seals and stone faces

The seal is broken. The sun burst through
the dry wax covering my glass eyes.
October air cleaned yesterdays gravel
from my lungs so I could breathe again.
Words that left me hanging on a moment
rose as an army of sweat on my back
with the realization that the puppetmaster
gave up, cutting the strings that made
me whole, leaving my fallen form
for nature to swallow. The light
is harsher now, and life
doesn't taste as strong as it once did.
Hello dreamer, your orders are to assimilate
for the greater good, to drag life
through your pages once more.
I tried to speak, and for my insolence
they sewed my mind shut with steel barbs
I wasn't supposed to grow out of.
I am your anti-man, dreaming to dream
and spitting in the face
of what you were told is real.
I am home again with the open skies.
Lead me to your next salvation,
seal me in stone.

 

duality

we walked slower
chasing shadows at 8 a.m.
searching for pictures lost
sometimes the sun got clouded
leaving us to our devices
together but alone with the rain
her eyes wore the paint of moonless midnight
his smile, a touch of sunlight in the rain
they walked through the dark lines of the oaks
together and alone in the rain

 

Letters from ever after

     I sit alone with only a candle's dim hue
to illuminate all that surrounds me as I pull the
large manila envelope from the bottom of a
cardboard box yet to be sorted. Just the feeling
of the thick dusted paper brings back a swarm
of memories so insistent I have to sit before I
fall from their power. All the emotion spent
and all the truths held within are seeping out
as I pull the prongs to meet, opening the past.

     Pouring the contents onto the desk before
me, the seemingly endless stream of paper shocks
my unbelieving eyes. I feel pathetic to have
saved them all this time, I feel trapped in
what was and where it began. I slowly pull them
upward with shaking hands, re-reading them one
by one until the candle has almost spent all of
it's small life onto the desk, clinging now to
the smallest piece of wax. All the possibilities
these letters held, all the promises penned to
paper, and all the love proclaimed by a dozen
different voices throws me back to when I first
received each one.

     Some are years old, some only months, but
they all represent where I've come from, and
the decisions that have shaped me. They all
have a piece of my heart with them and I will never
forget any of the people represented therein. Too
much of my life has been spent chasing shadows
and not looking within for the answers, and much
has been lost already. So the decision is made,
with an unsteady mind. Bundling the letters back
into their home, I use the remains of the dying
candle to ignite a corner and I watch as my past
burns in my hand. For all they mean and all
they've done, it's time to put the letters to
rest and turn the page, leaving those involved
where they belong while remembering them still.

 

Watcher

Kneeling in concentration, a solitary beam of light
forces it's way through the single window and
frames his torso. Empty room for a cluttered mind
with a tiled floor to burn his knees. Cavernous
walls wrapped in the shadows of daybreak tower
over his thoughts. His eyes, closed and unknowing
of the stagnant pool of white climbing his mass to
defeat the sanctity of his darkness. He isn't even
here to defend the peace, always watching within
the box, searching for the door. Chin now illuminated
and casting a reflected grey onto the floor, shattering
another patch of darkness. Pixie sparkles of midnight
dust dance together with a knowing spring in their step.
Natural light now blankets his face undetected and he
continues watching behind closed eyes.

 

---