It's been a while since you've written,
and it's been 3 weeks since my blankets have stopped smelling like you.
I couldn't help but notice the way my body drowns in these sheets
because you were my life vest but you were not there when i jumped in.
I looked back at the dock before my head went under
and i saw you just sitting there, watching me struggle.
I tore you apart in my head
every single strand of thread and love was separated
until every bit of silence that was woven in has been exposed.
But these strands don't hold any value when you're drowning,
what I have done is destroyed the only thing that could give me buoyancy.
Now I am left with extra weight on these shackles i bear
and water filling up my lungs like a measuring cup
to a recipe from Hell's kitchen.
In your last letter you asked "Are we okay?"
but you don't just tell someone you love them then let them drown.

A unit of measurement is a definite magnitude of a quantity,
used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. Any other quantity of that kind
can be expressed
as a multiple of the unit of measurement.

Length,
for example,
is a physical quantity.

Any value of a physical quantity is expressed
as a comparison to a unit of that quantity.

For example, the value of a physical quantity Z is expressed as the product of a unit [Z] and a numerical factor:

Z = n x [Z] = n[Z] So if we were to let Z be “2 antique sofas” then Z = 2[Z] = 2 antique sofas.

Fifteen hundred miles or so,
converts to roughly 7920000 feet
and 48 hours of land
across approximately 29 counties spread through 5 states

However,
in order to measure more abstract concepts,
different units of measurement are often adapted,
or hybridized, to fulfill ad-hoc need.

Coping,
for example,
is an abstract quantity
represented by

American Spirits:
(farenheit, inches, exhaled smoke as measured in cubic feet.)

Tears cried as designated driver
for termination
of unplanned pregnancy:
(miles, cost of service in U.S. Dollar, speed, tear volume in milliliters)

Furniture thrown:
Forces relevant to stable flight include a balance of
Propulsive ******. Lift,
created by the reaction
to an airflow
Drag, created by
aerodynamic friction
Weight,
created by gravity
Buoyancy, for lighter
than air flight

Holes in drywall:
(Inches in diameter and depth, potential bruises to be explained if the wall is ever further away than the human form in a darkened bedroom)

Unfortunately,
some concepts are still devoid of applicable units of measurement.

Take for example, the concept of Waiting.

As it has no defined beginning,
or end, and is malleable based on
external factors such as perceived value
and level of psychosocial dependency,
there appears to be no observable limit
regarding absolute human capacity capabilities.

It's hard for me to be your anchor
Especially when I'm this buoyant.

lately,
my heart
has been louder
even in echo than my head and
i am here
trying to navigate the oceans between
too much and not
enough.

looking ever-closer to where i think
the peaks of mountains
can be measured between fingertips;
measured between dividers;
backed by a steady needle’s weight.

a sea claimed Bering
through a marshy coastline
lit only by oil and torch -
where buoyancy can balance
treacherous watery routes and  
rough, shaky hands can trace the  
pulling of sails through knots
towards the exhaling light of an imminent shore.

though i am unsure of the differences between finger-lengths,
am i holding back
because i cannot accurately predict
the pulls of the moon;
the swells of tides;
the seasons of rough storms?

perhaps even the spark of embers against my heaving backbone -
and what of the humming gears of sentience
in my chest?

am i holding back because
what i lay in permanence always meets
a spray of waves?
the crash of undercurrents against the breath leaving
your lips? -

currents that unapologetically meet
the rise of the earth and the
curve of your back
forcing the Weems
to stretch for topography that maybe even my knees cannot lock against.

go down with the ship,
i will swallow the grasp reflex that builds
in my throat and in my palms.

a million times over i will meet the breaking of every tensile structure in my body
if it means catching your swell.

and like the greek merchant’s ship cast deep into the dead sea’s belly,
i will be overcome with every ounce of your pressure
even if every time
i am fated to lose the rise and fall of my lungs to salt water;
to a watery grave;
to knit sheets and a sailor’s prayer;
a promise of ever-lasting life.

No one ever taught me not to stick my hand in a fire, I just learned by common sense;
but here I am again, grasping for you and watching my hand blacken and burn.
Because every time you say that you don’t know what to say,
I want to call you a liar because you just spoke.  
But being speechless speaks louder than words and
the absence of sounds swallows me whole  
until your fire was all I saw and like a fool, I reached for it again.  
But as I did, in the darkness I couldn’t see that my paper heart
was starting to burn.

