Trying

I'm exhausted by action and inaction pretty equally
I'm not doing enough
I'm thinking too much
I want to be held and fussed over
Caressed and reassured
And I want to be tough
I want uncertain love that burns itself to embers
Love with purpose. A love to remember when the time allows
And a love that transports in the remembrance
A love that both rescues and drowns
But mostly,
I want to be somewhere else right now.

I want to fly but I seem to have forgotten how
My motives are pure, I swear
But I'm mired in the filth of my circumstance
I'm not as strong as I let the world believe
I'm a broken thing held together by cosmic glue
Sometimes dancing is a relief-
I sometimes forget I can dance
And isn't flight just dance elevated?

I want a sense of purpose
But I'm not sure where it's sold
I check the tag of this second-hand dress
Just in case I'm wearing it now unknowingly
But no.
I think I see it hanging in the warm glow of a window
And I go in to investigate
But they don't have my size
My chest fits alright
But it's a little bit tight across the thighs

...Maybe next time. 

Lost

I am lost. Profoundly. Miserably. Of my own volition. Because there are some places I refuse to be found. There are lovers I still recall with tears in my eyes and current companions whose loyalty I question. I drink wine for the taste... until I've lost all sensation in my tongue... and then I pine after the perfect boy to help me find it again. I want love the most when I seem not to. If I dote on you, you'll be forgotten in a week, a month at best. I mean no harm.

I eat what I like as often as I like and run when I feel trapped. The world thinks I'm beautiful, but I don't. I think those who celebrate me do so for my curves...my imperfections..the subtle turning out of my flesh. The fluctuations in me. Because I remind them that we are all human under all the things we buy to cover it up.

If I could do one thing that was not loving, I don't think I could name it easily, but it would probably be to travel. To see the world before it burns. Patagonia and London and the Amazon and the Painted Desert. The place where Mesopotamia fell and the place where the thing that replaced it crumbles-as if it was not built of strong enough stuff to withstand the pressure of people fighting over things they can no longer name.

I regret the last time I didn't say "I love you" when I felt it welling up inside of me. I would have been turned away and abandoned on the spot and there would have been a few days of shuddering pain, but I would have overcome it. And I would have carried around the secret knowledge of having been true to myself.

The last time I confessed my love, I gave him a comic book to show my affection. Because nothing quite says "Be Mine" like images that can't be corralled into a dull facade of monotonous text. If you can engage me intellectually, you can love me. That's the truth of the matter. I'm currently writing a kind of Rosetta Stone for use on First Dates. A way to decipher the esoteric code of my soul. I believe it's warranted.

I want to leave, but I don't know where I'm going to, and it's true in every sense. I have potential, but what's the use if I don't know what to do with it? The less you know, the happier you are...I am convinced of this, and I am convinced that I know too much.

There is either no one like me or everyone is like me-I can't decide which it is. In my world hope and despair embrace in
 an intimate dance and neither maintains rhythm without the other. And I am glad for it.

True Love Knows No Bounds

You are currency, simply put

You have buying power, but it's not always the same

You compete every day whether you know it or not

Your existence is a fiduciary game

You buy into relationships

You expend yourself

You make some feeble attempt at a savings account

But life usually calls upon you to exhaust your reserves

You are a series of charts and estimations and graphs

You are initial hope and the messy aftermath

He fell in love with you when your value was high

But what goes around comes around

And value is always depreciated by forces

Beyond your control

One day he'll wake knowing

He can't get as much from you anymore. 

Because no one waits in grocery lines with the forsaken

Systems regulate themselves

Until they don't.

Love is a gamble

The stakes are high

There's not a corner of this Earth

On which it's not found

And yes, my friends

It does know bounds.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Some pictures aren't worth a thousand words
It's an especially valid point
Before cuneiform and its predecessor
In a place called Kish
A place that no one knows...

But some are worth more.
It's an especially valid point
After the Great Degradation
When language falls by the wayside
In a place
That can no longer be expressed with any means we possess

I am Anachronism incarnate.
I am Time.
And I am worth more than either.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Good things don't come to those who waste their lives waiting
For the sudden suspension of free will
Or the intervention of some kindly deity in a far-off realm
Sometimes good things aren't even that good
And the worst things are the only things worth having
Things in general are variable
"Good things come to those who wait"
Is a thing said by the haves to the have-nots
To minimize their own guilt
Or is it a threat?
That the free will eventually know what it is
To be chained to their desires?

Be Something for Yourself

Be something for yourself, they say
...When we need people.

We were born this way
NEEDING PEOPLE.

They tame us and encourage us and give us a reason to be
A conversation is worth a thousand meditations
In the ancient misery of the shut-in mind
What would it matter without others?

No scientific theory or bestseller means anything
Without people to take it up in their quiet hours alone
We need to be torn apart sometimes
Remade in the image of progress.
Carved from the stone of our daily expressions.

Nothing is enough for itself.
We are Osiris scattered to the far corners of the Earth
And it is communion that finds us and makes us whole
We are one priceless, divided soul

I'll never be enough for myself.

I'll pine and love and dream and rage
I'll threaten death in silent pain upon the page
But at the end of the day,
It's worth it to be shaken to my core
So long as I've got people to do it for

Poetosophy-Thought Constrained by Form

 On the Dark Underpinnings of Love

Is love raw passion?
Or learning to tolerate
A good-hearted soul?

Should I feel breathless
Or is it too dangerous
To forfeit control?

Is love just habit
Or is it something profound?
Will I ever know?

What does love look like?
Would I recognize its face?
As friend or as foe?

Does love clip your wings
Is it mesmerizing flight?
Shackles or freedom?

Will I still rejoice
In the dawning of each day?
Have dreams or cede them?



On the Art of Doing 

History is the gone, the never reclaimed
The thing that's always whispering in the shadows
The lover you couldn't quite tame, and so
Remember with a smile or a stiff drink
The one that got away
The one that makes you think.

And theory is the fickle future's caress
Dark unknowns become silhouettes
You know how it makes you feel
Alive and undressed and pressed against a wall
You can do something, or nothing at all

But the present is the story, your only real posession
Linear life marching in formation as you look on
Tantalizing words joining one another in tidy little rows
To form scenes and shed light and delight your senses
It's the only fulfillment you've ever known
The embrace at last.
The would-be, has-been lover's a thing of the past
You reflect on what you've had and what you might enjoy...
Until you find yourself alone again
Scotch in hand, by a lacklustre fireside
You lament...but confess, that at least you tried