I’m in a contest I can’t win
Or even come in second.
My bird has flown from the streetlight arm
And taken promise with it.

Another lands and then departs
To mock my hopeful prayers
The sky teems with symbolic fowl
But I can’t suss their meaning.

A big one flew straight over me
But I can’t read its message.
Was it promising good health
Or telling me it’s sorry

That I’ll only get just what I have
To get me through tomorrow
And if I am not strong enough
The game will then be over.

Why are birds the messengers
In answer to my pleas
They send me signals I can’t read
And I walk on in darkness.
ljm

I am weak, petty, small.
I am the torturer of all.
My tendrils close around your neck.
I kick your feet out,
And you fall.

I strike you through as you descend.
I twist your mind.
Your spirit bends.
Actions inflict pain.
Words lack respect.
I pull back to strike you through again.

I exhaust your mind, tear your soul, leaving not a nerve to rend.
Absently abusive, and stretched.
Twisted in violence, bent.

I create pain implicitly, just as I expect.
And I inflict the torture that I never, ever meant.

Let Me inflict the torture that I never, ever meant.

Did I step on a butterfly once in my youth
That I must live in such pain today

Did I not reach out to someone in need
That my days are now crowded with hurting.

Did I never walk for that extra mile
That each step today is a torment.

Did I not study the course close enough
That agony is what I have to learn.

Have I earned a lifetime of level-nine days
When to be only aching becomes a reward.
                 ljm

We exist
In the spaces between the lines
In the pages of a story
That we write at different times

We live
In the subtle phrases
In the corners of a poem
That we read in early morning

We love
In between the moments
In a way we can't quite say
That we know is far too dangerous

Are we but pawns on a chessboard
That God just moves about haphazardly?
Or are we placed strategically;
And through God’s plans can claim: “Checkmate!”