We all grew up too fast, pushing through pull ups and graduation robes as if they could be worn twice.
We learned that excuses and “I’m sorry”s could be said again,
but that didn’t undo the damage already done.
Now the angry redness of your ears matches the redness of my future and I can’t help but wonder how I could’ve messed this up so badly.
But then I remember that I have a PhD in impulsiveness, poor decision making, and panic attacks.
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions,
so down I lay cobblestone after cobblestone until I reach the gates but I never enter.

Who needs hell when I have your fiery red hair and temperament
that develops into a burning rage that scorches my skin with silence, when I’d rather be slapped with sinful words that PG movies don’t allow. All I can say is that I tried, because that’s what we all do in this world; we try.  
Try our best, but fail anyways because success is for those who get lucky and this world is nothing but a game of chance with lottery tickets costing you more money than you will ever win, but we believe that there must be some essence of luck in our lives because we keep buying tickets.
She thought she was lucky.  She thought that in an oceanic timeline, surrounded by blue, that she had found a brown boat, brimmed with buoyancy and broken dreams that you shared.
She climbed into that boat, and side by side you sailed neither of you realizing that you were sinking.

That is the thing about the boats in which we sail, even when we assure ourselves that they will never fail.
In this world, we all have our own ships, but the trick is that these boats can only hold one passenger.
She had her own boat once.  She lost it, in maritime madness, one reason or another.  
When her boat was swallowed by the sea she started swimming, trying to keep moving. Sink or swim they say.
So as she swam, she spent all her energy and instead tried to tread and keeping her head above water was no longer a game that you played in summers spent at the shallow end of the pool.
It became a constant question of survival.
She must’ve been lucky, for your ship sailed by and
picked up the poor girl who then became a passenger of someone else’s vessel.
This boat was worn, and her captain had tried to patch the holes but as the two sailed, the ship began taking on water as they went.

When training to be a lifeguard, they teach you quite a few things.
Mouth to mouth resuscitation(which sadly is no longer actually mouth to mouth),  first aid, CPR, and how to pull a drowning victim from the water.
When people drown, our instincts kick in and we grab for  anything to keep ourselves above water and breathe.  
We don’t mean to hurt anyone else in the process but we just keep fighting for air.  
Sometimes the people push their rescuer under and even though we may try to hold them up, if we don’t breathe too we’ll drown!  
So what lifeguards are taught to do is if they are being pushed under
is to shove the victim off, swim away, and save ourselves.
Now some may say that sounds selfish and how can we do that when we’re supposed to be saving them, but we can only save them if we’re alive.  If we can breathe.

You told me dating me was like a breath of fresh air,
because when you were with her, you were held under for:
1, 2, 3, 4…10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 45, 83, 104, 255, 1013… 63,072,000 seconds - TWO YEARS.
So of course, I understood why you swam away.
Away from the girl who broke your boat because being drained of energy was something I used to do to others.  
I ****** the acid out of batteries and I walked on power lines, licked light bulbs, and suckled sockets because I too was once a drowning victim and but I hit the water was shocked by the electric energy that I had drained from him and it was hell.  
The hell that I had laid cobblestones too, the hell that one day I might see you in, because we’re all sinners here.  
We aren’t human if we don’t make mistakes, and ****’t I’ve made mine.

I fell from the ship and sank until I hit rock bottom, which was  somewhere right between a razor blade reef and pill popping plankton. It’s funny how solid rock bottom can feel beneath your feet, because we’ve been on our boats or in the water for so long;
but you can’t stay down there no matter how badly you want to
because your lungs are screaming for air so you push yourself up and struggle for the surface.
The Marianas Trench is the deepest point in the ocean, and I’m pretty sure that’s about where I landed.  
And I’m sure that if it wasn’t for a difference in timing, I would’ve seen her at the bottom too.
But that’s the split between me and her, because right now I’m back in my own boat and I’m breathing in fresh air but she’s gasping for a breath. She’s struggling to breathe but her lungs keep taking on water.

This doesn’t happen to just her and me, but there are hundreds of thousands of people out at sea.
Some decide to perform a self mutiny by mutilating their minds and jumping overboard and the truth is that not everyone makes it!
Some open their mouths underwater while screaming for help
but instead their shouts are choked out by the salty ocean that surrounds us all that we continuously mistake for our own tears.  
Some people are smarter. They wear life jackets, while the rest of us
use others as life rafts until we figure out how to rebuild our boats and I’m here to say that you can.
No, it’s not going to be easy. It’s never easy.  
Learning to swim wasn’t easy. When you first learned to swim you thought you would drown then, but you survived didn’t you?  
If Jack Sparrow sailed the sea, so can we.

