This feeling

Sometimes all I want to do is write nonsense and then make something out of it. There is so much nonsense in this world to be decoded and delivered - so much to think about - that making your own nonsense is like a continuation of normal.

poetic debris

Life is a paradox

Has Mother Nature disowned us?
Everything a squirrel does is natural,
But we - we struggle.
We are human through and through
As cats are cats and bats are bats,
But why can we not eat, drink, sleep, or breathe,
Without the risk of being unnatural?
When did we give up that bond,
With all other life,
For this human truth?
Things only exist with the conceivability that they might not (the imagination of their lacking).
Nature, then, would not exist without us.
Do we bring Nature's crystal streams and downy fields,
To be exalted as they deserve,
With destruction,
With the essence of "unnatural?"
By being human?
Oh, how life is a paradox.

Love

A single petal,
So mystical,
I must reach out to touch it,
And all at once,
It unfolds in a million directions,
Filling my life with a cascade of petals,
That never land,
But *blink*
And I have swallowed them,
And there they are,
Lying gently on my heart,
Folded so beautifully,
Fluttering gently,
Unfolding in a million directions from within,
With every beat of my heart.

Time

My life is a past of uncertain futures,
Like everyone else's.
And filled with ignorance of passing time.
What an illusion it is,
To think we can govern our lives,
With such carelessness,
That we are granted.
Time magnifies and curves,
Out of proportion.
It moves like a zipper,
Uniting the sides of cloth as it goes,
Sliding towards a universal future,
Leaving behind a universal past.

Grandpa

He lies there like he is sleeping,
Grandma sits in the corner like she is dying,
I am sixteen,
But I am a child,
Hand grasped by my father’s,
Unable to grasp anything,
But such a tender pain.

I do not yet understand,
That I will never,
Forever,
See him again.
Hear him again.
Indoor shoes, white cane, tie and hat,
My mother is calm.

I am the only one crying,
Shuddering softly in my stiff, black coat.
Shuddering softly.
My voice comes out shaky,
Like the “wobbly” vibrato
My grandpa objects to.
And when we leave,
I stop outside,
Dark and cold,
And stare at the casement of soft light,
Sharing a second that grabs his hand,
And walks on by.
He lies in a room,
Stacked upon, beside, beneath
So many others.

I know that he is leaving just as I am,
Know he will never be again,
Know I will go on being.
Know he will always be
In the wings of my opera
And every uncertain step my grandmother takes,
Him in the back of my mind,
With his square glasses,
Along with all those other glasses.
Every life says the same thing.

He showed me how make sunshine,
Out of tears,
Like squinting wet lashes in light,
He showed me what I do not yet understand,
What I may not ever understand.

Every life says the same thing,
Yes, he showed me that everything,
Is opera,
And we cannot sing strongly enough.
We cannot sing strongly enough.