life – Poétique

Axis

I move within lines that
Aren’t drawn by this room
I stand at the axis
The noise circles me

Somatic placement is
Readiness staging
Intentional allocation
Of expressive energy

Me watching you forget me
I opted out of carrying
What was never mine alone.

Self-possession under pressure
Willingness to be disliked
Without retreat
Refusal to trade this position
For your approval

Telling the self:
You wanted that—
It creates room to act
Not just room to survive.

That’s the space
I’m stepping into now

Voice inside the head says:
Choose yourself
Instead of disappearing

Remain unavailable
For emotional processing

This inner life
My sanctum
Wasn’t part of the equation

Somehow
My humanity didn’t register
As something to protect

Like I dreamed it did
Imagined it would
Wanted it to…

I’m intense
I can’t help it
Is that ok?
Can I be intense now?

Translate indifference
Into generosity
Interpret avoidance
As misunderstanding

Silly me absorbing the cost
Of preserving a bond
That isn’t mutual

Grandma said not to do that

Severing feels violent
Dignity wounds cut deep
I found my dignity
Underneath you

Someone said
I was seen as useful
Not relational

Petting my head
My inner voice said:
You’re losing the version of reality
Where your care was reciprocated.

Stop disappearing for people
Who don’t notice
The cost of your loss

Unspiraled

A place can be known
in theory
and still hold me
unknowingly

an unknowable life
we disagreed and
the voice of Jeff Buckley
entered the room

Why does vulnerability
feel dangerous
even when I value
its invisible armor

Wrapped inside my
own magnetic creativity
unspiraled from
borrowed promises

Doing for myself
morally risky
doing for others safer —
begging for harm

Internal permission
to exist
persists

A choice I made to protect
allowed me to pretend
that someone cared
when signs were showing
they didn’t anyway

removing the conditions
to pretend care is there

Protected
and still standing
without armor

ambiguous care
implied happiness
unchallenged hope

walking backwards
into my
untwisted future

Good riddance
You needed someone
Not necessarily me
But I was there to
Hold you up in
Your time of need
Sometimes a gift
Can feel like
A nightmare
I kept thinking
I would show you
When you are here
But who was I kidding
No one was coming
But the birds are here
And the philosopher
Teaches me how to feed
Them all insects
Not just seed
As one burying
Itself makes a nest
Into my thumb
I can feel the pain
Even when I am asleep
And the eyes of the birds
Are content in a state of
Hypnotic bliss as they
Float dreamily by
Almost like a cartoon
Unreal yet undeniable
Color doesn’t have to
Prove its identity
It is what we see
He was really
Too put together
For anyone to
Worry about to see
When he needed it

Chevaucher

Losing and gaining a self
At the same time
Holding on and letting go
Simultaneously
One heart captures transformation
The other captures attachment
And then release —
Holding on and losing hold
Once a previous
Something and the empty overlap
Is intentional — it’s the void or silence
What whirls between them
A space where identity
Is still undefined
Shifting or
Being reborn

Vie de Deux

I think about the other side
Of this consciousness
What it means to think
About what is being
Thought about
To tired to write the words
Lawnmower over my head
Blades through the grass
Of my existence
Try to make sense of
Senselessness
Wishing for an easier
Moment to remember
How to collect signs
No color so much color
Symbolically you know?
Tired of the phone
Get up go to bed
Do it all over again
One or the other
Never both
But I always want
Both

Begending

Our realities are made up
By the worlds we surround
Ourselves with and I find myself
Settling as a house might
Crackling and burrowing
Into the ground

Maybe I’m just tired
Of keeping up or possibly
Creation knowing full well
There could be more
In some other place
In some other way
This is not it
This is not all
That there is

Halfway mark
Feels like a dead end
Maybe all that can be
Accomplished is already
I’m not sure what will be
Longer or shorter
Revel in the new
Forget about the future
Fishbowl

When we scratch off
The top layers and
Keep finding our way down
Do we have a place to
Go or end up
Keep going
Start over
Keep going
Maybe nothing

Sweet voices
Of children
Just beginning

Today felt like
An ending
So early

Meritorious

Would they notice until the
Moment you disappeared?
Like a red light flashing
Or an alert that says the
Person you once loved
Isn’t on this planet any longer
Tripped and fell in the garden
Bonked his head now he’s dead
Would they wish they said
All the things they didn’t say
Because their fuming or
Dry knit stuck in their feelings
Some type of world that
Binds someone from loving
I’ve heard it called jealousy
Grudges and otherwise
Like when you’re famished
You can hardly stand it
You’re starving so you
Feed the meritorious beast
Find a gift in the basement of
Dreams and delicious wonders
Everything you cannot escape
Eurythmia gracefully speechless
Only speaking in music
Check on me I’ll check on you
Dual serenade

Runaway

He says she’s amazing
So he can remind himself
It was a good choice to
Be with her id est marry…

Pedestal to chant everyday
Into bankruptcy for affection
Whatever you say dear
Was something
Better than nothing?

Laughing she placed
Her hands around his throat
Ready to choke the life out
Truculent at its utmost
Super physical

Let’s get it over with
She beckons him to the bed
But really wants to finish
Before it’s started
Sex is irrelevant to her
Close to dead

A bigger star
A bigger sun
Can be won

Frame it as an opportunity
To learn what true love
Can become after the storm

Uncover

It takes time to live life
To reclaim it and make it last
All the hours we give up
For what we loved and what is gone
It’s fast, but the building is slow
Kaleidoscopic shadows attached to
Pictures in our house hanging
From the walls of our hearts
The bell tower echoes
A lighthouse beam shines
White sand trickles
In the back of our minds, a clock
Ticking away like our youth
Counting cactus needles
Be an atlas detective
All the hidden parts
Yet to be discovered or
Uncovered anything
Underneath our skin
Ready to soar like a dove

Evaporated

False humility
Yellow hands grasping
For something of substance
Just a shred of light
Whatever’s left

More than a typical night
A few more winks to spare
Funny how mornings we
Don’t have to be anywhere
It’s time to get up and
In days that require us
To be there we could
Lay down for hours

Garden is thriving
Thinking about what we
Do it all for why do the
Tomatoes grow
And who for?

Not enough books on the wall
To solve the crime
The birds in the yard spoke
Back and forth about a time
Chattering something of
Love and momentary lapse
Afterthoughts

Colored world in black and white
Any attempt to register the truth
Of the matter comes out in a
Sound of laughter and
Wishful thinking

Could’ve been more pets
Also kids school immersion
Lots of things we built towards
Caught it almost before the
Rest of the illusion shattered

No turning back
Freedom and pieces of my mind
Evaporating the us factor

Was it luck?
Maybe death or hard work
Living for nothing
Hoping for everything
While the birds click back
He did it for you!
I did it for us!
I did it for us!

Tag: life