to read my past journal entries is
to walk on an intimately familiar path,
one in which I know the major landmarks,
the steep mountains, and the deep valleys.

even though I can walk on this path
with my eyes closed and get through,
I don't. I slow down on the way,
noticing flowers I didn't see before.

I pluck a leaf off every flower stem,
and keep it safely between my palms.
the leaves remind me of the flowers
that grew despite the harsh conditions.

whenever I wish for a new beginning,
I blow on a leaf and let it guide me.
I smile, exhale, and walk forward.
behind me, new flowers are blooming.

Caught within
the cot I built
to slaughter
all the goals that fit

A miasma, thick
with success and stress
in growth, the wisest
call duress

on my throne
sits the black honed axe
seething at my fauna,
as I contemplate their imminent trauma

I'd rather watch them grow
as steel plummets to their throats
augmenting my flock of ghosts
enclosing the lonesome cot and throne

fires raged as the winds fueled their fervor
taking on anything in their path with incredible force
moving across the ground and leaping up to reach higher fuel
doing only what fires do...
moving with the wind and leaving a path of blackened surface
is this our new reality...?

Brian Hill - 2020 # 247

i walk an empty
path,,,, and think it is true lie
so here i am now

The sun must have reached low to prepare
our paths, as we walked those grandeur
streets, how it simmered the wind mild
and warm, to embrace the moment as its child;

how it forged halos around your cheeks
as you smiled, painting heaven on those peaks
& august bloomed in the lake, where my hand
kissed your fluttering feet—I felt it expand

till it was too leaden for my palms, and it drained
away into a moment in time, but you remained,
steeped in memories & my deliquesced heart
whose tides would fail to let you sail apart.

One lie can change a hundred truths,
and that lie leads to a hundred more.

A kingdom built with what appeared to be solid rocks, turned out to be just sand.

All blown away when the storm hit.

The storm you created, as an excuse to leave.

Sand running through my fingers, mixed with all the lies.

I'm staring at the big pile of sand that used to be our life.

I dug for weeks, for truth and reasons.

The truth hit harder than the lies.

With time I stopped digging, there's no point.

I already had the truth.

I said my farewells to you in that pile of toxic sand and I left.

To follow a new path, my path.

The one no one's ever walked before me.

I follow my truth on my unknown journey,
I know it'll lead me to my destiny.

I keep walking, to a bright future.

For me.