So here I am, breathing in and I’m floating on,
trying to teach others that mending their ships is a pain but they have nothing to lose and so much more to gain.  
And there you are and if dating me is like breath of fresh air and you're fire, do I just continue to let you consume my oxygen until I choke on bitter words and stutter on sentences that I can’t spit out?
Sure my boat has holes in it and sometimes, the patches break;
but I have found that letting water in just isn’t for me so don’t plan on using wooden scraps of my boat to light your fire anytime soon because I know that even though this ocean seems vast and never-ending, we are all sailing somewhere.
Hopefully, we’ll get their soon.

In the warring states, they called us men of the waves: 'ronin'.
Masterless, we drifted in and out with the tide because we understood the nature of movement was nothing more than 'hi's' and 'byes'. So we wave both: peace.
It was in this freedom that we arrived at the fearlessness of dying.
We completed ourselves: one with our shadows, our hearts as broken compasses,
scars as maps and our souls held as swords to leave the mark of our nameless legends on the pages of history books that tried to forecast our fate. They now call us men 'a dying breed', though it was by facing death as a way of life that we became immortal.
We were light on our feet to the point of buoyancy, for you could not keep a man of the waves down.
You should have seen us in our element.
We pretty much flew.

They are

                monotony.

Pulchritudinous

               ­               aesthetics,

Alleviation

                      to­

                             seclusion.

Do you not feel the heat – my wrist on yours
burn tales more rich than ours on nights more dark
than souls too tense to feel the eyes of God
draw shame on backs of necks so close?

Or is it

                                                             ­                                                                 ­        just me?

Conjuring

                    fraudulence

Accrediting

   ­                    ludicrous

                                          buoyancy

I know its there I know the life that flows
through limbs of mine can move through cloth to touch
the skin of yours I hear your eyes I see your voice
I breath you in why else are we so close?

And

          innocent

And

            serene

And

  ­          happy




And

                                        ­                                                                 ­                                    secluded.




How can you sit not feel those things I feel
not think those thoughts I think not see your wrist
sink in to flesh as soft and pink as lips
I long to taste? We are al-ways al-ways
al-ways al-ways al-ways al-ways

so close...



They are

                 tolerable

Doused

               ardor

                            maybe.

Benumbed

            ­           incandescence

                                                  ­  maybe.

But still

               They are
                                                             ­                                                                 ­                             here.

Dawn gently kissed the nape of dusk



Whilst patient time awaited peaking



Majestic streams of solar lust



Born via pre-******* streaking





Saturn's rings exclusive ******



Equipped for sensual fancy



Mesmerized by daring billows



Elevated by buoyancy





Excitement steadily evolving



Cosmic spheres swiftly building



****** timelessly revolving



Licentious shock she is wielding





Dawn coloured blackened skies



Pleasure falling with each tear



****** baring lovely sighs



Passion with a wince of fear









© 2012 (All rights reserved)

Deep inside my Tum
Whether I am lifting a Van
Storm clouds above
A damp weatherman

Tension hooked in by the side
trampoline
suspending the moon
in our wildest dreams

I swore i would never turn into my father
That weak, sorry excuse for a man
I swore I would nev end up like him
Then he died
I Began to notice things
It started with his nervous tick
That insietent biting of my lowere lip
Then in my stride,
 a slight buoyancy 
A cross between a spring and stroll
Then laugh
Somehow joyous 
Uninhibited
Seeming to carry in it all the joy of the universe
Wrapped in one moment
Then the worrying began
Wanting to keep those I loved safe
So though I swore I would  never to turn into that weak, kind, gentle , sweet man
I did.

Make sure you write your poems
With a typewriter
on some
Archaic
Obscure
Unconventional
Peice of paper

The idea of depth
Is more important
Than what actually lies beneath

When Archimedes jumped out of his bathtub
Shouting ‘Eureka’ naked down the streets,
He had finally found a way to uncover
The deceit on behalf of His Majesty’s goldsmith.

Had he stolen gold replacing it with silver
While carving the divine wreath commissioned by the Tyrant?
The Golden Crown of Syracuse to be placed on the head
Of a goddess to be tested without being disturbed.

It all began with overflow as he dipped his body in water.
It was evident and easy to observe
That some objects floated while others sank,
Occupying more or less, tri-dimensional space.

Fluids rejecting or enveloping the intruder,
Displaced proportionally to the latter’s
Volume, density and mass, led to the revolutionary
Discovery of buoyancy, sparkling new beginnings.

The understanding suggested, that if an object displaced
An amount of water heavier than its weight, it would float.
The opposite being true, an object displacing
An amount of water lighter than its weight, would sink.

