tonight a girl stands on a bridge.
the midsummer breeze dances around her curves.
it begs her to come play.
her heart beats steady.
her gaze is motionless.
the changing air steals a whisper.
"we are moving into the house of Aquarius"
under the bridge a man sleeps.
in a few weeks he'll turn fifty-eight,
but he doesn't know that.
he hasn't had a birthday celebration in years.
he hasn't had anything to celebrate in years.
the bridge is home now.
above  him,
a girl is rediscovering herself.
a girl is rediscovering her fear of heights.
she looks 25 light years above her, at Vega.
in a way, she thinks, she is like this star.
she is about midway through her life expectancy,
but her light died a quarter century ago.
the man sleeps soundly.
a smile is spread across his face.
he is dreaming of his dinner,
a footlong sub.
extra olives, just the way he likes it.
it was his first meal in several days
but tonight, his stomach is full.
he has come to like the grease on his face.
it shows he has survived many challenges.
the hardships have only made him wiser.
the girl, she minored in astrology.
she was fifth in her graduating class.
debt lurked deep in her mind.
it polluted her every thought with
reminders that she was not in control.
now, she tries to justify her current position.
on the bridge.
looking out at Lyra, partially hidden by clouds
"nothing I do will matter."
she reconsiders.
she recalls an anecdote she overheard
on the subway, or somewhere:
"when you're dead, you're dead for a looooong time"
she smiles. kids say the darnedest things.
tonight she curses her 'lucky stars'.
nothing the girl does will matter.
tonight she will become a woman.
tonight she will give  herself to the wind.
the man will find her in the morning.
the man will chuckle to himself.
"they always make it down here,
one way or another"

I lost myself in boredom
Lost myself in the bitter and sour patches of life
Ripping myself free from the death grip of the vines that hold me down
I can see the sun shining through the leaves and thorns that cover my eyes
My sad, torn aching flesh screams out as the rain softly falls on it
Stinging the gaping open wounds as I search for reconciliation
As I slowly stumble back into my reality
Rediscovering my inspiration, surprise and happiness
I have come to my crossroads once again
Not looking back, I proceed on my path of hope
Living like I am dying and regretting nothing I have done
I may be scarred from my battles but that does not mean I have lost my virtue

The clock gets me.
It comes to me in the middle of the night
Pulls back the sheets and says, "Hey fucko."
Then it lifts open my sobby wet sand-encrusted lids,
It knows when I'm trying at sleep, pumping quarters
Like I was swallowing yawns, sometimes I try to squint
Harder and take a dream to the next level, whatever
The next level is. It's like Friday night when I wanted to go
Out to do something, whatever something is.
Because I know that if I don't I'll miss that thing that's so
Important that if I were to miss it the clock wouldn't come for me

Again.
And on Tuesday's when I'm knotting a dream around 2 o' clock
In the morning, my web-footed adventure, say, killing your

Boyfriend, say
Fighting the Nazis, say,
Rediscovering that you sent nudie pics to
That rando guy we met in that club that lives
in Prague-
I throw the clock at the ******* wall.

Because who knows, I make the bed wrong
Or maybe I don't cook right, or look right, or
Smile the right way at the right

Time. And you start thinking that I have to die.
The bane of my existence is an imagined feat in your
Walnut-sized brain, slowly numbing us while we're
Supposed to be, say

Listening to the rich, Oxford voice of
David Attenborough.

Instead you're thumbing through that index
of CVS cashiers, just trying to find a scruffy face
To flip your digits to, your homemade justification. It becomes
A feat, an unjust cause of mine to

Get it right, that imaginative and artificial bit you've
Been sewing up Monday twilight.

That's when I go out and jaw your sister, somewhere between
A smirk on your face and a bit of anger at the end of your sentences.

Packetfuls of some morning long gone
Celebrations of some relations long lost
Appraisals of youth long withered
Dying of some laughter long forgotten
Yellowed photographs newly rediscovered.

