Over the wintry

Forest, winds howl in rage

With no leaves to blow.

Natsume Sōseki

It is at the cusp of a lonely road that I find myself, meandering there towards the end, where at the beginning I ran, half my life now gone like a dream, a dream that seemed so grand and noble, but could not be fulfilled by a will so weak. Where once a child wanted to save the world, to a failure of a man at the end of the lonely road, standing there as the gods look on and say, o’ the sham, how did we waste such a strong and healthy body, such an inquisitive mind, on a soul so pale and pathetic?

Even the wind seems quiet here. The distant stars seem ever more impossibly far and cold, and beneath my feet a crumbling façade of a dream falls into an abyss of time.

I look back once again at the road behind that led me here, at that childhood dream of a free world. The way twists and turns, and parts of the road are still covered by the debris of ambiguity, by my lack of courage and the inability to find closure.

But ahead of me at the end of this road, there is no mystery, no opaqueness, and the way is clear. In that endless pit of time I will reside as a failure, and there my destiny I will meet.

Inspired by My Thirty-Three Year's Dream by Tōten Miyazaki

Caught in a time warp

A village, a museum

a living breathing

history lesson

Caught over a hundred

years in the past

the boardwalk

wooden pallets

strung end on end

wandering

from bakery

to hotel

to general store

to the mansion

school house

ten pew church

each joined to the

next by the spidery web

of narrow pine boards

ten feet wide

Floor length skirts

catch on splintered spikes

bare feet calloused from

summer wear

walking sticks

parasol points

the boardwalk

does not care

staff or visitor

together or apart

until it ends

unspoken boundary

between town

and country

explore an old mine

the railroad turntable turned by

a team of draft horses

the theater across

a grande green lawn

the old fort on the cliff

and dazed

return to the boardwalk

leading to the gate

package of sour dough bread

fresh baked

hard candy sticky in paper bags

to face

the towers of city center

soaring on the horizon

The End of the Boardwalk

and dreams of a simpler time

A contradiction

so true to my heart

An oxymoron

that says it all

A paradox

of how I feel.

I will take your hand

and maybe it will be rough

and maybe it has dirt on it

and maybe the fingers aren't the prettiest

but I know this hand has held the darkest moments

I know it has thrown rocks for self protection against

bombs

I know it has been stabbed when it has reached out to be shaken

I will take this hand

and I will hold it

because even after all it has been through,

I know it will still hold back.

Even from a long ways away,

you have a hold on me,

its magical to think about

until I think about who might

have been with you, in your bed

and I feel sad for the both of us,

that girl and I,

we will always be fighting each other

and will never know it.

There is something in me that is troubling.

Something that hasn't always been there.

It's strong enough to be hate, and fragile enough

to be my self esteem.

It's not like me to like the dark but I am comfortable here.

I don't want to be.

I want to fight it, I want to find a way to move,

get up, pull back the curtains, go outside, talk to someone.

But how can I talk to someone when I feel like everyone is

just waiting for the perfect opportunity to use me?

To stab me in the back when I least expect it?

How can I let anyone in after that.

It's lonely here but I know I am in company with myself,

and I trust her.

I think she is strong enough to bring me back without help.

I’m just sitting in a blast crater

with the jagged pieces of myself,

just sitting and inspecting,

maybe waiting for the vultures.

In the past I’d pick the shards up,

place them the best I could,

get up and just start moving

to some haphazard destination,

but this time there’s nowhere left to go.

And even if there were an Emerald City on the horizon,

there are others here with me,

and I’m busy picking up their pieces,

so here I sit

watching the smoke and fog dance,

swirl and play like children,

and though I can’t see them,

I know the vultures are out there somewhere

circling with hungry eyes.