When I discarded my religion,
I found a world that I’d been missing
Already in motion
Without my conscious participation.
Simultaneously, I couldn’t help noticing
The blandness of modern humans
Chasing superficial pleasures
As though nothing else exists.
The abandonment of false purpose
Both liberates and destroys,
A hollow heart hurts to carry
But has capacity to be filled.
Values like certainty and purity
Are irreplaceable once they’re gone,
Vitality and wisdom
Filling in to hold their shape.
There’s a whole horizon to fall into,
An endless void of discordance
To construct, reflect, and internalize,
A perpetual stream of absurd meanings.
There’s no clear answer,
No guarantee of another life,
No genuine good or evil,
But there are endless things to analyze.
Tag: perception
Feeling Good
The pit of yearning
Maybe, can never be filled.
Like literal hunger,
It only eases for a while.
What kind of fuel
Feeds our happiness best?
Friendship burns
As Love swallows whole.
Nothing is still,
Even feelings have dimension.
Fear and empathy
Are almost equally absurd.
Stress and agitation,
Like a spring set to pounce,
The default position
Of a trauma endured.
Years in a minute
As tremors to anxious thoughts,
Like clarity of perception
When proportion rears its head.
Afloat outside a stream
Where timelessness meets space
Precarious indeed,
The scope of happy and of sad.
There Is No Path
Maybe no one is truly aware
As much as we aim to be.
Living, growing, transformation,
Post-stagnation apathy.
A step forward is learned
As all mistakes are lessons.
Lack of use atrophies
Like love does in depression.
Lost in some quagmire
I’m watching you flail
With the confident notion
I’ve passes where you fail.
It’s pitiful to see,
But each life is its own.
As much as I’ve flailed
Is as much as I’ve known.
But even one step
In your chosen direction
Could lead you astray
In an open-end question.
Answers are elusive,
However much we must learn,
But even a fragment
Of perception is well-earned.
What Do You Know?
Confused and/or vain,
Evil and/or repugnant,
Count the discrepancies
And steel yourself for more.
Perceptions are abundant
As insults and judgments,
And finding fit words
For yourself is a chore.
Impressions are often biased,
Labels often fall short,
Even platitudes of passion
And support miss their mark.
Life would be so muddled,
So indiscernibly complex.
Simplicity is transgression,
We’re beyond light and dark.
Solitude in expression
Mirrors bolder without eyes.
Honesty is easy
With an audience of one,
But self-revealed truths
Fall flat upon the senses
Leaving deep and shallow guesses
The best from anyone.
Vanity & Reflection
“Whoever do you want to be?”
The astringent mirror asks of me.
“Does the image your perceive
Contest the one that you believe?”
Of course, I cannot help agree
That what it sees is not all it seems.
Staring into my gleaming eyes
To glean from them what fears I hide,
And yet I know what I would find
If I looked straight through my mind.
I’m not what I believe or see ,
The mirror reveals and deceives
As what constructs identity
Is not imposed by vanity;
But, then again, it still is me,
As much as I am physically.
Pale and pallid, tired eyes,
And other feelings I despise.
“Why do you not answer me?
Who is it you want to be?”
I burrow through my troubled mind,
But nothing there solidifies.
I know I don’t want stubborn lies
But what I want, I can’t describe.
“I guess I just want to be me,
But I don’t know who I should be.”
The mirror replied,
“You’re lying.”
And I replied,
“Shut up.”
Story Tellers
Watching words will read you,
Willingly or not. As it were,
We’re read as readers.
Eyes watching eyes see
Watching ourselves on T.V.
A subversive narrative is only
Narrative not yet subverted.
All writing is fiction as
All perceptions are hollow.
Naked words reveal nothing.
One thought fills immensity,
Well, it may as well,
As immeasurably limited is the Id,
The psyche soundly snug
In conceptual bliss.
Emptiness laughs to see
Loneliness subverted by such
Rationalized madness and
Imaginative beliefs.
Nature clings to anything,
Latching onto whatever’s present,
Precarious as it might be,
Only hoping to survive.
People pretend their whole lives,
Acting, dressing, watching, and telling.
At ease with their lies,
If at least it makes a good story.
Less than Infinite
Finite life, finite Earth, finite sun and stars
Living, breathing, dying in infinitely expanding space?
Timelines intertwining, connecting and breaking
Infinite alternatives to limited self-identities?
Chasms of space in unfathomable proportions.
Temperatures scorching and freezing to extremity.
Infinitesimal points scream and devour light.
Overheating stars expanding, exploding, dead.
Constantly consuming, stretching wider all the time
Separating everything from all things, indefinitely.
When things drift so far apart we’ll never see them,
Will we remember there was anything at all?
What lurks in those unfathomable chasms of the void?
Shall we search them for objects, monsters, or God?
Does one thought fill immensity, or just our fragile minds?
Is life forever finite? Are we forever small?
What does it matter to you or I anyway?
While the space and time is here and now
Everyone dies and nothing lasts forever.
I love you, so please, don’t let me come down.
Poems and Short Stories 