As if after the hesitation of two decades
They’ve resurfaced out of a rusty old box
Freshly etching old patterns, repainting innocence
A revision of life… what if….what if not….
Some strange spirit of myself smiles back at me

“Is that me?” leading on to “Who am I?”
Existential discomfort set alight
The sleepless questions- twisting and turning
Memories in my head- swimming and swirling

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
     16/06/2007
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

When you break five beer glasses at work
do not berate yourself
imagine yourself as a young child
she is with you for this instance in your life
would you be as cruel to her as you are to yourself?
You have as much right to let thins shatter at your feet as she does
Do not take this as a mistake
Take this as a subconscious act against the addiction that held you parents in its ugly hands for years
2. If you want to find your joy in speaking to strangers
then allow it
hang out with the boy in Hawaii at 3 am that you just met
discover that his leg resting on yours feels like the warmth of the island
even in the depth of the night
realize that you do not have to miss the cold skin of the boy who was your first everything
you are a girl who needs warmth,
and you are a girl who can find this warmth in others
3. I’ve learned in the past month that the best way to figure out who should be in your life is to love yourself harder than you ever have before and watch for who resents it.
4. Do not apologize for your emotions
You are human
Do not allow someone to tell you that you are lesser because you are angry
Because you are sad
Because you just don’t know
5. Teach people the acceptable way to treat you by reciveing nothing less than what you need
Wear your self-love for all of them to see
Scream it from the rooftops
You are a goddess
You are not to be underestimated
Sharpen your eyes so well that a look will keep them in line
But do not forget to keep your softness as well
Do not harden your heart
Just because they fear your fire does not mean you should douse it
Do you not realize how many other people it keeps warm?

this is how it is.

lover of the moon, red nail polish, and my body
poetry passionate
anaemic
patient listener
book worm
creature-infatuated
exotically home made
gutter-student
in-toe walker
ignorant genius of nothing and everything
insignificantly significant

this is me.

I love to look far in the distance
to discover new things in existence.
Exit my own body, my life.
Fall prey to rude world.
Gaze upon myself.
Graze my wild imagination.
Dwell into darkness, find the light
and rediscover my life.

“You betrayed me, Darling” Jack said quietly. She had seen that look on his face before, it was a shocking sense of...disappointment. “Betrayed you? What are you talking about Jack? I love you, just you, ALWAYS you! You know that, what’s wrong with you, love? What has made you doubt me this way? Who has put this into your mind?”, Samantha was shocked that her husband would be so easily swayed from thinking that she was the perfect woman that he had married.

“What do you mean WHO?” his voice shook with barely controlled rage, his voice raising by the second, “You are that one who made me think this way! You've been withdrawn SWEETHEART, you don’t love me like you used to. The only explanation is that there must be someone else.”, Jack sounded as if he was so sure of himself, he had such conviction in his answer, and he did not expect the incredulous snort that came out of her mouth as her temper finally broke and she began to yell.

“ I've been withdrawn! I've been! What about you, DARLING?”, she spat out the endearment as if it left a sour taste in her mouth, making it sound like an insult, a curse. “ You've been so distant these last few months, Jack! You thought I wouldn't notice! You thought I couldn't tell! I could SEE it, in the planes of your face, in the way that you looked at me. No longer with adoration, but with calculation, or with consent, as if you simply are required to love me! Jesus, Jack! I’m not BLIND!”

Her husband sighed heavily and rested his head in his hands, “Please stop talking, Sam, please. I can’t bear to see you this way. You’re doubting me, even when I've been nothing but faithful to you.” his voice was barely a whisper, throat hoarse and raw from the screaming match they had earlier. She gasped, both at his words and his tone. She tried to keep herself from flinging herself into his arms and apologizing, trying to keep from seeing his side of the story. She knew what she had seen, she was not blind, and he knew it too. He had always been the rational one, always able to talk her out of her anger, and he knew it too.

“**** it Jack! I can smell it on you! Don’t tell me it isn't real!”, she paused to incredulously shake her head, “I can’t believe that you would lie to me”, Jack began to notice that her anger, her passion, her fire had faded. She sounded sad, defeated. like she was...giving up. “What do you SMELL on me, doll ”, when she didn't answer he began to get angry and his voice began to rise. “Hmmmm? What could you possibly smell on me? Be quick to answer”, she shook her head and clenched her jaw. Her answer seemed to be hissed out from between clenched teeth, “I smell whiskey, I smell smoke, you know what I smell most though? Perfume, it came from her, didn't it Jack? Because I’m sure as hell that it didn't come from me.” Jack shook his head and continued to be adamant in his denial of her claims.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Sammi! We’re fighting about nothing”, she began to sob uncontrollably, Jack was heartbroken by her sobs and tried to pull her into his arms, but she wrenched herself away from him, “Nothing, Jack? NOTHING! Be honest with me, how many are there? Three, Five, Twelve? I don’t even know you anymore, you aren't the man I married, you aren't my Jack. My Jack never would have done this to me! Who are you? Why do you want to hurt me? What’s happened to us, Jack? Sneaking behind each other’s backs-”, Jack’s head snapped up as he cut her off, “So you admit! You have been sneaking!” Samantha slowly shook her head and sighed in frustration, “**** it, Jack, that’s not the point! Do you even love me anymore?”, he didn't answer, her anger was blinding and she was so close to crying, “Do you! Is there any part of you that’s still mine?”, He frowned.

