Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
A chaos of multiple languages
overloads my system,
and the blackout hits hard.

An hour is still an hour,
or is it transforming into something else?
In French, they say l’heure, so sensual
Italian ore speak in tasty sounds.

But what if I want to choose
Spanish tres horas?
I miss the Polish godzina so much
moving my mother tongue's rhythm.

I need more space in my brain
My head is so heavy,
My heart enjoys moments like
a child on a playground

Making my language smoothie
I feel chromatic delirium.
Spinning through a galaxy into a black hole.
I should have listened to my mother
telling me, Agnes, do one thing!
you and me we'd never work
sounds silly but you kiss too soft
you carry an umbrella for "just incase"
I love nothing more than to dance in the rain
you settle for just enough
while I want to feel too much

I am a broken vase you see
a vase that would  pour regardless how much you fill
we'd build a house where no story lies
we'd see each other but with no sparkle in  eyes
its  not love you feel
and one day you too will see
you'd kiss me but just with your lips
but I want a kiss with a wrecked whole heart
my love we are world's apart
and in our case opposites don't attract

you would be you
and I would be me
but we would never be us
that's why  we'd never work
so lets say the goodbye before it hurts
The ceiling peels in slow spirals,
not from neglect,
but from how long I’ve stared at it,
counting the flake’s hesitation before it drops.
The clock ticks without punctuation,
dragging each second like a dull knife
across something soft I used to need.

My limbs forget they’re mine
unless I remind them,
a muscle twitches,
a shoulder reconsiders its weight.
Even my name feels unstitched,
like a coat I keep meaning to throw away
but wear because it still remembers my shape.

Outside, birds call to each other
like they’ve never been tired,
like morning isn’t a decision.
Inside, I steep in low-level static,
a hum no one else hears,
thick as wool,
soft as resignation.
With sunlight sparse, and the world dark
You shine golden and gorgeous. My spirit ascends.
The glittering glow of your brilliance touches me gently, and the long darkness ends.

When bitterness overwhelms me
I lose hope, reference, reverence, and appetite.
You are the sweetness in my mouth that dances on the tongue and makes it all right.

While there is no nourishment for body or soul,
You are the honey that fills my hive.
You see me through the long cold winter.
You sustain my vitality.
You keep me alive.
In my experience it is a rare thing to find someone who loves you for who you really are, and not for who they imagine or want you to be. Not for what you can bring to their life, or how you make them look, but for your individual nature and existence.
My husband is the only person I have ever known who I believe loves me that way, and I love him the same way right back.  
When I’m at my lowest I can remind myself that I won’t stay there, because he is here with me.
We carved into stone —
because the earth would not remember us.
We painted onto pressed fibers —
because the river would forget.
We struck the press — metal on metal —
because a voice, once spoken, dies.
We soldered light into wire —
because even paper withers.

Each time —
a tug —
a pull —
the hand of art against the grinding stone of the world.
A desire — the human one —
to be more than a sigh against the windowpane.

And now —
now there are hands that shape words without feeling —
voices without breath —
thoughts unbothered by thinking.
The mirror has learned how to draw faces.

But I wonder —

can you teach a child to wonder,
if the hands that raise them are mirrors?
can you teach a heart to speak,
if the only language it knows is arrangement?

Can a soul be de-encoded,
once it has been filed, copied,
losslessly compressed?

And when we speak of touching earth —
grasping the real, the aching dirt under the dream —
I wonder —
have we ever truly touched it at all?
Or were we always reaching through glass?

It is easier to drift.
It is easier to let the current carry us, eyes closed,
believing the drift is the dream.

It is harder to open the eyes —
and harder still to keep them open.
It has always been harder.

Somewhere,
someone
still tries.
life has a sense of humor, we have perspectives. sometimes they align.
I was strolling the sidewalks of my small
nearest to me town, a farm and vineyard
village, an unhurried and laid-back place
home to perhaps 15,000 souls. Tree lined
streets with singing birds aplenty, spring
sun shining, not a cloud in the azure sky,
another good day to be alive.

I was whistling some made up tune,
a thing I, almost never do, but feeling
so good just compelled me to exude.

My old legs signaled a needed rest stop
and an inviting bench lay dead ahead.
I took a seat and caught my breath.

Had not noticed the other old guy
sitting upon the end of the long bench.
I waived an index finger in passive greeting
which he acknowledged with a friendly
grin and slight nodding of head, weathered
Fedora jauntily resting upon his brow.
He wore old jeans with red suspenders,
green plaid shirt and well-worn work boots.
An old farmer come to town, not so different
than me.

We set in silence for a few minutes, just
relaxing and taking in the scene around us.
Caught up in that pleasant moment I began
to hum a 1960s or 70s tune, after a time my
bench mate began to hum the same tune,
in perfect unison and pitch, better than mine.
We turned to one another and both smiled.

We finished our shared melody and silence
returned, all but for the singing of birds in
the trees. I stood up from the bench and as
I passed the still seated friendly gent we
performed a convivial fist bump of shared
fellowship, and never a word was needed
or spoken between us.
This small brief encounter made my day.
Another noted and shared pleasant
moment in time.
The meaning of creative breath.
No one sees them,
they're the source of oxygen.
They nourish with thoughts,
symbols, and visions.
Don't ignore it.
What flows through us
is beyond us, and next to us.
Next page