Be still, my love. Bask in the silence of the morn. Let your waters, like glass, reflect upon the dawn. Do not ripple them with fears and anxiety. Let yourself harmonize with the waking world. Blend into it. Rise with it. And if it asks you to be still, be still. You will understand.
Spring still slumbers beneath frozen fields. The almanac said there'd be rain. It said there'd be warmth. But the tendency is gone. We are in a new era. Same planet. Different climate. Hoping. Waiting. For Spring to awaken.
Like the tide, there are times I recede. Into the ocean. Into myself. It is there that I nourish. It is there that I am temperate. In the stillness, far from any shore, I stare at the shimmering horizons and I float. The sky darkens to a murky blue and I wrap myself in the night. It is here, where I am alone, that I find my polarity. In this isolation I allow myself to feel what I often deny. Be it sadness. Be it fear. Be it anger. Be it bliss. It is here that I reckon with the parts of me that bring conflict. So I float. Until the hues of blue around me lighten. Until I hear the seabirds song. Until the dawn reveals a familiar coast. Because like the tide, I always return. And as such, I am never the same.
There are things we try so hard to see from afar. These shapes. A mirage. We make meaning where there simply is none. We create monsters to befall us. We fear this unknown. We watch for its movement. A twitch and we are doomed. But if we get closer. A little closer. Closer still. Maybe we'll see that that which has kept us distant wasn't what we perceived, but rather ourselves. A projection of our own device. Maybe in the end fear has less to do with what is outside of us, but what is within.
To all my oddballs and misfits,
The freaks and miscreants,
We, the untold deviants,
When told to be quiet,
Made our own society.
In the side rooms,
Back alley saloons,
Smoke-filled cellars
And jalopies.
I am with you.
We, the detritus.
We, the bottom feeders,
We, the seekers,
Know that truth often arises
From the most dreary of places.
That which
Think of all the lives we pass through. Every person, their stories woven within yours. Think of every eye you've met, and that moment you shared your consciousness with another. Think of all the broken hearts that have sat beside you, looking at your hand, wondering what would happen if they were to hold it. Think of all the dreamers who've found space for you within their reverie. We all float through life as islands, yet we are all connected by the oceans we share. Some purify it with love and laughter. Others pollute it with hate and ignorance. But we share it nonetheless. And each moment is an opportunity to swim within that space between us all. So reach out. Push further into the brine. Let the salt enter the cracks within your skin. Where it hurts it heals. Do not be afraid of the deep. For in these waters, you are never truly alone.
There are spaces you still inhabit,
In corners tucked away,
Sequestered.
Buried skin deep.
Dust tracing outlines
of neglected memories
revealing the parts of you
I have yet to let go.
Silhouettes of unseen shapes
So heavy the light bends.
Distorting what my eyes
can no longer see.
Ghosts
One need not believe,
To be haunted.
I am the shadow that walks among you,
untouched by the ebullient lights.
I am the concave smile.
The inward.
The unseen.
I exist in the periphery,
always present,
out of reach.
I see what you refuse to acknowledge.
I befriend the wraiths you dispel.
I slake my hunger, like the bloodthirsty wolf,
devouring the darkness within you.
Bring me your fear,
bring me your hate,
bring me your bitterness
and your pain.
All the carrion of your soul.
Lay them before me
and walk into the light.
Throughout the years I have been drawn to this place. On this bench I have sat with lovers, strangers who became friends, and friends who became strangers. It was here that I spoke with a man who was down and out, for life had cast him aside and the hollow within him echoed the nothingness without. He left with a smile. That night he cast life aside from the bridge beyond. Years later I returned with thoughts to do the same. This bench is my testimony. It has borne the weight of my world time and time again. And though the water still taunts me, a river cannot drown the ocean within me. So I sit with a half smile, because while I remain, I remember. Never take this life for granted. Nothing is certain.