“All of it! All of me! I’m yours Sam”, she shook her head as she walked out the door, “No you aren't, Jack. You aren't mine” Jack gently put his hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him and stopping her from exiting the room, “I am. I’m yours!”, even he was close to tears now, the quiver in his voice was clear. Samantha shook him off her shoulder, “Then why did you cheat, Jack?” Her cold stare focused on his face, he looked at her and he was crushed. He looked heartbroken, but she answered her question with one of his own. “Why did you?” She shook her head and the look on her face changed from determination to disgust.

“I didn't! God, Jack! I loved you faithfully, fully, with no regrets, NONE! Guess it wasn't enough was it?”, He sighed “Give me another chance. I really do love you, Sammi”, He used her old nickname, hoping that it would rekindle a little bit of the old affection between them, no dice. She looked at him freezing him in place again with her cold stare, “Love is a game, games are for kids and whether or not you are one, I am done with this game. I forfeit, you win. Congratulations, you lose everything. Hope you had fun playing. Playing me just like everyone said you would”, Jack looked wounded his eyes filled with sharp pain.

“Please sweetheart, a second chance?” He was crying now, his tears streaming silently down his face. But she didn't turn to look and her response was curt and final, “Second chances are for those who deserve them, and don’t ever call me that again”. As she began to walk away Jack grabbed her arm and pulled her close to him again, “fine, no second chance, aren't you going to tell me that we can still be friends?”, Samantha shook her head in disgust and pulled her arm away from him. “Let’s get something straight Jack, we are not friends, we are not acquaintances, you will not speak to me after this. We don’t even know each other. As far as I’m concerned Jack, we haven’t known each other in quite a long time. Find someone else to ruin Jack, I’m already broken beyond repair. Goodbye Jack.”

As Samantha left, the tears streaming down her face were mirrored on his. However, their relationship, like Samantha, was broken far beyond repair. Even with time it will not heal as most things would. But instead, might fade, leaving both with an empty feeling that they will try to fill in their own way. By indulging in vices or rediscovering themselves, but at least then, there would be no pain. There was no doubt that that this was a good thing for them, because it was the time for it. Samantha remembered reading somewhere that there was a time for everything, and leaning against the closed door with her tears silently streaming down her face, she had not a doubt that this was right. They were not meant for the forever that they had promised each other. So each would have to find a love that was.

Have our Scottish hearts
Shrunk in the fields
Of foreign rule
Are we not greater
Than the fears
****** on us
Have we become mice
That scurry and hide
Only tempted out by cheese
Laid in many traps
Are we content
To live in the shadows
Of our neighbors ambition

I am not saying
Lets bury our minds
And drown in an
Optimistic ignorance
For we are all grown up
And know the risks
Are our abilities so short
And our hearts so weak
That we may be bold
Over so easily
Can we not find the strength
To fill our wobbly knees
Yes we all carry fear
Like all free men
But like William Wallace
We are not defined by our fear
For we stand tall and proud
And our honest hearts
Speak to us of Scottish potential
Much greater than fear

Do we not under estimate ourselves
Have we forgotten our heights and depths
As Scottish potential lies
Imprinted in the skies
By the Scottish highlands
And our emotional depths
And resources remain hidden
Undiscovered  in our many
Silent locks scattered
Throughout our land
And is not our toughness with an
Almost stubborn hardiness not found
Abundantly within our  heather
While golden eagles glide
A silent over seeing eye
Who breaths a Scottish clarity    

For I cry as rich men
Still seek to steal
Our many golden eggs
From the governor of the sky
Our most gracious Golden Eagle
So let all protect
All that is precious in Scotland
And let us cleanse our
Minds in the clear highland air
As we purge our hearts
With Scottish beauty
And release the stags
That will drive out  the
Many money lenders
That stifle our being

So let us all join together
As we are bound in the eternal
And not by pen or sword
And as we rediscover ourselves
We find our united voice
Of Scottish freedom

