Injury

Running along carelessly
Eyes focused on the goal
Propelled by an unseen force
Lurching my entire being forward
Against its will
Colliding into the unsuspecting girl
Realizing that I am about to fall
That it is certain
Responding with frozen self-awareness
Ceasing all motion
Knees locking, body tightening inward
The apology dropping sloppily from my lips
As another crashes into me
And all that had steadied me
Blew out from beneath
The long, strong legs that have carried me
Through marathons, through storms
Down the streets that led me to you
Where the words still echo
Hauntingly in my ears
As they foreshadowed a truth
That was yet unknown to me
She did it to herself
Says my myopic opponent
The words rouse my venom
While the irony tends the wound.

Tattoo

Let the pain sear my skin
Ink stain seeping
Into the beautiful scene
Overwriting the story
Which is how I like it
Hardcore artistry
Riding the edge of unforgivable
Real permanence branded into the heart
By hot pokers cauterizing the wounds
I'll laugh as I let it bleed
Alternately the sadist and the masochist
Dual nature pulls me toward it
As I push myself away
And I am as drawn as your design
As changeable as my upper arm seems to be
Amorphous and amiable
In this evolution of passage
Sloughing off the dead cells
Trying to find some continuity
The real meaning so obscured
That it's finally obvious.

Today, Part Two

Loss is replete with meaning
The experience of pain
An opportunity for growth
An acquisition of strength
An agent of transformation
As we inch towards our truths
Mostly by way of fits and starts
Occasionally grasping them wholly
They dissipate with the moment
And new truths emerge
Initially confounding
They eventually illuminate new meaning

Segue

I wonder where it is that I go sometimes
Slipping into an ambiguous ether
Where icicles are ablaze but do not melt
Their frozen heat reflecting clearly in my eyes
While I am paralyzed to describe it
I can only tell you that I am both the happiest
And most discontent person here
In this other paradigm of life
Where I have been denied the pure pleasure of simplicity
Displaying my shackles of higher truth
Purpose and rightness
Whose key I have always possessed
Preferring to shelter myself in their service
Sliding away into the shadows of night
Where I can weigh the day's collection of ironies
File them by merit, arrange them by mass
Drop them into the neverworld and let them sink
Down into the depths of the things I forgot how to feel
Which are now leaking into the pools of my dreams
The flavors they imbue apprehend my regards
Tasting the pieces of the past without the usual choking
Staring at a door wedged into an invisible wall
Contemplating just when I will decide to unlock it.

River Dell

The water will catch me
As it always does
Watching myself with bemusement
As if from beyond my own skin
I hear my voice chuckling delightfully
Pushed off a cliff
Flying through the air
Throat dry
Stomach plummeting
Cutting through the surface
Of the viscous edifice below
Breathless submersion
Bobbing to the top
Adrenaline rushing through my veins
I’ll climb to the top again
Because the water will catch me
It always does.

Anticipation

It's like chewing on sparks
The electricity fizzing on the tongue
Sizzling with possibility
Beckoning the unexplored territories
Like an overgrown forest
Left magically untouched
Waking from slumber to life
The stillness has been rended
And now everything is alive
In shocking greens and prolific blues
Shouting in a whisper
Shaking its roots skyward
Blooming in full force
The energy of the beauty
Radiating from each petal
Impregnating the air
When they were just molecules
Seconds before
Now they are the unknown

Sunrise

Fog swirling in tandem with the wind
Raindrops rapping gently against the window
Sliding down
Melding together into pools
That gracefully relent their form
Under the gaze of the morning sun
Breaking through in colorful rays
The day bursts forth anew.