grey skies

Grey skies foretell the coming day

The shades gently sway,

keeping in step with the trees

I wish the breeze would take me with it

Optimism overshadowed by doubt

Worries steeped in fear and loathing

I wonder when the skies will clear

and let the sun wash that all away

Slowly, routine drives me from bed to door

I see the day painted on the faces I pass

Long and solemn, with nary a "Hello"

Not one to stand out, I follow in stride

As I navigate through this sea of neutrality

One can sense the underlying hope,

that on better days would beam blue

Driving us to tolerate this day of grey

... To be continued

(unfit) befriend me

covered in blankets on a Sunday afternoon

outside my brick walls i hear children

naive to the dismay that surrounds them

across the street, young lovers squabble

their discussions can sometimes be heard

proof that hate is the opposite of love

and their emotional divide creates steep slopes

slick with tears and pocketed by deep cuts

three scenarios melded into a moment

i envision skipping along my timeline

dotting the similar scenes with yellow

worthy of review at a later point

back to my bedroom

i share my day with a select few

the passing breeze is my sensory postman

delivering the daily in random broadcasts

a quick scent of grass clippings and grilled cuisine

trampled by neighborly ramblings

experienced listeners can snare

secrets from the stillness

and meaning from the masses

happy melodies waft from the music machine

the type of friend that never listens

but only because they have so much to say

we're puzzle pieces cut from a whole

empty introversion welcoming plucky perception

their harmonic recollections enable me to imagine

my white walls dripping and under footing crashing

content to drown in a dizzying, hyper-colored surf

or simply another soul who's shared my cracked spectacles

Pageturner

tick, tick, i'm torn

seconds turn to minutes

and days into years

i can't let go and dreams

manifest into fears

chance after chance

excuses and lies

so many hellos

equal as many goodbyes

and so my story continues

verbs dance around nouns

while sentences gaze

as words come together

another new page

let this chapter be rosy

for the last made me cry

another similar passage

and my eyes will be dry

let him find her

and let her see him

accepting each other

and all that's within

if we all lived by prose

a chance could possibly stand

but we're characters, not authors

and we can't write the end

Finding Myself (post from a past, since deleted blog)

i know of me firsthand

and have heard it from so many

but to find yourself again

is an unforgettable journey

no particular initiation

typically a random find

cleaning out the closet unearths

a photo album labeled life

some shame, pounds of blame

hidden tears and miles of pain

but as the glossy polaroid

reflects a regret

the picture below it

floods the depressing abyss

with the sunbeams and grass of

a fridge-worthy childhood drawing

this teeter-tottering continues

until the kodachrome time machine

makes its last stop

at a reflection of me in April

different shirt, same peppered hair

variation of me today

captured in another somewhere

fresh, but someday archived

from my database of thoughts

to this celluloid museum dedicated

to preservation of days lost

untitled... until one rears its face

Poetry to me is a way to release, yet disguise what I'm thinking and feeling. For a long time, I wrote because I wore a mask and hid the real me from everyone... including myself. Wordplay allowed me to dance around reality... a reality I avoided for various reasons (shame, anger, frustration, fear, to name a few).

"Staring into the void

I catch myself again and again

its darkness is haunting, but mesmorizing

Simultaneously pulling and pushing

I ebb and flow in response

The blackness erodes the world it touches

and as a result, the edge is closer than ever before

Each new day teases the urge

Each setback is another nudge

Could anything be worse than the daily sadness

Would the vacuum suck it all away

Or has misery had similar notions

Discarding it's remnants and polluting the afterlife

thus erasing the possibility of escape"

As the clumsy steps made way to dips and twists, I found I had a knack for mincing and melding words that I never knew I had. So, not only did I find a way to release stress and tension, I also found a way to foster creativity I sensed under the surface... but couldn't find an avenue for.

"Love is a demon I've come to hate

It teases my heart and spits in my face

Come here fool, see what I've brought you

a time bomb with feelings, meant to arouse you

open your heart and the countdown begins

it senses your lust, willingness to give in

When it rips you to shreds, don't be surprised

its actually the bastard love in disguise"

Like so many things, this bit of self-discovery had a sharp edge that cut when touched. As I attempted self-therapy on myself, as well as nurtured my newfound creativity, I caught myself trying to sink deeper to get closer to "reality".

Thankfully, I caught wind of everyone else's reality and saw that there were some obvious differences and stopped to wonder why my "reality" was full of dark days and bottomless pits and to others it provided daily reasons to wake up... with smiles nevertheless.

"A morning will come when I no longer run

i'll wake and greet everyone i pass

maybe they'll smile and maybe not

could be monday or friday, 1st or 31st

nothing will matter but the fact i'm alive

that day will come and i'll enjoy every breath

each moment as it occurs and not a second later

enough has been spent ruminating the past

so much wasted on the myth called maybe

yesterday's practice

tomorrow's a dream

take what you know and

make someday today"