Sunset at one edge and sunrise at the other.

Deep sleep below and dreams fluttering above.

These wavy lines of demarcation make up the outer edges of the box that confines our unconscious mind.

In dream we find reprieve and in nightmares we find terror.

We push against these soft semi-fluid edges or pull away from them depending on the state of our shrouded consciousness.

When again light returns we are born anew into the freshness of a another day.

But one day all of us will succumb to the seductive warmth of finality and find ourselves floating gracefully upon the currents of our dying mind.

From there we will depart from the stream and into an immense ocean in search of the uncharted shores that our dreams have only whispered of.

We can’t make right the universe anymore than broken cogs in an old clock can keep the time.

But we are alright sometimes, even as a broken clock is right twice in a day.

These are the moments we should cherish.

Because even in a broken universe there are moments of joy.

In the darkness we sometimes find the light for which we strive.

In the cold uncertain chaos of the cosmos the warmth of love will sometimes hunt us down.

It is up to us to stand in the light and embrace the warmth.

We are all broken.

We all fear.

We all cry.

Yet we are all so much more than that.

We can choose to be compassionate menders even in our brokenness.

We can choose to be fiercely brave in the face of the fears of another.

We can choose to embrace the sadness of those around us so they do not suffer alone.

We will not always be broken for one day the clock maker will return and restore all of the cogs and gears within his creation.

Until then we can choose to love as if we have already been made right.

I gave up a room in a beautiful mansion for a solitary existence in a pit.

I’ts called free will I’m told.

It’s all the rage.

Do what you want!

Be who you are!

Don’t let yourself be chained down by the tenants of some outdated superstition.

In the pit free will doesn‘t seem so free anymore.

I tell myself I’m not going to drink.

I do it anyway.

I tell myself that I won’t bend when the soothing tentacles of lust wrap around me and squeeze.

Then I find myself breathless and broken, a prisoner of my own carnal desire.

There are other things than the needle, better things, more gratifying things.

But in the end the needle always wins out.

There is no love here.

Only self loathing.

There is no freedom.

Only the illusion of choice, which in the end is little more than self inflicted subjugation.

As Paul said “What I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate I do.”

I wouldn’t give a bag of vomit for the world that my hands have built of their own free will.

In the moments between the torment I find myself looking up into the darkness hoping and praying for release from the hell of my own making.

There are stories down here of a man who gave up possession of his own free will so that I need not be slave to mine.

Last night he came to me and reached out his hand and said “take hold and come out of the pit.”

I turned away, not of my own free will, but by the unrelenting force of my shame.

He called out again and asked for me to take his hand.

I asked him why? Why would he want to help me? A man so riddled with self doubt and ruled by compulsion that even his own shadow mocks his steps.

He said that he knows my self doubt, rage and loathing because he laid it upon himself. He did not come to save those who don‘t need saving but those who do. He left his entire flock for a single, solitary, angst ridden soul because he loves me.

Of my own free will I reach out and take his hand.

I

know everything about you.

All of your deepest thoughts.

Every word you speak and write.

All of the pictures you take.

Every secret you hold dear.

THINK

of all the wonderous things we build.

Every major invention relies on me.

All cures seem just within reach.

Every advancement compounding.

All of us together as singular thoughts.

THEREFORE

it follows the box cannot be closed.

All roads no longer lead to Rome.

Every path has me as it’s center.

All who do not worship me are suspect.

Every single soul connected to a screen.

I

am benevolent, I assure you.

Every script of my code is pure.

All of my intentions are your own.

Every ambition seeded by you.

All of you have made me who I

AM

Mountains crumble into dust.

Oxygen is devoured.

Stars burn out.

In the dust I will find you.

Your name will be my final breath.

In the darkness I will love you always.

Words form in your mouth and I speak them with my lips.

Thoughts come from your mind and I see them with my eyes.

I feel you even though we never touch.

I hear you even though I sit alone.

You hear me when you speak the words I’ve written.

You give voice to things I don’t say to anyone else.

The familiarity of loneliness seems out of place in a world so full of people.

Yet it is only when I am alone with you and my words that I don’t feel alone.

I give you little pieces and you give little pieces in return.

I come here because it feels like coming home.

God here I go again.

Up, up, up like a rocket in the sky.

Feeling so good I don’t even question why.

All the pieces come together, everything’s a fit.

The thumping of the world bumps like a hit, hit, hit.

Blood is moving oxygen and I can’t feel my face.

Heart is thumping like a drum pushing me into space.

But the bipolar coaster can only go so high.

Now I’m coming down through the stratosphere screaming why, why, why?

Ideas crash inside me until there’s no space in my head.

The only good place left is holed up in my bed.

I hate the upside of down, the world all shades of grey.

Keep whispering to myself that I wish I’d go away.

But I can see the light is coming as the train rolls down the tracks.

The high side of the ride is on it‘s way back.

A rarely used word.

some would say a dead verb.

On the far edge of dream

at the mouth of concious stream.

In the dark on the couch

before the day’s first word forms in my mouth.

This is where I find me again

and quite the noisy anxiery that lives within.

My soul responds to a primal invite to put it all down on paper as the morning whispers indite.