Fluid’s volition to reclaim its legitimate space.

Although the system was unable to assess the fraud,
As shape came into account and a kilo of solid gold
Was smaller than the kilo of golden wrath,
Dipped into water discrepancy ignored the math.

Unpredictably, the genius found higher purposes,
Buoyancy to determine whether a steel ship would sink
Or float, make it through the Mediterranean and beyond,
Where the Pillars of Hercules warn sailors to go no further.

Non plus ultra to the realms of the unknown.

The understanding suggesting that if an object displaced
An amount of water heavier than its weight, it would float,
Bigger volumes, lower densities, empty hulls and ballasts,
Succeeded in opening the gates to new oceans and new worlds.

Buoyancy to explain why our bodies float at sea
Apparently rejected by expelling waters claiming back their territory.

Gases being fluids, air acts the same,
With the extraordinary result that a kilo of feathers
Is indeed lighter that a kilo of lead.
By 0,9 grams.

Dear Poet Friends, I hope you like this slice of Early History presented
below in simple verse. Please do read the short notes at the end, before giving your comments.  Thanks, - Raj

ARCHIMEDES : THE PIONEERING
       STREAKER OF HISTORY!

There lived in the Third Century BC, in the Sicilian
town of Syracuse, then a Greek colony,
A Greek mathematician named Archimedes.
He was tasked by King Hiero of his town,
To find the purity of gold in his crown;
Suspicious of the goldsmith having mixed
some material of inferior kind,
Which the King wanted Archimedes to find!

So, Archimedes lost in thought one day,
Entered the public bath on his way!
And as his body began to get submerged,
He happened to notice perchance,
Water spilling over from the tub!
The answer suddenly flashed across his
mind,
And he jumped up leaving everything
behind,
Wearing only his birthday suit,
Running through the street of Syracuse,
Exclaiming -  “Eureka! Eureka!”
(I have found it! I have found it!)
Perhaps to become the first known streaker  
of History!
While establishing the Principles of Buoyancy!
@ (see notes)

Archimedes, son of the astronomer Pheidias,
studied at the great Alexandrian city,
Remembered even to this day for his many
pioneering works, -
In Hydrostatics, Mechanics, and Geometry.
With his ingenious mechanical discoveries,
He held the great Roman galleys of Marcellus
at bay,
For more than three years, as Plutarch the
Roman Historian says!    + (see notes)
Later one day, while lost in deep thought,
When some intricate problem of geometry
he was trying to resolve,
Refused to hear Marcellus' bidding,
To be slain by the Roman soldiers who had
come to fetch him!
O those Romans, with lesser brains and more
brawn!

And some hundred and thirty years after
his death in 75 BC,
Cicero, then the Roman Governor of Sicily,
Found the tomb of great Archimedes, near the
Agrigentine Gate, over grown with bushes and
thorns;
Where he lay buried in the scented dust of History!
                                                   - Raj Nandy, New Delhi.

NOTES:
@ Principle of Buoyancy = any floating object displaces its own
weight of fluid. So weight displaced by a crown of pure gold and
the one already made could be compared to find the truth!
+ Archimedes designed large stone throwers, & crossbows, and
also grappling hooks using large cranes to grab Roman ships and
capsize them!

I am in penury; exhausted from these burdens of life,
Forever a loser? For I have never won yet a price.
I will not wrangle, I let them stoop at me so low
And I accept this discernment, for I have nothing to lose.

I do not have buoyancy to stay afloat in waters,
Scarcity of respect? Well, I am just nobody from nowhere
And I do not have puissance to climb any highest peak,
Also, pity words for them, for this tongue to be a speech.

Years were gone, still I cannot be an escapee for this maze,
Always in the midst of dimness since I have seen my face,
But I dream for that flare which will illuminate the pains,
With this persistence I own, I will search for it again.

I am nobody, and I am from nowhere, but I am me;
Being a stoic may not heal the wounds but can cool the flame.
If someday, people will glance at me standing on the top,
Hope to find not only that richness, but also that peace and love.

~


Collective eyes on the shoreline
Ripples meander unaware of who they touch
Glimmering surface reflects a doubtless moon
and fireflies abandon all hope of neon goals

Stone and sand meet in driftwood destinies
Autumn grips the night with postcard tendrils
Feet beneath water paddle slowly,
hiding in plain sight in the center of this liquid target

Alone on the wrinkles of waterlogged bed sheets
Silence finds no home here
while voices cackle and point slanderous fingers
and buoyancy is in question

Words fly like arrows in cultivated sentences on thin air
When what was once sacred sinks
into the stagnant reaches of heartless ink
and I wait…a sitting duck

Here
Doing this
With you
Silence

I am satisfied.

