I’ve been
Catching
Dark Flies within—
Won’t you
Stay your
Welcome?
The You
So near
But nowhere found,
I am
Scrubbing
The Outside
To A
Shimmer—
Hoping
The Glare
Will bring
You
Around.
You see yourself
Bend and break
Into a million pieces—
Your dreams and aspirations
Deep in trenches—
For moments,
You begin to witness
Your withering:
A gradual,
Irrevocable decease
Of the once
Vastly immense
Well—
From which
Rose your strength;
Sets of spines
For
The Heavy load.
You see it,
This indefinite
Blackening
Of
The Sun—
The last breath
Of air
Escaping your lungs.
But
Do bite
Your
Tongue—
You may just
Forget
This dark void
And live
To See
Another Dawn.
You are not sure if it’s the full moon tonight, or there is simply something menacing in the air for all to breathe it in and exhale out their abounding miseries—
Blaming nature: the heat, the cold, the snow, the rain, the storms, the floods, the moon, and the sun; it’s the safest way to go. They are larger than life, so you won’t have to sound small and human by attributing the tragedy to other individuals.
All is said so there is nothing left to say. You kindly but unwillingly let them have their victories; in the end, it’s all irrelevant to you as to who gets in the last word.
You
Just
Cannot
Believe
Why
It
Must
Be
So
Difficult.
In life, we plan and plan; neglecting the haunting thought of sweet death and no tomorrow.
All is temporary
Yet no one
Dares
To
Believe in
The possibility—
Of
Provisional desire
Manifesting
Beautifully into
An Indestructible Endless.
Bring me the Truth,
Truth
Like naked bones
Of the Dead—
Now
Foul and ghastly, but
In time
Factual and harmless.
So
Toss and Slam and Shove
The Truth
To me,
Blinding and caustic
It might
Presently be,
But spared I will be
From eternal
Sorrows—
Invoked by the
Fleeting, empty smile
And the briefly comforting
Lies
You wear
And tell
So well.
I speak to Her
On occasions;
The exchange of
Recreational
Words—
It seems as if
We could babble
All day
And nothing
Would be
Of consequence.
Unaware, I would
Ramble on and on,
Not knowing
She is inwardly
All amber-colored
Kindness:
A silent,
Elusive Saint—
And that I am,
Despite
Mere, scattered desires,
Nothing
But
A mortal
Cottonmouth.
“I find myself wondering about humanity. Their attitude to my sister’s gift is so strange. Why do they fear the sunless lands? It is as natural to die as it is to be born. But they fear her. Dread her. Feebly they attempt to placate her.
They do not love her.
Many thousands of years ago, I heard a song in a dream, a mortal song that celebrated her gift. I still remember it:
‘Death is before me today:
Like the recovery of a sick man,
Like going forth into a garden
After sickness.
Death is before me today:
Like the odor of myrrh,
Like sitting under a good sail
In a good wind…'”
I walk by her side, and the darkness lifts from my soul.
I walk with her, and I hear the gentle beating of mighty wings.”
—Neil Gaiman, Sandman: Vol. 1, Preludes and Nocturnes.
“You degrade the law you serve just to protect some woman who cast you aside like offal?”
“In a second.”
“And you think that I’m the monster. Love is supposed to dignify us, exalt us. How can it be love, John, if all it does is make you lonely and corrupt?”
—conversation between John Luther and Alice Morgan.
“The ones
Who love us
Best,
Are the ones
We’ll lay
To rest,
And visit
Their graves
On holidays
At best.
The ones
Who love us
Least,
Are the ones
We’ll die
To please.”
So it is—stillness after the blitzkrieg storm, which came and left in such a hurry that its brutal force only inflicted minor destruction: scattered, small incidents here and there, uprooted trees with poor footings and torn paper houses with substandard foundations—only the flimsiest of things took their falls; maybe they should have been knocked over long ago.
You could only stand upright so long, solely relying on the erratic safety of pushed luck and not having anything substantial to hold your Ground.
Brief, succinct, but nonetheless terrifying; as she made her way, everything in her path shook just by the sheer immenseness of what she was capable of, not even by the severe and solemnness of her actual device.
