Long After You Left

Long after you left…

 

Your pointed words stayed with me

Often acting as effective antidotes

To the excesses of my own mind

 

All of my wild leaps of imagination

Swiftly cut down to size

By your pre-emptive acts of concern

 

Had it not been for you

I may’ve been lying fallen somewhere

Ditched by default of my own design

 

Yes, the credit for my salvation

Must be rightly accorded to you

And to the corrective power of sarcasm

 

For what could’ve otherwise been brutal

And left me hurt and wounded

Is now only a persistent dull ache…

 

I continue to exist- corrected, but wronged

Alive, but dead; breathing in a coffin

Shrouded in a symbolic spotless white.

Two Sides

He speaks with conviction

In words certain

With belief, meaning and purpose

While she dwells in doubt

Her words sitting on the fence

Of belief, meaning and purpose

 

He knows what he sees

And sees what he knows

She overlooks what she sees

And oversees what she knows

 

He travels to distant lands

In search of industry, wealth and love

Carrying with him

Proof of accomplishment

Proof of wealth and

Proof of love

 

He’s driven by desire

To own and possess

She knows that to own

Is to be possessed

 

While he speaks of his dreams

Of bringing her all of heaven and earth

She wonders why he won’t see

That all of heaven

Is right here, right now

In her hearth

 

He works odd hours

He says it brings the bread home

She cooks for two

But dines alone.

 

He says he’s free like the wind

And will not be tied down

And yet like a gentle night breeze

That’s destined to fill in a calm

He fills into her arms

His defenses down.

Lost and Found

We are all in a sense blind

Without insight.

Understanding doesn’t follow the rhythm

Of day and night

And its own dawn comes after

Many troubled nights.

I walk on the earth

A soul tormented

By thoughts that are the machinations

Of an untruthful mind.

I know that I need saving

But don’t know who else can save me

But me…

This is the first time

I stand face to no-face

Challenging myself

To speak my truth

Or remain forever silent.

This is the first time

I wish to see myself defeated

By a higher truth.

For in that I know

Lies my return to a place that

I’m trying to create for myself

In an imaginary world.

My hands join in prayer

And a tear rolls down my cheek

Today I pray for silence

So that I may rest

And so that no thought

Can come in between me and myself.

Unpacking

It’s not about you

There is no ‘you’

There are only circumstances

So that desires may act

And through action

Be liberated from binding thought

 

But who do these desires belong to?

…They belong to me

‘Me’ is only a thought

A rather persistent one

It’s actually a misnomer…

There is no ‘me;’ but there is ‘am-ness.’

 

Sound, space and light

In their tireless play create

A world of forms, words and meanings

And become the experiences

That ‘am-ness’

Describes as ‘mine’

 

In repeatedly describing experiences as ‘mine’

It condenses into an identity

A limited being

Perpetually longing

For an abundance

That pretentious language has hidden away.

 

You and I

Can trace our ancestry to thought

The remnants of an inaccurate language

That didn’t have the words

To describe

The indescribable.

 

 

 

Yes, I know…

Yes, I know

That there will be suffering

For you

When you have to let go

Unwillingly

Of all that you have owned

And laid claim to

 

Yes, I know

That I too shall suffer

In your suffering

Attached as I am

To your heart

Yoked as I am

To your being

 

A separation

A severance

A theft

A murder

Tortures unleashed on pleasures unwilling to relent

It’s all inevitable

Yes, I know.

Reminder

I know you see me live

And ask of me all that I can give

But I’ve always wondered why

We don’t see each other die

Things often taken a turn

When the last remains burn

So easily we let go

Of all unworthy sorrow

And see clearly through moist eyes

That death  claims us…

 

Long before we actually die.

The Elite

I live in a mental asylum

With shadows for company

So powerful are my shadow-friends

That they’ve erected the walls

Of my asylum

For their existence

 

In its confinement

I yearn for friendship and company

Even if it is of the Unreal

The shadows beckon me to listen

Their amorphous forms speak in booming voices

That echo and resonate.

 

Their thoughts agree with my thoughts

That’s why we are friends…

We jog together in 10000-word dissertations

Or tickle each other with 140-character tweets

And I feel accomplished

That I now have friends in high places…

 

I now speak their slang

And their concerns

Are my concerns

Their outrage is my outrage

Happiness lies in the camaraderie

Between one bubble and another.

 

When you burst my bubble

I stand vacant

Alone in my madness…

And with this painful awareness

That I can’t see, or hear, or feel anyone

Outside of the thick walls

Of my mental asylum.

 

I have been shut in

To be protected from any contact with the breathing…

My walls are thick, impenetrable and safe

My shadow-friends erected them so that they could play

And oh yes, my walls have names

Please meet: Ideology. Fear. Pain. Self-loathing.

Desire’s Destiny

Within me

So many have lived

and scripted my story

 

Some have stayed

for decades

for years

 

Pined

 

Agonized

 

Washed away

by floods of tears.

 

Some come visiting

a month, a week

and leave soon after

they find their seek

 

Coveted guests

who appear

for a minute or two

Rejuvenate

Refresh and

Renew.

 

A residue of wisdom

on ways to cope

They leave behind

magical wings of hope.

 

My nothingness defined

by their very being

They’ve challenged what I know

of my seeing.

 

They’ve come to me

inhabited my space

They’ve shown their artistry

their canvas- my face.

 

Desires in search

for room, for chest

They’ve come to me

to manifest.

 

It’s in rare moments like these

I stand face to face

Watching in silence

 

My nothingness

 

My space.

 

I know now

I can clearly see

My space is nothing

But desire’s destiny.