Be mindful your feelings,
The heartache, the longing.
Find worth in yourself
Before seeking love —
You can't find in others
What's lacking within.

Of all things given freely,
Most worthless is
Advice unlived.

The despair we feel —
Hope, the scapegoat,
Fear, the enemy.

Steal hearts, moments, spotlight,
Existential kleptomania —
Taught to want,
To dream,
To covet
Other people's lives.

They can't
Erase the act,
Bury all the evidence,
Spin all witnessed truth
Into plausible fantasies —
Not so long we resist,
Refuse to validate their fiction.
Not so long
One of us remembers.

The church of me,
We patron saints,
All praised in colored light —
Capital I's and uncrosses T's,
Lives displayed with
Stained-glass abstraction.
Lead-lined disconnected stories,
Worshipped
For all that we are not.

Sometimes we're in
The driver's seat,
Other times
We're passengers.
Either is fine
With the right heading —
Just enjoy the ride.

Trust your logic,
Not your feelings —
The heart
Only knows the way
To where it's been.

What-ifs can bring
Regret or change,
Depending on
What is done next.

Sit, watch, play —
Stay put, docile, dormant
Sounds the siren song
In every heart,
Every homestead.

Open to well-meant questions,
Not to interrogation.

A measured self
Through other's eyes —
Objectify,
Mirror, mirror.

Hard truths blinding,
Jagged bolts of lightning,
Shattered conceptions
Reduced to ash —
Fertile ground for new beginnings.

When the bad
Outweighs the good,
Remember the positive
And know there's
Bound to be more
Someday.

Hear me, heed my words
O ye prisoners of comfort —
Contentment is
A negative emotion.

They lied to us.
With age comes wisdom?
All I've learned
Is to slow down —
Forced to relieve
My aching joints,
Squeaking like rusted hinges.

It's your life —
You cannot
Be told what matters.

They might tell us
What to do,
But it is
We who push the button.

Scorn not
The decency of others
Without first
Assessing your own.

Not all who desire try,
Yet, most who can't, pretend.
Not me, I'll act and own the deed —
Failure or success —
For this dream,
It's all mine.