Unappreciated

I spend my time
Digging you out of your hole
While I’m standing in quicksand
In a moment of closeness
In the heat of your eyes
I can’t make my
It goes no further stand

In the middle of the moment
I can’t see what is happening
Even when I think I’m making ground
I’m being steered back into the corner
From which I keep trying to escape

When I did become so easy?
When did my soul become so easy to shove
It must have been the moment
My heart was filled with you
And was clouded with the illusion of love

Even now I don’t think what I heard was the truth
It was enough to get us past this point
It was enough for me to stand down
And receive you again
But somewhere in fog there lies the
Truth, cold and alone
Misrepresented to further whatever
Goal you had in bringing me into the mix

I’m good for these things
That I can give
I’m good for the light I can shed
On all the topics that come up
I’m good for a laugh when the world
Has you up against the wall
But when the world treats you kind.

I am forgotten.

The first time in a long time

Ah. For the first time in a long time, I feel good. I don't have this buzzing energy in my chest right now. That corrosive angst that comes from holding back some deep seated resentment mixed with the anxious feeling that the one good thing is slipping away. I have let both go. Yes, the truth really does set you free. I have said the things that I walked around for years until I could no longer navigate past them. They left my mouth with tact and a pleasant tone, but they left. They were like cool water when I spoke them. The harm they were doing to me has been brought to an end. They are now public knowledge, I am not the only one who has to deal with them. The burden has now been shared and it much lighter. It is now much easier to deal with the situation that created these feelings. There is more to come of course because these words have changed the playing field. But so it goes.
I have also stopped the want. I no longer look for the message I so dearly want to arrive. I have no more expectations. I have let it go. It is simply me now. Me - defined, reconciled, and ready for the next round.
I am able to think again. Dam it feels good.

She is good to me.

I lament this life that is mine alone filled with the pain that no one else could ever fathom. But she knows it - not my life specific - but the rather the conditions. She has lived it - she holds back the branches on this trail of tears so that I can pass. She is good to me - I think she is good to many people. Pointing to the map, she tells me where I have been - she doesn't know the faces, the names, or the situations - but she knows what happened. More importantly, she tells me how the trail must be traveled - not what to do rather what to expect. She tells me that I haven't lost my mind, simply my way and that if I am concerned with backtracking because I am so lost - then I will remain lost. Her words soothe me, and my words that would normally go unspoken are received and validated. She is good to me. We speak of things that no one else knows without fear of being judged. She listens to the pain and responds with the understanding distilled from her own. She makes sense and understands. She is good to me. She has her own struggles that I can barely comprehend. I am a child in this place, a newcomer to this roman wilderness. Disoriented and alone - her voice warm and wise is a blanket against the coming night that brings a deep uncomfortable chill. I will still shiver and rest will not come, but there is solace there that reminds me that the night only lasts until the sun returns. I just have to remember that these hours of darkness will end and the sun will return upon my acceptance of this discomfort. So I will pull this blanket tighter, and settle in against the coming cold and remember.... She is good to me.
Thank you - I hope that when my sun rises - that I can be there for you.

A forgotten box

It's 3 am and I'm awake again. Feeling empty and alone, I have gone to the study to do some work, to warm my soul against the effort induced heat of industry. It is a cold heat with too much empty space to warm. It is there that I found it, long lost but exactly as I remember it. Back behind the books, on the top shelf, this hidden box where my dreams, hopes, and heart have been stored. This is what it looks like:

It is a small wooden cigar box, vintage 1975, a retained cast off from my fathers busy schedule. At one time it held 10 premium cigars (as it still proudly declares on a long ago broken label seal)- this same space now contains the few things that are so important to me. I have handled it so many times that unless I really look at it, run my hands over it, force myself to consider it - it doesn't really exist. The dovetailed corners have been rounded by rough storage. The latch that keep the lid closed has long since disappeared, the soft wood bears the scars of if its operation. The hinges are tarnished but workable. I lift the lid of this humble box that only exists because of young boy's fascination with a place to keep his secrets - there are only a few things inside. A beautifully crafted fountain pen, gilded, heavy, solid. A folded note from a young love that has long moved on - it's simple words in her gentle handwriting still invoke the longing that I thought had grown through. An acorn whose crown is missing, picked up on a walk on a crisp fall day that marked a new direction. A small hospital band which marked my children's first moments of life and where their names first appeared in this modern life. To write, to love, to be a good father, to grow through it all - this little box holds all these dear things in it's unassuming, utilitarian shell.

