Ceramic

Flawed
Vericose veins track
Bags the color of sickly mucus
Ambiguous mane
But still
A trove of knowledge
Trapped
In a fragile ceramic vase
I could just eat you up

Under and behind and inside everything

Blood crashes over you

Glass flies and books fall

Rules bend and break

Dreams shatter

Gravity, it seems, was a lie

Held up only on the honor system

And this man, has lost all respect for honor

Peaceful Warrior

I sometimes wonder what made me this way.
Afraid to go into the world, to pursue that which I desire.
Do I somehow deserve this?
Some cosmic predestined fate that shackles me to my character?

You and me, we were two peas in a pod.
My head would float above the clouds, and yours would flow with the riverbanks.
We hunted for days.
We searched for our prey relentlessly.
Our motives and means were different.

I was curious. I was happy.
I wanted to play.

But you were angry. You wanted to share your rage.
Mania flowed from you like noxious gas.

We had it cornered.
And in an instant, with a single blast,
Our lives took off away from each other.
As we realized that there was a line,
Made clearly in the ground.
I had come up to it, peered at it, and ran promptly away.
You flew at it, headlong, like the daily train.
You trampled it.
The line was all smudged up when you were done.

The difference between us.
The reason I am the way I am.
Is because we are two sides of a coin.

The battles I fight are with the world,
while you fight only yourself.

Onderwater

I float through the darkness,

Gravity finds no foothold on my body. 

The tiny creatures come up to my face,

they look in my eyes, questioningly. 

They are confused,

"What are you doing here?" they seem to ask. 

"I came to visit you, it's been a long time."

They laugh and take off,

"Catch us if you can then!"

I move silently towards them. 

The ocean bottom is a painting, 

colors thrown in all directions.

As if thrown at random, to create such beautiful order. 

The burning at my lungs reminds me this is not my reality. 

And so I say my adieus, and the fish, teary eyed, bid their farewells. 

Perhaps another time, another place. 

A friend left behind

We used to play together all day.
I'd sit with you, not wondering anything at all.
The future had no use to us.
All that mattered were blue skies and gentle summer breezes.
We would imagine ourselves into each others worlds.
Winters would keep us apart, but the summer,
That was our time.
After a long day we would collapse in the shade of the setting sun,
And think only of the day passed,
And stories for the day to come.

But then I grew up, and you grew tall.
I hurt you.

Never then, did I think of what I had done.
The future had no use to us.
All that mattered were car rides and social status.

I grew away, and you grew tall.
I left you.

And only now, grown and wizened by experience and travel,
Do I see the pain on your face.
Of what we once had.
The scar I left upon your chest.
You have grown strong in my absence,
Beautiful.

So again I sit down with you.
Under blue skies and gentle summer breezes.
And wonder what the future might hold in store for us both.
I pray, someday, we might be together again.
Like children, and live with the purest happiness,
Untouched by the taint of the world.

Moving pictures

Moving slowly, the carousel flickers to life. 

A moment in time, life bottled, and kept in a vessel that speaks of death. 

Devoid of emotion, of sound and taste and smell. 

Only the hints of what was. 

A smile, running feet, blooming lilacs. 

But then the next image blinks on. 

And another. 

Music slowly draws in. 

If you squint your eyes a little, it's almost as if the pictures are moving. 

The children are running. 

Flowers blow gently in the breeze. 

The music fills you with a sense of what was. 

Your mind begins to fill in the missing pieces,

and creates new memories, new stories

of what once was. 

So what, then, is more real?
The memories of what was, or the imaginings of what could have been. 

Does it even matter?

Betelgeuse

A red supergiant

Bright and brilliant

Crumbling away from the inside out

Burning yourself up to feed your friends

And finally explode

In one final act of kindness

We met too late

All that's left is your image impressed upon my iris

Like a kiss from a ghost of a body