I scribble on
With a half lobotomy;
A radar seeking Hell by looking up
And another dictionary
From another time and place;
An alternate timeline
Reaching right and left
As well as fore and aft;
The beard of a ******
And naïveté too;
Undiscovered depths of emotional manipulation
Unseeing, unthinking,
A new old structural familiarity
To abduct and probe
The time-honored, vacuum-sealed
Ineptitude of ideology
Whose meat is sweet
But suits the skeletons of standardized educational theories
Like a pair of jeans at age eleven that you expect to grow into;
In hope of justifying
Overuse of monetary resource
For the sake of bonus states of mind;
Scouring the depths of discarded everything
With hooks catching on to all the similarly forgotten names
Who live in fear of obscurity
Clinging, not unlike insects
To their sixteenth minute of fame;
Finding in myself no way but out
To understand that which lives inside;
With disregard for any thread which weaves past me and takes no hold,
And loathing for the ones that do but unravel before the eyes;
Lightheaded, ending any sense of continuity
When, prostrate in the comfort of another tapestry
I stand abruptly, let my dreams be drained from me through tendrils
Like the passing of a temporal existence;
Drinking in the dust and glue of crowded bookshops
In fear of losing inspiration
To the insatiable jaws of my consumerist natural state;
Rummaging in a bargain bin
In search of someone to tell me, “Stop!"
With heads in clouds and bodies in ice trays,
Stealing lines of logic and lyric,
Throwing down and hacking into
Elemental bits which fit into my own vernacular
Sacrificing beauty for originality and vice versa;
Choosing idols idly with the tides
Of knowledge and of art
Rising and falling without fail
Never apparent and never blurred by motion;
Searching for a style like an odd-numbered jean size;
Finding greater inspiration in waves of unopened mysteries;
Following examples laid by unsuccessful fictions;
Learning ethics only from the prologues of ****** novels,
Unsuspecting victims snuffed in interesting and lurid ways;
Letting technological distraction detract from the projections of psychological complexity
Which I, from atop the high horse of my own pretensions
Pretended to embrace;
Committing massive acts of thievery, fraud, and infinite lethargy
For the sake of juvenile, illegitimate art forms;
Seeking other seekers who exist autonomously
For the sake of personal independent credibility;
Leading unsuspecting, overreaching, overeating, understanding, undemanding,
Too forgiving, not forgetting,
Victims of domestic warfare
To a loveless watery grave
For the sake of my own loneliness;
Patronizing every segregated buffet
With courage enough only for a small taste of everything;
With the flavors of the day swirling around
For me to shoot them down
And pin their carcasses to elementary school walls
And Mormon tool sheds
And nature centers
And all the forgotten places of summers past
In the hope of rediscovering
Some old buried treasure
Be it wondrous or worthless;
With the uneasy insincerity of a rodent who pretends to understand a city;
With adopted methods
And repeated thoughts
And ideas which came to me in waking dreams of my own retirement;
Sharing, for a captive audience,
The formidable giants which
Inform our common denominator
Searching through myself for only the most indecipherable
With the fear of being understood
And the fear of being ridiculed
And pretensions of some preternatural predetermination for greatness;
With acceptance of predisposition for obscurity,
The cost of the inundation of the new airwaves.
The series of tubes that feed us intravenously
With information, information, information,
Having killed God and left material validation in His wake;
It could be that new gods are born in the minds of the innovators,
Those wonderfully wealthy
Whose social structuralism
Was a beacon to us all;
In the darkness of an architectural anomaly
Where lights extinguish as my body lies dormant
Alone and abandoned
Only by my own subversion;
Confined ever to a convolution of passages
While above me all my peers still carry on;
Overstaying welcomes
And letting emotionality
Color conversation
A sicklier green,
A green of a tree only just sprouted,
A green of a new recruit,
A green of an inexperienced schoolboy
Faced with the daunting and timeless act
Of copulation;
Somehow taking in the sights and sounds and smells
Of advanced mathematics
Even occupied, as I am,
With explaining my actions
Most eloquently;
Devoting myself to another cause,
Another, another, another
Always relaxing my grip by losing focus;
Desperately hoping not to let my fellow travelers
Lose their innocence
While I reluctantly, dogmatically
Keep mine on a leash;
Always keenly aware
Of the universe of worlds
Beyond my control,
And even my understanding;
On the increasingly frequent
Intrusions of risk
Into my significant reality
And the iota of explainable truth which guides the motion of my body but most frequently my mind;
Questioning the meaning of all words
Without thought or coordination;
Considering another restful journey
To clear my mind of human language
And in its place acquire thoughts and emotions from the street;
Without foreseeable direction,
Malice aforethought
Or noticeable signs of critical reaction
Giving birth to litter
Forgetting articles
And floating my sense of time up the Ganges;
Taking only seconds to counter the possibility of
Accepting more responsibility for myself;
Complicating matters with an interesting or bitter goodbye.

