The gravity of choice.

A young man grow older, shivering in indecision. Living life moment to moment, yet watching as opportunities pass him by; it's paralysis by over-analysis. It's not the decisions he fears, rather that he'll choose incorrectly. Brought up with the belief that there is always a right answer and a wrong one, he cannot see the possibilities in both or neither. His objective mind is trapped within a loop. And so in calmer moments he looks back to reflect on his achievements only to find they're far thinner than he thought they'd be. His experience of life, while extensive, has not been substantial. Like footprints in fine sand, his impression has already begun to disappear.

Sweet tooth

The good intention of the best laid plans is sweet and brittle like hard candy.  Patience, persistence and a slow determination join to experience the full range of sensory delight.  But haste and carelessness bring mistakes, and what had seemed so solid fractures with ease.  The resulting pieces are just as sweet, but now so much more dangerous, armed with sharp and jagged edges; to savor them is to risk the delicacy of taste. It's best to stay true to form, to be even and constant.  The sweetness lasts much longer when allowed the time to melt.

jade(d)

A judgmental and dismissive smirk spreads across my face like a familiar pad of butter.  Rich and salty and easy enough to hide behind, the mask allows me to make comment on all I see without the fear that the favor be returned.  But for so long has this plastic visage held shape that I have forgotten how to take it off. Either unable or unwilling, my attempts at returning to a vulnerable truth are short lived gasps that go unnoticed in the night.  This facade must be broken, and like shattered glass be collected and heated into the liquid of emotional reaction.

R&R

Rejuvenation bleeds from this long awaited rest; a gash of sleep which tore a day in half.  This body recovers quicker than the mind.  Stress scars the psyche, dulls the brain, and numbs even the well-intentioned thoughts.  Let us put faith in our ability to manufacture desire, and push ourself to the top of the smallest hill.  Success builds on previous achievement, so start small and keep moving.

I will find you (I will bring you home).

Leaping through a desert, running feet stretch and bound over the sand as freedom floats in the space between each step.  Running just to run.  No thought of destination, merely the expression of a pent up energy releasing itself in an uncoiling spring.  And when the remembrance comes, the you I find there kisses me with easy eyes, so familiar and different all the same.  It is that look exchanged which holds within it the trepidation of the initiate.  The same jitter of excitement which precedes a leap shivers through me as our lips press together in an irrational passion.

kick in the pants

Still a struggle.  The words do not flow from my fingers in the urgency of expression; not even as a force of habit.  Impeded by the formality of craft, my list of excuses grows long.  I am hard on myself, but only because I'm lazy - seemingly in all things.  Procrastination becomes the motivator.  Some come out of the gate blazing, I break late.  Sprint to the finish, my father always said.  I never realized that it helps to run fast the rest of the time too.

hustle and bustle

An unnatural oasis, life teeming in the desert, out of place and unstable.  The constant growth underpinned by a constant decline of resources desiccates the roots of civilization as if it were sucking marrow from a bone.  Steel fish swim river highways, and like every creation except the root parasite, inedible, with no place in the ecosystem except as scrap.  And this realization comes with the thought that there is no way to stop this engine.  The machine will perpetuate until is has used up every possible fuel, and the dried up paradise will remain a testament graveyard to the folly of man.

rushed strokes.

This hallucination, the nightly ride into the psyche lingers in a cloud behind my heavy eyes.  Like the current of an undertow, it pulls me back into the dark blankness of possibility.  This mental canvas, no less real than all we perceive in waking life, unfortunately washes away each morning as the turpentine of awareness pours across the mind.  The wish to keep on dreaming, perhaps that's why I write.  Unbound by the conventions and rules imposed by the group on what is and is not, I am free to think and feel whatever comes to mind.

Thomas

Surreptitious through the lens of night, focused on the illuminated distance.  A fantasy played out to one of many ends.  It is the gaze that chills, seeing privacy up close, and the thoughts that linger long after the light has faded.  In the sunrise, the spotlight washes clean and the reflections hide the harmless entry there was before.

...rats!

Shadow scratching, pulling at the fibers, giddy with the quickness of destruction.  Speculations dash like fireflies in my mind, flaring brightest before they die forever.  And my reluctance to venture into the darkness comes from the fear that I will find something I'd rather not see.  But the curiosity of open eyes will lead me to the answers; such indifference to emotional repercussions, satiable in only one way.  And so, ill-prepared, I'll wade into the unknown and draw the curtain back in hopes that what I see is something I can handle.

no pain, gain.

