Love is...
Love is the gut wrenching pain of knowing that I cannot ever hold you in my embrace again. It's the knowledge that you're gone but I'm still here, heart in searing pain. It's knowing that I cannot move on because there's no one as good as you to be found on this earth. Love has become the simple fact of loving a past memory of us.
wasted years in a picture
Wasted years
What do they look like?
Can you show in a picture?
He nodded to himself
as he thought
about it
Of course
who other than him to know
what wasted years look like
After 45 years spent inside
a box he was qualified to
judge. And it wasn’t
even prison. It was the office.
Accounting.
45 years
And today...
Today he was the 65-year-old
photographer
who raised the camera before
the mirror and snapped
a selfie
and said
“I am wasted years.”
Between the Lines
Each story starts
with just two lines,
in pink
inked
on a stick;
developing an image
in the dark
of mother’s crib —
where spiritual is present
as the body,
formed of flesh,
hides
future sight
from vision
’til it stretches, thin, the mesh —
&
through the window pane,
we fall
like Alice
down the hole,
to chapters
that were written
before eyes
covered
our souls.
Purpose pens the plots,
each path,
(the author
yields free-will
in every choice
between the lines:
heartbeat
to limb leads
still).
’Til deja vu,
a bookmarked page,
illustrates
what’s been,
and destiny
reads right to left,
beginning
from the end.
Best Friend
Oh my friend, I feel so tired. You are sitting with me on the floor...not on the couch like we usually do. I know you are crying and I’m doing my best to make you happy. I’ve only ever been happy when you are happy. You get up and tell me it’s time to go. You’re putting my leash on, but I promise I won’t try to go after the deer or peacocks today. You help me into the car and it’s hard for me to get my tummy onto the backseat. The drive feels over in just a minute. I don’t want to go inside the building, even though I’ve been here before. There are young dogs in the big room and I’m scared. I don’t feel too good and I don’t know if I can make friends with them and protect you. I finally go in, because you beg me to. In our private room, the lady in white comes with her familiar voice. She is nice, but I never liked it here. It smells funny and the floors are cold. I hear you crying but I can’t lift my head, so I just raise my eyes to you. You put your head down against mine and talk to me. I haven’t heard well in years, but I feel your voice and it reminds me of the day you brought me home. I love you so much. I feel a little poke on my skin. I’m not sure where it came from. I’m so sleepy, best friend. Thank you for holding me.
Paradoxes
A paradox, something that is true
And yet false
Something that lets you fly
And at the same time ties you down
When you promise that
You can’t keep promises
When you say ‘this sentence is a lie’
When the definition of ‘lie’ is ‘truth’
When the world turns upside down
And inside out
And is changing in so many ways
That it might as well not be changing at all
When you are inside of a paradox
Bound by gleipnir
Knowing that every second takes
You further away from freedom
You know what it is like
To be human
To know every day that you will die
That the meaning of existence is
There is no meaning at all
To live in a locked box
And unlock it from the outside
To promise a thousand things
That you can’t deliver
To believe in something so much
It exists
You know the pain
Of love
Of hate
Of grief
Of joy
Because you are human
Capable of unimaginable things
That demons and angels
Cannot understand
