Raise A Glass

Raise Your Glass

Raise a glass
While you still can

To the battles lost
You're still standing

To the blood shed
You're still breathing

To the tears spent
You're still crying

To the struggle
To the challenge
To the longest days
To the darkest nights

To going through all of it
And still being here

Destined Fates: The New Year

Destined Fates: The New Year

It's never me
That would be missed
But instead everything
I could be

Forget what I was
Because it could never have been
Enough

Thank you for thinking more of me
Than I could ever be

Truth Be Told

I am imperfection
In my impermanence
My temporary reality
Is all to real
I am all too scared
Of all that is true
All that is real
Really, truly inescapable truth
Truth: the power that is made powerful by permanence
There is no freedom in the journey of uncertainty
And all the control lies in the hands
Of the omnipresent, unstoppable truth
Despite a mortal's best effort to quantify
Qualify, and otherwise rationalize
Beyond the metaphysical limitations
Of inevitable, mortal limitations

From Starlight's Dreaming Gaze

From Starlight's Dreaming Gaze

Star light, star bright
The last star seen each night
Is the star that sings for you
So that your heart may hear
And your mind may watch
Starlight's mysteries unfold
Your dreams, sound sleeper

Your dreams light the stars in the sky
Staying bright so that all may dream
So that all may still have the chance
To believe in unconscious uncertainty
To rest weary heads
So that the mind may finally live
Even if it be just one night at a time

Open Eyes Only to the Future

Open Eyes Only to the Future

Why must what's next earn our focus?

Why can't our eyes stay present?

Why must our current loss
Be less meaningful
Than our yet to be potential?

Why must the moon
Set green;
Washing over the sacrificed horizon?

For it is the strength of will
That brings the next day.

Horizon's Potential

Horizon's Potential

Why must the colors
Of the horizon thereafter
Forever be of contradictory nature

Why must the sky be made
Of golden yellow
With the promise of a brighter future

And at the same time the same light
Be tethered to the far more realistic

Be tied to the reality
Of humanity's limitations

How could the horizon carry hope
When the imperfect creatures
Carry an indifferent torch
Into future's unknown

Vengeance

Vengeance

The tale of revenge
Has no beginning
Without injustice
Without evil taking away
From those without the power
To protect themselves

The tale of revenge
Therefore requires a hero
In flux
Who will
At some point
Decide to be heroic
Or powerful
But never both

Last Journey

Last Journey

One lock
Two lock
Three lock
Four
My hair falling forward
As my closed eyes fail
To keep up with my descent
Into an unknown
That I don't know
I'll remember
When life rears its head
And the next day passes judgment

I am no longer a man of justice
And the morning comes for me
With a vengeance

I am an immoral loss
To the darkness all consuming
Of lights too weak to stand
Against the tide of unceasing wrath
No life can be without

I brush back the hair in my eyes
And again
I foolishly believe

Homecoming

Homecoming

It's you who holds my heart at home
And therefore my hope for homecoming
My travels, my journeys, and my discoveries
Expand my perspective
Enlighten my mind
Enliven my soul
But it's here at home that I find
Love worth cherishing
Life worth living
And dreams worth fighting for
It's you who holds my heart
In hands forever trusted

New Game +

New Game +

There is no denying
The times in which
I wished with all of my very real heart
That this very real life was more like the digital world
My favorite story line replayed
But with an insight that gives me power; control
Here in this life with so many moments
That feel like game over
I have to keep going
With less than I had before
Leveling down
While the challenges grow stronger
Unlike the digital world
I cannot walk away from a challenge too hard
There is no choice in this very real world
But to try again
Or is there?
No, that is not a choice
That is a forced finale
Why world, may I not begin again
With the knowledge needed
To actually succeed
Instead of survive
The second time around

First Step

First Step

It is said:
Take care of oneself first

There is an assumption
That each next step
Is harder than the last

But, in this moment of compassion
We are reminded
That in all instances of love
The first step is the hardest

Unloving

Unloving

As one who loves
Am I not inherently asking
To be loved in return
And how could this ever be a fair request
Prior to discovering
          relishing
          valuing
          cherishing
Self-love
A love--no--the love
That has evaded me from the beginning

Problems

Problems

Problems insight confrontations
Confrontations too often
Built upon a flipped coin

Flipping back and forth
As if the right side
Is always face down

Will it make any difference
If we flip it one more time?

No, because there is no difference to make

It's a coin flip
And we have nothing to do
With which side eludes us

Beginning in the Middle

Beginning in the Middle

Where is it that hope for the future arises?
Must the past be worse than what is next?
Must the present be what you wish to leave in the past?
Why must our eyes be made to look
But only forward?

Writing in the Dark

Writing in the Dark

I cannot see
But I can feel
My soul leaving me
Escaping what's left of what I've become

My mind; this incoherent mess
Is no place for a free spirit
Its place is on the page

Intended Intentions

Intended Intentions

Intent intends to do
            what intent intends to do
It is a half measure at its best
By its very nature
It can solve nothing

You can intend for your intentions
To match up with your actions
But actions are a mystifying force
              beyond mortal comprehension

Their impact from beginning to end
Could be so long delayed
That with such derived duration
The purpose, origin, and destination
Are all forgotten
From minds and hearts
As inherently limited as intentions