Music
Noises
Calm violence
Hazy sense

I am satisfied.

Little laughs
Large smiles
Floating
Buoyancy

I am satisfied.

Peace
Unhindered
Uninhibited
Intrigue

I am satisfied.

Remember that time
when I was
on a first date with that guy.
I brought him to your place
and we sat
at the edge of the pool
while you laughed at the
german-exchange student
swimming laps.

And I jumped in with all of my clothes on
and he wasn’t sure whether to laugh
or not,
because of the way I floated
but he didn’t know that it was
something I always did

He texted me later saying
he wished he kissed me
but I didn’t check
until morning
because we were singing loud
and the neighbors were yelling

We lived outside of Richmond
but didn’t like to think of it that way
like it was separate
but the way we put up fences
like rows of wooden teeth
isolated us within

The patches on the
Huguenot Bridge, the old one
made your car bounce
and the radio went
in and out
Remember that time
when we would only smoke
marlboro’s?



That guy’s car
was a stick
so it didn’t move the
same way yours did
and he accidentally turned
down that one way street
on our way to meet you
at that show

But I don’t even remember
going in
because of something
like the doors were closed
but the sound was ****** so
we walked around the corner
to that place we like to go
and sit on the pillows on the floor

At home I sat on the third floor
alone, and the lack of laughter
is louder somehow
And the shadows stretch
further as the night gets
longer and draws
out the little pieces...

Let’s stay sane
so we drive downtown
and see three guys
long boarding
down broad street at midnight
they’re in that band that’s pretty good
so we yell out the window
and break into a long laugh.  

Sadness is like salt
that pool was like the
dead sea
it helps you float
because no one
wants to sink to such
abundant misery

And joy
it was there too
riding in cars with you and
that guy who loved me like a fool

The two ideas of pain and joy lingered over me
like opposing magnets
but the water must have been cold
because I was numb

But when gravity pulls from two sides
it compresses
The Earth breaks and makes a mountain;
I broke and sank to the fiberglass bottom
of your *****, suburban pool.

Made your reservation fifty years ago,
we waited 'til today,
at the time,
it was so far away,
now we go,
long, long ago, back to when we guessed

this was where we'd seem today.

So far away, grinning still, happy as
the fool on the hill,
sees the story unfold, a thousand voice
choir of messengers going up and down
and back… this continuity in perifery,
ifery were, and ifery was, and ifery at all

times, songs we listened to high,
in the winter of '67, long before
the Eggman died.

When the band was so young,
when the world was younger,
but not much
we kinda
lost touch, after the scariest part.

It was a trip.
Not everyone found their way,
nobody had GPS back then, few knew
what the Grateful Dead were happy about

and nobody had coordinates…
for Blue Jay Way…
seems, we've been too long coming,
Yesterday is with us for constant review.

Critics believe it all leads here.

A hit before your mama was old,
a long, long time ago…

The tune inspired, da-did-dada, she
should call it all art, and we are
all together
after all these ****** Tuesdays,
assure us now that Fridays come.

Ordering chaos to line us all up,
getting reverb in return for echoes
after all's said now another way,
we laugh along with
jokers who do laugh at you,
to push you through the portal,
taking all your time apart in instants.

Noise of others, noise from then,
puke into this mic.
Black hole of best intentions.
Good bye and hello, across the decades,
did we not meet once on the street?
I caught your eye, you smiled,
a long, long time ago…
remember?

I smiled, yes, as I passed,
you did not notice, I passed, it happened.

I smiled. hey, la, ha-hahaha, and took
Kesey's invitation, goodnight, Irene.

I did do the dive into the sea,
with drowning on my mind, going down
beyond the buoyancy, of anyone in my tree.

Realizing nothing since we lost touch,
I thought you all realer than me,
as my shape lost its original intention,
time distorts from
formative decades conforming
affirmational automation, to corporate
clean machines, still a source of pride.
Meanwhile,

we find it easy recalling toe tapping
impulses, now that you know who you are,
have you traveled
very far… further than any magic school bus?

How does if feel to be,
after all this time, to find today, the same old songs.

Never got rich beyond the satisfied mind
I found in a sack behind the opera house.

Nothing you can do that can't be done, it's easy,
say it true, believe it true, prove it makes long term

sense, after fifty freaking years, the laughing trombones
continue laughing at the simplicity past essentials.

Love needs a better definition,
all together now,
everybody, repeat the mantra,

or grow old and never get famous, rich and miserable,
live on with the will to grow older
still, knowing better and worse, at once...
one more time.