A moment of welcomed disillusionment

I think the the concept of disillusionment has gotten a bad rap. Today I experienced a golden moment of disillusionment. A moment of overwhelming peace, like the feeling of falling asleep at the end of a long high fever. When the discomfort has passed, your mind is no longer on fire - racing with all the possibilities, the breath comes to your chest easy, you are in control again. It has been a long time since I have felt that way. God it felt good. So dam good. At first I wasn't sure what had happened. All day we had been going back and forth, I wanted so desperately to make them understand I was on their side, to soothe them, talk them off the ledge they find themselves on so often. There was no reward for these efforts as they continued to obsess and focus on the little inconveniences that the world seemed heaping on them. Their agitation reared it's front hooves at me, and suddenly it happened. My desire to soothe turned to irritation. I just wanted them to go away, I didn't think I could deal with them one more minute - it felt like they were sucking the life out of me. A moment filled with heat, racing thoughts, and an overall unease. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with the thoughts of how much energy I had given this person. Of all the times I had anticipated their needs, listened to every moment of minutia that they felt compelled to disgorge while being interrupted at the hint of a story of my own. A great and chilling emptiness filled me as this illusion, more of a mirage, suddenly disappeared, like the balloon used to create a plaster of paris sculpture. Suddenly this the internal structure that had been used to as a framework for my thoughts, actions, and ambitions, was gone. In that moment I felt a sudden urge to reach out, like one might do at a 3D movie where something appears right in front of you, but your hands pass through air when you attempt to make it your own. My hands passed through air - my mirage had suddenly disappeared. I had walked this far off my known path only to find that this destination, didn't really exist. I realized how lost I truly was.
But was I really all that lost anymore? No, not really as lost as I had been the moment prior. Because I suddenly realized that chasing this was taking me down the wrong direction. If you stop going in the wrong direction - your no longer really lost - you have actually just have found out where you are - and can now head in the right direction. The idea of being disillusioned suddenly seemed like a gift. The idea that a deception (self inflicted) was no longer driving me against all the brambles and thorns of that my life, was like being released. The fever was broken, my thoughts came cool and clear. To be disillusioned and lost or to live under the chaffing constraints of illusion and know exactly where you are going ? Let me dig out my compass, I am ready to find my way.

If you could see inside

Hi. I think if you could see inside me - if you could look deep into my eyes-this is what you would see. A harvested field in the early winter. A scrubby tree which has shed its leaves - a tree which is valuable for nothing, it provides no shade, fruit, or fuel- it exists only for the sake of existing. You could see to the horizon, your view unobstructed by anything of interest or color. In the distance, you would see the weather beaten structures that house all those things that I used to consider important. The sky is filled with quickly moving clouds, a storm brewing that will dominate this landscape in the very near future. Yes, I think this is what you would see - a desperate, windswept place on the verge of taking a turn for the worse.

In these brief moments

We awoke early that morning, to walk among the dead. A light rain misted the cobble walk and the soft patter of droplets cascading on green leaves was a soothing backdrop to our conversation.

"I have often wondered what it must be like to dead" my companion quietly mused as we made our way.

I was struck by this thought and decided to consider it as we passed the final places of these quiet strangers.

They were not true strangers though. Their names were etched in stone, bracketed by intricate ironworks, laced with cherubs and other efforts to communicate the essence of those within. Names, like the titles on a spine of a book that can never be opened, hidden chapters that the remains inside had lived through - suffering, happiness, hopes, dreams, disappointments - the details of which become the property of the cosmos the moment the breath left their body. I considered these things as we passed deeper into this silent labyrinth. There were few active visitors to these eternal homes, though on occasion the eye was stuck by the bright vibrancy of flowers recently deposited in the hands of mourning statue. The world hadn't stopped turning with any of these passings. It was turning faster now then when the first inhabitant had been interred here so many years ago. But still people came, to walk among them. To find that quiet in the soul that knows the truth. To marvel at the mortality that is only for others, and never us. How can the world continue to turn without us? Here is your proof. Someone etched this stone after the fact, someone presided over the ceremony, someone covered them and left these trinkets of comfort. These earthly mementos that are all we have to communicate to the departed that we care enough to bring a little piece of the still spinning world to last place they will ever go. To bring them proof that yes indeed, the world has continued on - the sun rises as it always has, the birds take flight at the slightest provocation, and waters still run to the sea. And yet, no one speaks their name, no one asks about them, no tears are shed at their memory. For all those who would, have joined this resting army. I pondered the idea of not being. Suddenly I was struck with the thought that provided me a response.

"I should think it was much like what it was before you were born .....but with better memories"

She shared a smile, reached out for my hand, and we walked in serene silence the remainder of our visit in honor of our new found friends.