Cleave

Cleave

My pen bounces off the page
Why?
Why must it bounce
When I wish to cleave
Into the flesh of the page
So that its blood may flow
Mixing with the streams
From my own veins
So that I might know
Why these words
Inhabit my mind

Reflection Redux

Reflection Redux

Upon the step
In my internal threshold
Stood an opportunity
Made of risk and uncertainty

An insurmountable oddity
That meant the difference
Between excellence
And complacency

At first
He is alien
Indescribable, really,
In his lack of uniformity

Then I realize
His hand is outstretched
From the other side of the mirror

My instinct is to shatter the glass
And make a new reflection
But with a deep breath
And clarifying moment of contemplation
I see that my path
Starts with a step
Through a mirror left intact

Tick-Tock

Tick-Tock

What does it mean
When the storm won't secede
From your mind, the thunderstorm
A noise so loud, and yet the norm

What does it mean
For the switch of scene
To be serene

The buzz of the busy bees
In the disconnected hive mind,
Connected only to a singular eternity

Eternity
Singularity
Inevitability

The only unending truth
In all of reality
Is that there is no eternity
If time should choose

To stop.

Important Questions

Important Questions

Who am I
To tell you who I am
When I can barely begin to understand
To comprehend
To put into words
The thoughts that drive me
To be

Who am I
But a sleepless mind
A tiring heart
An analyzed inkblot
Seeping through the page

Who am I
If not what I am
--But maybe...
Maybe it's "what"
Not "who"

Maybe "what" is by far
The more important question

The answer to which
Would be the foundation
Upon who I am
Could stand

The truth to the question
Lies not in the answer
But in who must find it

I am no one's inkblot
To be analyzed
No one's puzzle
To be solved

I am not to be figured out
By others
I am to be built and refined
By me

So, what am I?
I am my own journey.

Who am I?
I am my own traveler.

Crashing Waves, Receding Waves, Crashing Waves

Crashing Waves, Receding Waves, Crashing Waves

It comes back
It always comes back
The strife
The struggle
The heartbreaking reality
That all happiness is temporary

All sadness
All grief
All of everything
That pumps through the heart
Eventually ends with the last rhythm's beat

We have those
Who love us
Truly love us
And they say
We'll make it
And when we do
We'll come back stronger
Come back better
Come back greater than before

We'll come back!
Come back!
Come back!

But what we hide so well,
What our desperation
Enables us to pass off
As will power unflinching,
Is our greatest secret

We are
In fact
Broken

Pieces left behind
In torment's ocean
Pieces we can't get back

The pieces that do come back
Sometimes don't fit
But our desperation stabs them in
To this new base
This new shape
Hardly recognized as more
Than a bloody mess in the mirror

The frustration wells up
At the pointlessness upon the surface
At the feeling of being unjustified in sadness
At the feeling that we are too weak
To keep this wave
From being the last one

The one that drags this weakling
Or falsified will power
Down into the depths

The darkest depths
The deepest depths
Depths eternal

I am not the only one
Who can only swim for so long

I wish this shared struggle
Were indeed shared
But the truth is it isn't.
The truth is that while we are not alone
In this struggle
We must each swim alone

Swim alone
Sink alone
Drown alone

In an ocean filled
With weak and weakened swimmers

So smile and brace
For the next wave

Stand for yourself
Be grateful for the loved ones who stand with
Even though you must leave them at the shoreline

You must swim alone
But for what it's worth
You--we--have people

People hoping with all they have to hope with

That we'll come back

And are ready to bloody their hands

As we pick up what's left of us

Piled up on the shoreline

Broken piles

Drowning in desperation
Spawned by fear, despite acceptance

Despite accepting
That the end is the most inevitable
Of all inevitabilities

We are still afraid
Afraid that we will be no stronger
In the next life
Then we were in this one

And that while the end is inevitable
Its absolution is not

The end is accepted for what it is
And feared for the exact same reason

Its potential is greater
That that of our lives...

I would continue,

But my muscles grow weak,
My mind grows weary,
And the tide is coming in.

Something Precious

Something Precious

The fact that there are endings
Makes the space between them
And the beginnings
All the more precious

No matter how long it takes
For the river
To erode the stone

No matter how long it takes
To find the answer
To the most important questions

And even though
You're the stone in the river

And it is time
That will forever flow long after
You are less than pebble dust

Burst forth from your shell
Unleashing your special gift
To inhabit the river,
Changing its course

It's the change that matches time
In its eternity

The Other Side of the Coin

The Other Side of the Coin

You can never learn
Something you already know

You can never reach up to a plateau
Upon which you already stand

The past is never a place
To which you can return

The past is pictures
Posts
Updates
And forgotten relationships
Preserved on networks
Of artificial memory

You are more than that
More than could ever be uploaded
Onto the most advanced technology

It's in that complication
That you find your present
And your potential

You'll do so much more than short circuit.
You'll break, tear, and crumble
And stumble
Up, out of the rubble

Sometimes you won't be stronger
Not at first
And not for a while
Maybe not for a very
Very
Very
Long time

So long sometimes
It may appear
To be your new permanence

But just as much as you are more
More than what brings you down
More than your failures
More than your past
Your are more than your present

You cannot be more
If you end it
Before you get there

Potential does not exist
Within the empty space
Of blank pages
Found at the end
Of a could-have-been epic

So, turn the page
Even though it means
You'll have to
Flip the coin...

One Side of the Coin

One Side of the Coin

Why is trying
The best I can do?

When does all that trying
Amount to something?

Pull them boot straps!
Get back up!
Try! Try again!
No excuses!

When do I get
To reach
For a dream
So much bigger than me
And do more than hope?

Hope and try

When do things get better?
No!
When do I get better?

When does the practice
Make perfect?

When does it at least
Make better?

Mediocre at best
Time
And time again

How many seconds more
Must add up to
"It could be worse"

How many minutes more
Must I waste asking
"Why isn't it better?"

There's no more time
Nothing left
To do a better job

Do it!
Do it now!

Flip the coin...