Made your reservation fifty years ago,
we waited until today,
at the time,
it was so far away,
now we go,
long, long ago, back to when we guessed

this was where we'd seem today.

So far away, grinning still, happy as
the fool on the hill, and nowhere man
see the story unfold, a thousand voice
choir of messengers going up and down
and back… this continuity in perifery,
ifery were, and ifery was, and ifery at all

times, songs we listened to high,
in the winter of '67, long before
the Eggman died.

When the band was so young,
when the world was younger,
but not much,
we kinda
lost touch, after the scariest part.

It was a trip.
Not everyone found their way,
nobody had GPS back then, few knew
what the Grateful Dead were grateful for

and nobody had coordinates…
for Blue Jay Way… or Penny Lane it
seems, we' were too long coming,
Yesterday is with us for constant review.

Critics believe it all leads here.

A hit before your mama was old,
a long, long time ago…

The tune inspired, da-did-dada, she
should call it all art, and we are
all together
after all these ****** Tuesdays,
assure us now that Fridays come.

Ordering chaos to line us all up,
getting reverb in return for echoes
after all's said now another way,
we laugh along with
jokers who do laugh at you,
to push you through the portal,
taking all your time apart in instants.

Noise of others, noise from then,
puke into this mic.
Black hole of best intentions.
Good bye and hello, across the decades,
did we not meet once on the street?
I caught your eye, you smiled,
a long, long time ago…
remember?

I smiled, yes, as I passed,
you did not notice, I passed, it happened.

I smiled. hey, la, ha-hahaha, and took
Kesey's invitation, goodnight, Irene.

I did do the dive into the sea,
with drowning on my mind, going down
beyond the buoyancy, of anyone in my tree.

Realizing nothing since we lost touch,
I thought you all realer than me,
as my shape lost its original intention,
time distorts from
formative decades conforming
affirmational automation, to encorporate
clean machines, still a source of pride.
Meanwhile,

we find it easy recalling toe tapping
impulses, now that you know who you are,
have you traveled
very far… further than any magic school bus?

How does if feel to be,
after all this time, to find today, the same old songs.
Knowing I'm a rich man, who never cashed out.
Never got rich beyond the satisfied mind
I found in a sack
behind the grand old opera house.

Nothing you can do that can't be done, it's easy,
say it true, believe it true, prove it makes long term

sense, after fifty freaking years, the laughing trombones
continue laughing at the simplicity past essentials.

Love needs a better definition,
all together now,
everybody, repeat the mantra,
The peace you make is equal to the peace you find...
living longer than children can really imagine,
growing old, never famous, not too rich and miserable,
to live on with the will to grow older
still, knowing better and worse, at once

-------- who are you to ask of me a reason to be?

Run the numbers, inquire costs and benefits.
Rest in peace today,

every child knows tomorrow and yesterday
are not simply more of the same aimless instant.

-------- who are you to ask of me a reason to be?

Run the numbers, inquire costs and benefits.
Rest in peace today,

every child knows tomorrow and yesterday
are not simply more of the same aimless instant.

“Don’t fly too near to the sun,” he had warned me,
as he strapped the wings across my eager back.
“I won’t. It will be fine,” I said, planting two feet on the ledge.
Looking down, I saw the swirling darkness of the world.
I swallowed down my fear.
But inside me, a sunbeam yearned to break free, to fly away.
To fly to an oasis in the clouds.

“Wax and feathers,” he told me, “that’s all it is.”
That’s all it is.
That’s all it ever was, all it ever shall be.
Wax and feathers.

The sky had called me by name,
and as I flew above the withering old artificer
who outstretched his ancient hand in a gesture of goodbye,
I knew I would never again see the face of men.
Only the faces of angels.
Of gods and goddesses.

The wings had lent my body a buoyancy
that I never knew had existed in the world.
Wax and feathers.
I danced and pranced and swirled and twirled into the sky,
all feelings of weight and import gone.
I had left the world behind.
I traded it all for a bit of wax and some feathers.

The feeling of bliss began to melt as soon as the wings did.
Panic struck me in the skies,
and as I looked below me I saw everything there ever was.
Everything that ever shall be.
I struggled to keep the flame alive within me.
But I fell.
Like Lucifer to the bowels of Hell,
I fell.

I ripped through clouds,
madly spinning in the air.
I glanced towards the sun above me,
growing smaller with every passing moment.
I prayed.
For the first time in my life, I prayed.