emptying out boxes
discarding things I no longer need
rediscovering treasures
I had frgotten I had

as I break down each empty box,
I feel a little lighter, more free
soon the things I have been hoarding
are all gone, and I can't rember why held on so long

one room down, few more to go
I wouldn't miss it for the world

I'm caught between falling and rising again
But before I fell
I didn't fall
Because I stopped myself
From falling

Today I fell
And I have the cuts and bruises to prove it
But I couldn't get up
Because I needed help to do so

If I knew differently
Then I would say
I did it alone
But that wasn't true

There is something
in your presence
that makes me feel
like I am returning home,
as though I've
traced the outline of that sparkling smile,  
                anticipated your kiss,
                        and recognized the whisper of your voice,
long before now.

Instances,
in which we have known each other
                        in some other
                                                 existence.
Ti­mes,
when I am acutely aware
         and can sense
             your disposition, cravings and            
                                        aversions
simply by looking into your eyes, hearing your voice,  
or contemplating your touch.

Our paths in this life,
        of course,
    have simply not allowed this to be          
                                    imaginable.

 But its in those moments,             
serendipitous moments,
           when I feel like
                       I am rediscovering you,
instead of becoming acquainted with the essence of you.

And it makes me wonder.

So what is recovery?
Is it that tingle in your cheeks
When the corners of your mouth meet
Upwards.
Is it that sparkle in your eyes
Because they're no longer suffocated by your cries and you now have the potential to realise
You are strong.
Is it that glimpse of light, that for so long had been out of sight, that you cling onto tight, through fear
It's only temporary.
Is it rediscovering yourself, rebuilding your health and developing a new wealth
Of coping mechanisms.
Is it realigning the chemical imbalances in your brain, so you no longer feel insane, so there's not less pain
But a mind that can handle it.
Is it the glimpse in the mirror where you don't turn in horror but you greet and honour the person that you are.
Is it the fear, that's consumed you year by year, that's brought the end so near,
That starts to evaporate.
Is it eating a meal, and not having to feel like
You need to punish yourself.
Is it hearing voices, but no longer allowing them to dictate your choices,
Because they don't own you anymore.
Is it putting down the bottle, because you're fed up of the throttle
It had you in.
Is it the feeling when you finally win
Back your own heart and mind
When finally you look inside
And don't find
Darkness but light,
When the night no longer scares you
And the days you can finally pull through
Or is it simply a phase
A gaze at what could never be
For there is no clarity,
No prospect to be free
In chains and nooses
And scars and bars.
In bodies that fight to survive
Trapped inside a mind that fights to take our lives.

Some of us; shall never be undone
We fight a war;
That could Never be won.

At first light I made a gift of coffee
it’s aroma stirred just one long leg
I lifted her naked into the wet warmth
to bathe awake and wash long hair
carrying her towelled wrapped form
bowed lips now sip then fight me
as I dress her in jeans, socks and top
beauty made calm and simple

Drunk sad at her leaving party
keeping her warm I had let Lust sleep
now still lolling in grief for dark peace
my selfish need drags her ****** up
into light trapped by the green valley
walking on along its grass path
the canoed river spits past a-whirl
rediscovering the torn through pocket
her hand delves questioning
to withdraw unhurried, stroked
by a flicking fishing rod

Recovered now leading me
over the bridge above the Boat
then on up the steep valley side
we arrive at the Ostrich for beer
then to dine on fish in the open
feeding and sharing her lips
we consider audaciously
the little garden’s potential
she hums prayer murmurings
pleased by the moment

On into the nearby woods
high above the Kings trail
to slowly descend hedged paths
we return to the river valley
slipping between shop doors
lifting a book we idle along
a new couple enjoying life
taking tea under waterfalls
back  besides the Boat where
her beauty is now Queen

She leads me smiling by the hand
along both banks in the setting sun
till we near the Abbey's stone ribs
skipping around it's green shadows
a bank helps us to vault within

Fenced alone
ignoring distant figures
jeans and top colour
the darkening lawns
beckoning me closer
Lust now sits astride  
the grass and stone
an open ****** grin

A week only, no more
I am left alone in her bed
on this smaller island
she ashore in another
busy - separated by a day
we talk lovers spells
and write away our hopes

Three months and two days
a call ‘******* we were....
pregnant” her sacrifice ours
on a stainless alter of
that new god Career**


.