A fresh dawn opens and spreads the light of warmth and gratitude.  For the first time in years, that hollow pain is gone, leaving not an emptiness, but the slow sore burn of work.  The grimace has worn away, and with it went that negative anchor.  The seas of thanks swell, dusted with sunshine, rippling in gilded gold and washing up a smile.

It's nice out.

Whispers like the wind through the spear grass, the blowing green, flows and golden shine ripples across the sheaves in breezy waves.  Things are changing.  The air grows warmer, drier.  The birds sing sweeter songs, amorous and enticing.  Springtime as the coat of winter sheds, and new leaves sprout from branches absorbing light to create shade.  Energy in motion.  Harness its potential and progress to something new.

Let's try to smile more.

Resentment, frustration, and loathing are all byproducts of an unfulfilled self.  Finding faults in others is the easiest way to ignore your own.  To overcome this hurdle, one must accept imperfection and eliminate fear through love and compassion.  If you treat others with care, you will not worry whether or not they will reciprocate.  The only side you can control is the one on which you stand.  Purge this guilty habit of judgement, and accept the flaws and idiosyncrasies as the beautiful diversities that they are.  Everyone will feel a lot better, I promise.

chop chop

Help is on the way, as the deforestation in my mind rages on.  Ideas felled by the axes and saws of the unsure emotions.  While there is something to be said about the clear-cutting - that it's necessary at times to make room for the growth of the untainted and the new, however, indiscriminate logging leaves one sapped of creativity; stumped.

Sing a song of sixpence.

The caw of a raspy crow fills the morning air like a cool breeze in the spring.  It bounces off of hillsides and echoes ever so slightly, peppering the silence with its reverberating call.  Some smaller whistles spin around in the gaps of the blackbird's cadence.  High-pitched chirps ring in optimistic counterpoint.  Signs of life outside of human agenda, musical reminders that bring to light the notion that the minutiae of one's daily routine is nothing but perception.  Physical objects only move because we move them, meaning is assigned, and what we think of as reality is merely a group hallucination replete with all the joys and fears we associate with being human.  A bird is a bird, a man is a man.  Just because we can think, and therefore assign meaning to that ability, doesn't make us any more or less of anything.  From an objective perspective, we are all just chirping birds, busy ants, and curious little monkeys.

...on my way/to where the air is clean...

Delicate delirium, unwinding in the moment of a shaded cloud.  As the cotton specter passes over, the enamored feeling blushes through.  Such intimacy from a total stranger, a pure gesture of thanks, gratitude begets gratitude and makes the days last longer. So the shadow goes, and the rays of interest illuminate an honest path.  A narrow walkway of humility and thanks.  No destination, merely a happier road, a way of being attractive to fellow souls of blissful compassion.  Like attracts like, so be nice, and be happy.

FAIL

sickness caused forgetting
and this comes at time too late
for the stream of consciousness has all but dried
so till tomorrow we must wait

vulcan dreaming

The lake of magma bubbles, the steam like angry air whips upwards and outwards in a whirlwind dance.  The liquid rock flows, pyroclastic motion and it spreads itself across the plain.  Scorching pavement.  On the outskirts of this fiery river, lookers on gaze intently at the orange and red display.  One small boy among them wonders what'd it'd be like to swim, to melt and become one with the lava, reduced to elemental ash, but preserved forever in the black and ropey stone.

decongestion

Awaken to constriction and a sense of dread.  The potential of things to grow is not determined by the seed, but by the factors of cultivation.  Even the smallest inconveniences can fester.  Resist the urge for completion, and shunt the awkward instability which ensues.  Malaise is known to permeate.  Flush the systems and the mind to rid and refresh.

through the looking glass

Diamonds spill from the pressured mind like crystal teardrops.  Yet clouded by those stormy thoughts, they fall out of sight and are forgotten.  So many precious memories, true and false and mixed, left behind and washed away by pity and self-doubt.  Who knows the price they'd fetch at market?  It's trivial, however; looking through the stone, the views of the past and future are split by the myriad faces. Therein lies the value of these priceless rocks.  Frozen moments on which to build a better understanding of life.

Doppler shift.

It's calm within the storm.  Indecisive rain falls and pelts the ground with doubt.  Standing alone, penned in by such a benign onslaught, it's the gentlest of suggestions that turns moisture into frost.  Searching inwards for the flame, for that blinded passion and inspiration which burns without regard.  Find the spark to find the balance; move forward though the ensuing mist and once again live life with conviction.