This instance was only a casual regard, to remind those who had forgotten just how much they were at her absolute mercy. But realistically, merciful she was and is not, rather, she is impartial. The majority of whom she left unscathed, she did so—unintentionally; however, nor did she deliberately bring havoc to those who are now broken and petrified; they caught by the harsher angles of her passing draft simply by the fairness of the law of mass action: anybody could be it, but certainly not everybody, maybe.
One could only wonder, where do the Others hide? The bugs, birds, and rodents—you know, they are with us too. Where were they as the wind began to roar and the ground became progressively moistened then inconveniently soaked? Where did they go and how do they always return?
Could it be that even the mysterious and the all encompassing cannot halt the seemingly inexhaustible forces of life? Where were you amidst the storm? Did you have solid roofings over your head? If so, did it falsely convince you of your sure footings?
You know of a person—a friend of a friend.
In fact, you are on friendly terms with a particular family: a household of two, husband and wife, each of whom you share a friendship with; the two friendships are separate but equal.
You are not sure which one of the two you are closer to, but that is not the point; you have not socialized with these early-thirty lovebirds for almost 3 years; by now they’d be mid-thirty birds of the kind unknown to you.
You like to imagine (and hope) that their once apparent affection for one another has not waned.
It is not a long brewing grudge that bore itself out of conflicts, instead, it just is. “What happened? Life happened.” That’s one way of explaining it, in what “they” say (do people really say that?).
A few weeks ago, in a public space that hosts extensive foot traffic, you recognized the back of the husband a few feet ahead of your steps on the sidewalk.
His particular build: broad shoulders on a 5’10, stocky torso; the larger size of his head; the black, dull shimmer of his mid-length hair. It was him with his unmistakeable gait—clumsy, but relaxed, yet heavy.
Right there and then, you abruptly tuned down your pace; it’s been too long and you were too tired to go through the typical jabber of the catching-up talk. You have come to realize that people are better off catching up while engaged in less talkative activities, or at least you have learned that you are better off that way, personally. So you made no plans to catch up, physically nor personally.
It’s like the phone call that progressively gets more intolerable to make; so you eventually wind up not making it at all.
But this was different—you knew sure as hell that your presence couldn’t make a difference in their lives. You are not the saint whose words are divine. And they certainly do not require help from you in any shape, way, or form.
Then again, who knows, you could have been the tiny cog in the great clock work of the grand scheme of things that made all the difference to them. You decide to not think about that.
There was something new and peculiar about the picture: aside him, holding onto his left hand, was a little person. She waddled with a funny sway, taking two extra steps for every step the giant next to her took.
She wore the a magenta raincoat that sharply contrasted his dark navy, more form fitting sweater. Maybe it’s the attire, or it could simply be the power of innocence and youth—shining pure and exuberant juxtaposed to anything.
Three years and they were already a family of three: with a new person you had never seen before. It’s shocking because it felt as if you fast-forwarded, past the parts where she was pregnant and her daughter was born and how she went from being bald, crawling on all fours to standing upright, almost half a whole person.
You followed them a short distance, keeping just enough of a gap so you could blend in with the other pedestrians.
Something made the little one turn her head. She looked back and she landed her eyes on you.
You smile and wave, subtly mischievous so she’d find it humorous—so she could trust this stranger she had never met once in her life.
Her face giggled without making a sound. She turned back around; her hair shone just like her dad’s, but it was smooth, silky, and long—must have come from the mother.
Out of curiosity, as they ambled on, she would turn around to look again and again, and each time you made a different face to entertain her.
You wanted her to trust you, to portray yourself as an adult who wasn’t so full of intent and lies and sharp corners.
After a short while, the Dad began to notice the difference in his Daughter’s behavior. She turned all the while holding on to his hand, and every time stopping briefly then managing to catch up again by clinching harder onto his big, powerful hand. To her, it was a lever of security.
“What are you looking at?” The father asked, look down on her, but not back at you.
Before she had time to point and explain, you quickly turned to your back, and proceeded in the opposite direction.
You hastened your steps, walking in between and in front of every other person you passed on the street, so the Dad would give up on identifying the back figure of the stranger who was quickly melting into the background.
You escaped without having to confront him; you felt strange, isolated, but all the more relieved.
This was your catch-up greeting, a silent and half facetious hello to the little one.
Particular Moments 