I could feel the Earth rising up to meet me.
“This is it,” I thought.
“This is wax and feathers.”
I closed my eyes.
Imagined what the old man would have said.
And I made peace.

But to my surprise, when I opened my eyes,
I was being held to the breast of an angel.
A winged figure of ineffable beauty.
I was flying with her, this perfect creation,
this embodiment of purity and divinity.
In her soft eyes I saw the moon and stars,
all eternity and space stretched out before me
in long pools of silver and white.
Her glowing golden hair was not of the world I knew,
but rather crafted out of the sun itself.
It lent light to everything.
A wave of euphoria passed over me when she
turned her gaze upon me, the human boy
in her merciful grasp, and smiled.

I belong to her.

Never again will I play with wax and feathers.

You’re swimming, okay,
And the Bible suddenly opens up.
Not many people are faced with this,
Except you: you’re an exception.

How do you take it?

Barely, would the sublime horror of communion pass on your lips
Once the ocean take its Leviathan form, and it opens its mouth to speak.
Its oratory becomes very clear in the maelstroms of countless gallons
Rushing blue cannibalizes itself before you; you have no time to think of death
When the salt’s burning your eyes and you’ve finally figured
How useful a gyroscope can be.

Too soon, three darknesses will emerge from the desolate homily
Taught not to discriminate in thought or action: the backs of your eyes
Straining against the buoyancy, the restfulness of not seeing a bottom,
And the path Jonah’s bones took, the disbeliever.

Mostly, you’ll want to congratulate yourself like a legend,
You wonderful *******, when you come in crashing on the waves.

A poem inspired
by the awe and majesty of the pouring rain
falling upon the cathedrals and the vagrants
that say their Hail Mary's and Our Father's
on the front steps.

A poem inspired
by the love of a woman who
accepts the faults
and ignores the mistakes and regrets
that haunt many dreams.

A poem inspired
by the friends and the acquaintances
who hold up the hands of the weak
and give them a new sense of hope
and a new sense of buoyancy.

A poem inspired
by the soft melodies
floating softly over the plucking of strings
and the pounding of keys
ricocheting off the walls.

A poem inspired
by the enlightenment of the mind
that only comes once in a while,
but when it does come,
time stops and everything is perfect.

Resting on the movement
swaying on the rampage
which holds me up

that image: deceitful buoyancy
precocious in its affront
vicious in its labyrinth
it lies

no steady hand
controls its path
it stays upright, not with will
but impish whim

it threatens constantly
to swerve its meandering course
to drop finally in destitution
leaving me bare

I find most of my comfort in the dark.

I remember turning off the lights and lying on my carpet. It was stripped of color and made with bamboo. I’d take a throw pillow, covered in bright green and blue paisley, from my bed and sink it into the earth. My left cheek pushed down on the cushion until it could not go lower. My eyes closed and my knees bent to my chest. And I was back. Back in my most comfortable and trusted space.

My doorknob was round. I knew every inch— my hand got to know it every day. It aided me in shutting out the light, keeping me confined in a space that had proved to be so safe.

Today, when I seek my old space and companion I reach out for my doorknob. Instead of my round ****, it’s now a broken handle. Instead of the carpet, it’s a woven mat made out of banana leaves. I find ways to mirror my past because in darkness, there was evident light and with light, there was abundant darkness.

It has been 7 years since I met my old space and companion and I still reach for my doorknob almost every day without fail. It's with whom I think I can find my lost inspiration, and it's with whom I can cry without seeing my tears fall down my face. Nothing in the dark counts. Not the hours of TV I watch or the hours of sleep I fall victim to. I like spending time that doesn't count, and how sad does that feel to admit in written words.

Starting today, I'm forcing myself to count all my time. Companions, as great as they can be, can also sink you lower than you can imagine. Goodbyes are hard but are also promised in every stage in our life, and to use a goodbye to aid in your health is a beautiful way to practice.

So, dear darkness, thank you for all that you have given to me over the past 7 years. It was a comfort to know that you were always waiting for me, whether it was in the middle of the day or when the sun had already disappeared. You're a constant friend when many have not been. Your respect and loyalty does not fall short of my appreciation and consolation. Thank you.

With a loss comes a hole and with a hole comes a desire to fulfill. A companion itself cannot be replaced but its hole can be reformed, reworked and remolded. I've chosen to shape you into a healthy alternative, one that feeds on light and on counting time. Your new personality is beautiful and worthy, and here are its most essential parts:

(1).     Spend time near water. Water reminds us that we can indeed fly. Gravity exists but so does buoyancy, and there are times when our mind feels trapped in gravity, making buoyancy a critical healer to our bodies and our minds.

