Tales of hardship —
Bumpy roads
And broken wheels —
Remind me
How far I've come.

Shake the right tree
And you'll eat,
Just beware —
Shaking the wrong one
Might get you chased
By angry monkeys

Layers of composure —
Decorative and paper-thin,
Separate my inner turmoil
From the face bearing a grin.

Wry impossibility,
Stalled contingency,
My ultimate regret.
Painful afterimages
Burned into my
Mental retina —
You're with me still.

Comfort me
Until my tears run dry,
Love me
Until the pain subsides —
Never let me go.

Cast into uncertainty —
Fiddle until it feels right.

Positive spins
On negative thoughts —
Only you can
Make your day.

Exploring unused muscles,
Moving in directions
Unfamiliar —
Mazes, countless variations
On down.

Beauty, skin deep
Cuts to my core —
Softness numbing
My defenses.

There's a beat to each word,
Rhythms to every message.
Pay attention,
You just might hear it.
Call it what you will —
A piece of heart,
A slice of soul,
An emotional footprint —
It is you.

There's still night to wander —
Get off that lazy ass,
We're wasting twilight.

Even lost in
Welcoming darkness,
Take your time
To appreciate the last light.

No two stops in the same place,
All I leave behind, I bury.
Whatever I can't carry, it is gone.
Still, abandoning my past
I seek comfort in my demons —
Running forward, looking back.

We are the cart,
Life is the tracks —
We carry on
But take along
All we pick up along the way.
What was real
Is never gone.

Eye the world suspiciously
And all you'll see
Is hostile.

Recounting memories
Of a rose
We speak of beauty —
Not of thorns or
Broken stems

We sail the stormy
Oceans of uncertainty
In vessels made
Of dread and dreams.

Sometimes all it takes
Is a little nudge
For a problem
To plummet down a well
And disappear —
Not often.
Not today.

Old sayings,
Still repeated —
Long since
Without meaning.
Misbegotten wisdom,
Live the metaphor.