The dry tears he wept in the silent car
as the accelerator made a hollow roar
and his wide glass eyes stared down the solemn midnight road

His frail hands trembled
as he pulled into the empty lot
he remembered how he had been young just last week.

And as he climbed the echoing concrete steps
he flew back to the endless nights atop this very roof
where words and wine had once flowed unstoppered

And where he had met a young girl
And lived a fiery life, if just for the night
And smelled perfume against the crisp air

But how far away he was
standing lone among his ghosts
as the wind blew and chilled him to the bone

Instinctively his hand went to his unfamiliar cheek
How wrinkled and worn was this old man's face
Where fires had once burned in the city-windows around
All was now dark

The air smelled of a cigar's smoke and he felt nauseous
and caught in his eye the hospital, a beacon in his mind
And turned away as he thought of fallen angels
And fresh tears ran down his very old face
Which surely was young just last week

Abandoned dusty in the attic
A shadow flitters around the edge
Caressing the smoky veil of glass,
Searching to remember his first waking moment,
When he had become but a phantom
Of a man-
But alas, it had been always.

Silently knocking on the wall
Which holds him from the other side-
You saunter by and blink
And shun the one moment you could have seen
And he is forgotten from the ones who never knew him
And the fabric
Runs like soot over his world.

His eyes see but the ghost of the substantial,
His world imaginary staring through a window of glass
From which shines an impossible prism
Cutting a path through the smoky din
The dream-dust settles, making it but a circle
Glowing in the light
That he could live in another’s eyes.

That longing glare barely lights a beam
In the dusty sandstorms
That swirl unknowing in the upstairs abyss.
A cobweb of days long forgotten
Spells out a lost map of parts none traveled
And bone-dead
The shadow glimpses your heart and shudders.

Lost skies of fallen stars none found
The petty grains sifted through
As if you never thought to look
For the moon-bright glimmered tear
In the featureless field of silver what you only saw
Was you
And the night sky could weep no longer.

In between the hope
And the reality
Falls the shadow-

The mirror shatters.
Crushing glass slashing shards into the air
Shrieks erupt as the phantasm is
For the first time known,
The storm that had been hidden in that one-way mirror
Now unleashed, yet
You avert your eyes as if it was still a pane of glass.

The planet it wobbles a lonely path
On the background of distant stars
So constant and locked into their relative places-
They did seem so very happy.

It leaves its solemn red footprint
On the pitch black night
The astronomer's eye is caught by a passer-by.

Embarrassed at his distraction he turns back to his telescope
And cannot see the faded mark it left behind
Only the endless void
And he raps his knuckles on the railing wondering what he had been looking for.

And there is a glint of gold in the evening sky and blue smoke from a chimney-top
And the sharp-dressed men and women in their black jackets
Are too focused on the sidewalk
Cracked, Beige-gray,
It was recently cleaned for their viewing pleasure
And it leads them to their cubicles and coffee-shops.

And then their houses where they burn away the night in small silent hearths
And awake again the next morning with each minute planned ahead
Only to find out the schedule they had followed-
and adhered to the entire day-
Was not written for them
or for anyone
but just as another man's joke meant for nobody else to see

The toil she felt in the armchair constructed,
such a constant lock in place
that she collapsed
and they looked admiringly as she had worn herself out working hard at her job all day-
And I looked at the map scrawled at my feet in a different man's handwriting
"I'm lost," I said after a pause.
"I do feel rather lost"

Fatefully falling
He grabs the string
and pulls everything down.

A spyglass of forgotten gems-
won in a rigged lottery
in the days before he was awake-
spies a land that has not yet been ravaged
in the pitch-black starless sky
not yet been taken
by the drilling crushing
by the empty words and hollow promises
The dreams do not prey on tonight.
They leave that vulnerable cardiac node
that empty dried well
for a delectable snack
in the times when the hollow men
should not feel so alone-

Silently drowning
He grabs the rope
and pulls every hope down.

The incessant calm
the roaring silence.

A mystic bell tolls its portent,
and the world uncoils like a spring
and collapses like thunder on a summer day
The shock of cold strikes my muscles,
defibrillating my comatose brain into a primal state
as I feel the water suspend me, if only for a moment

The rushing adrenaline breaks its mental dam and seizes control
My legs a motor in the tides,
my body an arrow from Apollo's bow arcing towards the crystalline surface

I break the barrier into air, it shatters like glass.
And then, I fight, clawing like a crazed animal.

The primal struggle to survive, to battle my existence
to take on the entire world...
collides with my thinking mind at once, as I shrug off the weight of breathlessness

The primal and the intelligent forcing me forward
threatening to rend my body in two!
My world inverts, and does a tipsy dance

The struggle between our dreams and our reality
Our fight and how tired we truly are
Hits me with a wall of realization

I fight on, my fury a mad race to break myself
to surpass the limits I set for myself
and truly see the world

The moment hits, a single tap on the wall an explosion that sends my body reeling
and my mind blinks and returns to its natural state
I breathe new air and clear my head,
yet search as if trying to remember the dream I just awoke from

And the world is a clutter
And the roars are silent

So close,
yet separated by the endless plain artificial
our minds create an expanse between the paradises of our imagination and the struggles of reality.

It is a mental prison that we fabricate to avoid risk,
but in doing so we avoid the reward that comes along-
for even a failed endeavor is a success in that it was an endeavor at all.

Why do we never take exceptional leaps,
even when they are from a sinking ship?

Why do we cling to the submerging lifeboat
rather than test the waters, and test our own true capabilities?

Change is such a menacing figment that we impose upon the natural transience of the world.
The only time change is made is to protect the status quo.

Because we are human.

Because walking into a dark cave, just to explore the wonders within,
is not something that is in our nature.

I dare to wonder

what are in the concealed depths of the world-
I know beyond the surface wonders exist far more mystical than those I place at the end of my unreachable expanse.

But I can’t take the plunge alone-
thinking about the strangling darkness clouds thoughts of the hidden light.
My nature gets the better of me as well.

But still I dare to dream,
and hope one day I can surpass this,
confront this,
and become a truly transcending mind
past the mundane into the uncomfortable place where humans dare not go-

because it is new, and scary,
and doesn’t fit with our delusional fantasies that our suffering,
our endless strides to an unreachable goal, are noble.

We are destined to suffer as a general population because we put our goal before us,
and convince ourselves we can’t move towards it.

But some will do the unthinkable and march to society’s vision of ridiculous endeavors,
and once in a while, someone achieves the goal-
the goal to go for your goal,

whether you taste the fruits of your labor or are left a tragic failure.
At least tragedy is cathartic,
at least it means you tried to thwart your nature.

Maybe living a double nature of hope and tendency is impossible, and maybe it destines me to fail.

But if I do, it’s not I that is the loose part in the machine of society.


Maybe it means I was the only one that was truly free from it.