Deep in the alcove
Of my being
I find an image
Within an image
Rediscovering myself
A facsimile
Adding only strength

Small
And still sure
That is my endeavor

I look within
For amity and strength
For conversations
With only me
As an audience
I find myself and
Smile…

I am the Matryoshka
Wooden beauty in the outside
Subtlety and charm
Moisten my core
On the inside.

Rediscovering music
Remembering
why where and when
I enjoyed it
In the first place

I was crazed
As the moonlight blush my skin
In a crowd of deception
Finding that spectacle of color
In a short time
People dancing in the streets
As music plays on to dusk to dawn
To a carnival for the ages
The energy  generated between men and women
As the their bodies heat up
Rediscovering their destiny
With costumes so glimmer and glittery
No one knew who exactly they can be  
A mystical trip to Brazil
Is a realm of festivities
To strangers of beloved passion

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TO­ SMILE BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE DOES :) IS:

- An act of anarchy, especially if you don't have any teeth :D

- Because all beings are blessed Bees
  
- Certain sign of cretenism or genuine Charm

- Denominative sense of digestion is Disturbing

- Ethically wrong Endeavor

- Fascinating and freeking fabulous if you intend to F. . .  

- Gorgeous as Geometry

- Hot on Hotties

- Imature and implies lack of Integrity

- Jibberish

- Keen rediscovering so many Keens or Kens
    
- Lovely on Lovely ones (once)

- Magnificent Mimicry

- Negating the jokers(or your own) inteligence / numb is Numb

- Onthological urge to survive among jungle beasts - fangs are
   quintessential urban asset. .or. . Smile-The-Power-Wilder-Open      

- Pertinent in Parliament

- Quiet resistance behind a cold minded rebellions league - quitting in few minutes  kicking some mthf harassing ****** pervert - to hard Quiver

- Real lovely strenght to feel and see each other happy  

- Stupid on jokes = Joke Stupid  

- Tactics to climb up the social ledder or/end further down the Thongs

- U can't admit you didn't get it; u2

- Violation of virtues as (in vino) Veritas

- Wonderful! To see people happy is healthy, positive and Wise!  

- X times better than being in low energy

- You love your beloved and you are loved by your beloved love

- Zooming at the ' zoo' of human behaviour -
    Amusing as Zorro-Art-Is-MusssssssssseumZ

The doors to stores are closed, the churches are silent. The streets are empty and for a moment we can breathe. Some people live in fear, but to others a revival has come around. Children are sitting at the table, and mama is cooking in the kitchen while they ask her questions. Dad has the family bible and reads the word of God to his family. Checkers and Scrabble have been dusted off and have replaced the internet. Books left on the shelf are opened and stories are read by all. We are forced to rediscover what technology has taken away. Home was once just a place to sleep and store your stuff, but now it is so much more. Families are learning that they can  be with each other and find happiness together. Things don't make you happy and distance doesn't make the heart grow fonder. Rediscovering home has become a new great adventure.

reading this morn's newspaper was different
said the father to his son
the prints are loud and bold
alphabets glitter as gold
crystal lucid is the page
and from the balcony,
whee, i can see every tree
without the haze.

the next twenty four days
he  was joyously rediscovering a world
in the exuberance of one reborn
only missing the car that ran him down
on the twentyfifth morn.

My tongue flicks
Absent mindedly
Discovering and rediscovering
The new sensation
Of a missing tooth
Or a kernel of food
wedged in my gums
Or a ****** cheek
Bit ferociously while chewing.

In my same manor
My thoughts stroke
the idea of you,
Feeling for any new details
i may have missed
My first time
across your surface.

a mark, wrinkling
beneath your eye
a small  tattoo
above your elbow
a delicate crease
where your head
meets your neck.

Subtleties of self
are everything to me.
you hold your cigarette
between hits,
bent backwards between
thumb and *******
as if subconsciously,
you know
you’re damning yourself.

You hold your elbows
When you cross your arms
As though you are afraid,
Should you relax your grip
The contents of your chest
Will spill out before you
Like a toppled canister
Of produce remnants,
Juicy, sloppy, and sopping

But you speak quietly,
like a discarded bag
of shredded documents.
Rustling with partial importance
I try to piece together
your comments
almost as though your words
hang beneath the weight
of your breath
as an afterthought
of your exhalation.

I watch you
watch me,
calmly calculating
baiting conversations
with tactful insinuation
and later,

in deep rumination
they replay.
I select the moments
That fit the narrative
I've created,
rummaging through
until what I want
you to mean
is all I hear you say.

