach, something less.

The key turns.
Nothing unlocks.
Failure is a state of being,
complicity just the cost.

We wept, we adored,
we mistook motion for meaning.
I keep climbing—
not toward,
just away.

I keep rhyming,
like it’ll change the shape of things,
like desolation sways if you hum the right tune.

Promise kept.
Hearts torn.
Is that not the trade?

I might be dead,
for all you know.
Or just misplaced,
like a ghost in a machine
that still says your name.

Just be well.
(Or whatever it is
that keeps you from looking back.)

Judging my safety
Like collapsing sandcastles
Rough-built at high tide

Feeble foundations
Based on assumptions
Freak waves waiting

Only recently
I learnt that not everyone
Always feels afraid

Turn gently inward
To ask whether I’m okay
Quietly observe

The body holds the answers
Truer than the pliant mind

Tell me, is it worth appreciating
the silence that will at some point
replace you and the fog
of your scarlet breath?

Cured of my destructive longing,
I am falling apart
like a house of cards,
built in a whisper.

I am trying to free myself
from last year's sky, but I know
that you are still guarding my soul.

Locked in my own shadow,
I raise a toast
to a happier world.
When the last bell falls silent,
I will relinquish
my freedom and forget about loneliness.

An hour will be born in me
that knows neither light nor penance.
One morning I realized
that victory
was not dedicated to me.

I will open my mouth,
close the window. I am not afraid
of tomorrow's illusions,
of another painless evening.

I made a mistake
in my calculations again,
completing the morning prayer.