How hard the moments are, in life,
When we are vulnerable, exposed;
The doors which we approach, concerned
That we’ll forever find them closed
How strange the heart. It strives and yearns
For others: striving, yearning, too;
The look that freezes, touch that burns —
To strive is all that we can do
Because we know the chance is there
To turn the troubled times to glad:
And we can’t know today when there
Will be no other chances
To be had
When she was almost young, she slept
Next to the fields of pure delight;
When she went almost out, she heard
Of secret pleasures in the night
When she felt almost love, she dreamed
Of freedom found in ecstasy —
Yes, when she almost lived, she lived
Just two doors down
From me
(“Almost” – 5-21-2017)
A strange eventuality,
This life of surreality:
To be engrossed
In thought or ghost
Engulfed by each totality
For precious things that disappear,
For wool that grows to see the shear,
The blight that thrives,
The mind that hives,
The many equals without peer
And odd strand of our filament,
Now clothed in new habiliment:
The brain will seize,
The last thought flees,
Events that have no incident
For precious lives we lose in war,
For sleepers, dreaming still, for more —
As day find day
And players play
This timeless game that keeps no score
We stand upon the precipice,
The open mouth of the abyss —
The anchoring
Of sanctioning
To little more than only this:
A life of whim, directionless,
Of seeking for connectedness:
The reach for air,
The no one there,
Alone, afraid,
Affectionless
(From an experience a friend of mine had many years ago. – Owen)
She sees the woods on fire all around,
She’s driving fast and running from the flame;
The forest is consumed in utter madness,
And if she is not quick, she’ll be the same
It’s both sides of the road, but she’ll keep fleeing
The swarming hatred of the burning hive —
She sees the woods on fire all around her,
But she’ll outrun it yet,
And she’ll
Survive
We’re more than just our scars,
We’re the adventures that occasioned
The bits of us we left behind;
That left us sore, or chastened,
Or maybe neither. Maybe we
Are made the way we’re made
To learn about survival, else
We just remain
Afraid
If I could show you all my heart,
I’d frame it there in sharp relief,
Because it now is my belief
The whole of which we’re all a part
Is meant for sharing in a way
We rarely do ’cause we’re afraid;
Our spectral fears won’t be allayed,
Nor our lost concentration stay.
But at the brink of everything,
We turn away, we double back:
And look for glories that we lack,
And listen for a song to sing
With all our heart and soul and mind.
But that song, we but rarely hear,
Because, whenever we draw near,
Some other fancy we will find
Distracting us from what is best.
I’ve seen this. Now, we’re worlds apart.
If I could show you all my heart,
I’d help you stop and think and learn
To rest
How would your life be different if you were incapable of feeling fear? Would your life be better or worse than it is now?
(Thanks, Nique Lektra, for inspiring this prompt!)
Fear is not a bad thing,
Too much fear is a bad thing;
Fear of the wrong things is a bad thing.
Ultimately, our feelings should conform
To our reality:
We should fear what merits fear.
But how do we know?
You ask –
We don’t know what dangers will come,
Nor where they might come from —
True.
So we always fear the unknown,
So long as it remains
Unknown.
But knowing is a choice.
I have known fearlessness:
It’s called being drunk.
And I remember the thoughtless intimacy,
The destructiveness of self and others,
Even the car crashes.
We have some inhibitions for a reason,
Which is:
They are worth having.
I do not seek a life without fear
I seek to never fear without reason –
But, I will often fail, I fear
My precious child
How could you know
The way that life
Is wont to go?
These moments;
Taken, set apart,
You reading rapt,
Full mind and heart
To someplace else,
Somewhere: not-here —
In that world, joy:
In this world,
Fear