Maybe happiness is
Rediscovering parts of yourself
That were buried long under
The murky abyss of conformity

Maybe happiness is
Finding the long lost faith
Deep inside your own self
The naked flesh of your mind

Maybe happiness is
After all a state of your mind
That you have to accept
As it swivels in rhythm
A playful youth of ecstasy

how nice would it be
to
rediscover you
while you
rediscover me

you talked about
it
rediscovering love
while we
rediscover us

I laugh because
I
rediscovered you
while you
lost yourself

…rain, rain, red rain, scarlet rain, ochre rain, incarnadine rain, rain driving in torrents unseen in millennia, pounding the desiccated earth in a frenzy of hydration...

I... I never dared hope to see this.  In the last days...  let me see now...  this is so difficult that even my recollection grows dim...  

In the Last Days,  Council met and planned.  We exhorted the brightest, challenged the greatest minds.  We sifted through aeons of knowledge and philosophy, searching for the key to our salvation.  Plans were made and discarded.  Theories expounded... and proved false.  In time, we came to the inescapable conclusion.  

Our seed had grown thin.  Hundreds of generations of advancement, fine-tuning, and engineering had taken its toll on our people.  We had become threadbare; the canvas of our soul stretched beyond the limit of its frame.  We had become a doomed race.

(...rain from pole to pole, reaving nature through force of Will, rain into rivulets, rivers cascading into falls, scouring terrified hillsides, on an unstoppable charge to the lowlands...)

The inevitable demonstrated beyond doubt, some lost all reason.  Others chose their own end;  marching calmly, in ones and twos, or in families, into the hopeless portals of Ra’k Tanar.  A few of us chose to carry on, in the hope that something might be salvaged.

(...rain like the fury of a spent people, a whirlwind railing against futility, rain coursing and surging, hungrily rediscovering its soil, its flood-plains, its oceans, rain urging defiance, blood-red rain on blood-red clay, a million screams and a million years out of time...)

And in a way, we forged a kind of victory.  Ruined as we were, we were not without Craft.  Our best we gathered to the Hall of Treasures, under the icon you have only just uncovered.  We laboured hard, so that even with our passing, the land would not forever wither.  The seeds of your future were planted long in our past.  You are coming into your inheritance:  now, under the deluge...

(...rain like a thunderstrike echoing through the centuries, life-giving rain, angry rain, rain like the tumult and violence of all the wronged and lost, breathing, raging life into possibility all around, and with one last, weary, sigh, I leap into the heavens, rise up, become one with the sky, one with the rain, and fall in a billion crimson teardrops

Within the memories of the child
todays wonder at the ordinary
lives strong in the spirit of the man.

The places I feel it when you're gone.
I didn't know you could.
It's like vertigo,
Like that sensation when your chair tips,
Only in the oddest places.
In my hands, and they go a bit limp,
Unable to hold things like they should
As if they've forgotten how.
Sometimes my teeth ache, like I've just eaten something sweet and cold, and it spreads down my jaw and makes my head spin.
Things that shouldn't have vertigo- my bones,
My feet,
My lungs.
It's disorienting. It's a little scary.
But at the same time I hold onto it,
Proof that you mean something,
Proof that you have changed me inside
So drastically
That nothing knows how to work quite right anymore.
I have rarely ever needed comforting like I need it now
But how to ask...
And so I sit within my strange new body
That seems to be rediscovering the entire world
At a pace a bit too slow
To seem normal
And I wait for you
And I know that the second I see you
I will be on solid ground again.

On a Saturday morning, one unnaturally warm for the usually brisk Pacific Northwest region, a girl woke up early.
Her first thought was not of the time, 6 am. She had woken up at this hour many times before, every Saturday in fact. Nor was her first thought about the unnatural warmth of the air seeping through her window. Her first thoughts were not of her legs tangled in her blankets, of the large breakfast she wouldn't eat, or of the last remnants of her dreams.
Her first thoughts were of a boy.
As were her second.
Her third. Her fourth.
Her fifth however, was that she should probably get ready to leave.
That summer, the girl had spent every Saturday morning 3 miles up the road at a small farm owned by a family from her church. Her father, the pastor with a history of dairy farming, had encouraged church goers to head up to the farm to help pick the bushels of fruits and vegetables being grown for his churches personal food bank. The girl simply assisted him.

The boy was on her mind every other minute, as she dressed, washed, loaded her allergy medication into a bag and trekked out the door into the misty morning heat. All through the drive she was silent, wondering if he every thought about her. Her father was all but indifferent, speaking of little but weather patterns and permaculture.