(2).    Take so many risks knowing that with risk comes inspiration, and with inspiration comes life. I've existed both in a safe and comfortable sphere and in a world of unfamiliarity and uncertainty. Learning in the former is difficult and confined. It has been done before and it has been exhausted. The latter is unique and fleeting. We have all the time to be safe and sheltered but less time to let ourselves fall into the opportunity of learning about ourselves when we are uncomfortable, the state that teaches us the absolute most.

(3).  Build endorphins every day, whether than means walking for 30 minutes or dancing for 2 hours. Do something. Get up and out. Allow yourself to create a healthy environment to cradle your brain.

(4).    Read words that feed your soul, like Emily Nagoski's Come As You Are, one of the most fulfilling and rewarding texts I have ever read. Give yourself permission to transform every day, in the smallest to largest way possible.

(5).    Turn your phone off. Studies have shown us again and again that social media can be unhealthy for our minds, so why do we engage every hour of the day?

(6).    Write something. There are stories I can only say in written word. Write them down because you and everyone else on the planet will never live today again or ever.

(7).    Allow yourself to be so vulnerable that you weep. No one is how they appear. Admitting this lets us exist near the earth, so close to nature and so connected to each other. This, you will almost never regret.

(8).    Let yourself connect with someone for the amount of time it is meant to fulfill. Nothing lasts forever and some people will occupy short times in your life and that is ok. It's more than ok. It's beautiful. Every relationship shapes our future, and our future should always learn from our past. Hold every person in the space they naturally occupy and thank them for the time they have passed with you. It is invaluable and you will never experience it again.

(9).    Exist with people who aren't like you, whether than means people who have different political opinions than you or people who grew up across the world from you. Exist. Because you are the smallest part of the story of the universe and not recognizing that will limit your world immensely.

(10).    Meditate. Practice mindfulness which will allow you to recognize how you feel about your feelings (one of the most important life lessons you can learn according to Emily Nagoski) and what feeds your soul and what doesn't.

(11).     Eat two different green things a day. You are what you eat, after all.

As long as I occupy one piece of this new personality a day, I believe the grief I feel for darkness will fade. And with its fading will come light. So much light that I can't believe I have been living without. And one day I hope you will choose to join me.

He was fat in the corner.
The walls stood straight to crest the ceiling in place.
The boy’s arches were eroded enough to roll him out his created abode.
But it stuck between the sharpness of its lines pin cushioned on his body.
It blocked its concrete sound.
It nailed his waist into the water of floor as if it was holding buoyancy.
The floor which was like an ocean hung his body to only sit and stay.  
This is where he would sit.
This is where he viewed his world.
With his Cable T.V., he viewed the world.
He became them in a sense of what they know.
Sometimes he was the sailor man saving the gal in the red turtleneck.
Sometimes he just wanted more than ****** snacks.
It was the static that came into it and the tremor of the popguns and bicycle punches.
His costume was the hand that drove into his pocket for yellow spheres of his personal favorite.

His fingers would unwrap the same world over and over again.
No matter how many copies.
They were in wrappers.
They were in silver lings of the stuff in what was known to stick and to sit on my palm like reflected sunsets.
These were in forgotten little notes to the odes of what was the turn of his tongue. He loved being sweet.
He loved to chew it ever so darling.
He crunched.
His mouth builds a castle.
To the eyes arrived in clouded visions coming from within.
As the teeth gnash off to the nectars and nips of sugar, butter, milk in *****, the crystals vanish.
They dazzled the eyes with images from the inside.
It was the way it took into him.
His cheeks became lambent as they were sagging off his face.  
In the motion was a peripheral point of the lips.
It would drag him into crave.
No more of waiting for it to melt.

The time was hung out to see the beat of his little heart.
He could have no more candy.
20 years later, he should have nothing more.
It was enough to make the scale rotate against zero.
But no one measured his content.
No one measured the happy in his heart.  
No one knew that what he wanted was just to taste the good.
He just wanted the tip of the tongue
To take him beyond a state of sitting and standing without really moving.
He wanted to walk on ice but float above its glass.
But he was going to die.
He would. He would eventually. They would say. Mother said.
Mother said this in her prim voice with all the promises of chocolate coated crisps in the world. He will choose to smile.
But here he is. He is still alive.
He is still rolling into the rears of his rounds.
He still loves what he is.
He still loves what he ate.
The choice of change is in his grip and so are his pockets.
They are still full of his old favorites.
He will take them when God takes him into his pockets.
He will be sweet.
He will be his own butterball.
He will be wrapped in what is 25 years.