The farm was large yet quaint, owned by a woman who evidently had an unfulfilled dream to become a Barbie doll. Farm animals were littered unnecessarily around the property, serving little purpose but to appear cute. The girl supposed they succeeded.

45 minutes of plucking kale leaves offered little satisfaction to the girl, her fingers shaking and *****, aching for contact with the boy who she admitted to herself had probably never given her a second thought. However, this thought was in fact her 67th consecutive such one about the boy. She was unaware of how her 79th thought about him would happen to coincide with the gentle vibration in her pocket. A small blue box with an early morning greeting would appear on her cell phone screen, making her dirt covered hands oddly still.
She was unaware that the boy was motivated to send this particular message by his 104th consecutive thought about her that morning. She was unaware that, much like her, he had thought of little else over the previous month. She was unaware that hours of conversation would lead to revelations of startlingly similar music preferences, opinions and thoughts.

She was unaware how deeply he felt for her. Yet she was all but unaware of how deeply she felt for him. She was unaware that two years from this warm Saturday morning she would be laying in bed at 1 am, rediscovering her writing talent while recounting the beginnings of a love story. Her own.

I caught you in the dark.
The reeds bending with my footsteps,
the wet grass chilling my toes as my
breath hung thick- close to my face.
I reached with the glass jar that my parents  gave me and caught you.
And closed the lid.
I took you into my room
-the place I'd never let anyone go before-
where you lit up the dark
and made shadows dance on the ceiling.

I kept you safe a snug in that jar
watching your controlled beauty light up
my dresser,
then my bed,
then my jewelry box,
and showed you all the prettiest parts of my room-
they got even lovelier in your presence.

but then You got out of the jar

And flew around my room- rediscovering
my dresser,
then my bed,
then my jewelry box
with a celestial freedom and a fullness I didn't know was possible.
And it was beautiful.

But then you flew into my closet
and under my bed
and behind the doors I keep closed
and buzzed around my ***** laundry.
It was ugly.
But I couldn't control you, and I couldn't put you back into the jar again.

While you lit up my entire room, my shame grew larger than the night sky looming on the other side of the windowpane.

So I opened the window
and waited for you to fly away from my ugly
believing that you would join the stars

The first step is admitting you own nothing.
You have borrowed a vessel of perpetual motion,
transforming matter into joy. Or sorrow.
You prepare a lament for
every object being shrunk in volume  
to the point of liquefied singularity.
Your soul resembles a berseked monach
harpuned by the overflowing thoughts
of a whole world outside his sacred temple,
rediscovering GOD through a moment of NO BIG TRUTH.
Every item is handelled with utmost care.
Every hour of every day carefully measured,
overligned, overlived, predicted,
enjoyed to the highest crest of pleasures.
The excitement turns you into a dormant rage
of two incandescent lovers, sharing their last kiss.
A particular moving object (which borrows your empirical mass)
runs away over roads and tracks and clouds and temples,
from the decay measured in seconds of standstill, if at all present.
You left the last version of yourself at the doorstep.
The footsteps on the street are an echo of
your forthcoming change. Your exhaltation.
How am I supposed to fight this disposition,
the everpresent catarsys in each corner of the soul,
as the end is postpond by the black guitar’s lament
in the indigenous version of history.
Sometimes things overlap without obvious reasons.
Sometimes the foundations of our sorrow -
buried deep into everday house hold objects,
is the only threat which holds the secret
to the way back.
To the memories bookmarked in your going-away-ness.
To the saved points in your story
(to which you could return back in case of a disaster).
Like a tale, in which the bad prevails,
but
as she lays in your arms,
in a particularly ephemeral moment
all that matters in the end
is the desired absence of space
‘tween the most lonely abbrevations of
the two of you.

i have yet to write about the sad look on your face
and the milky emerald swirl i catch in your eye
quite simply,
the gold from your fingertips scares
me
your untouchable phrases and the touches mesmerize me
i feel like i am reading my favorite book and rediscovering it's clairvoyance all over again
the sounds that escape your mouth create an essence of grayish light that bring out the flecks of honey in your eyes

After sleeping in until 11,
I get to act like I'm 10 again.
Play Lego's with my brother
while blasted music we both love.

Rediscovering imagination and old memories.
While new are being made.

i'm rediscovering body heat
in such a foreign way.

you shed that electric blanket.
each fine hair chasing it as it
hovers down my spine.

this body pulsates with cold sweat.
the intimate ocean.

i like your fingers
and how they fit
into the ripples of my ribcage. beneath waves

are fallen sailors.
who wished to drown in my flesh.