the tide came slowly, shyly

and then receded on

that silvery sand

and the sky with its bleak

gray clouds watched me

pitifully.

I did bad things to the people I love
And even worse to those that love me.

I stared at the wall unblinking while minutes
bled into hours, into days, into weeks and into months.

I felt like the pebble stuck to the river,
battered and bruised, never allowed to just let go.

I filled glass bottles full of pain
And flung them onto the ocean
hoping someday someone would find them.

I chased the horizon into Neverland
And came up empty handed.

In short,
I am exhausted.
I wish to go back
to the depths of the earth
from which I was called upon
Back to just an idea in the mind of the Creator.
Back to peace.

When you leave
The length of your life,
To the love of strangers.

I chose to loose myself
in the stories I read
And the stories I heard
And the stories I saw
Until I forgot to write my own.

debris fell on my face.
I heard a volcano erupt,
Guns firing everywhere,
I heard the screams of innocents and
my own terror mingled theirs.

I heard missiles overhead,
and the blades of the helicopters.

Yet through it all I chose to close my eyes
To hear but not to see.
And I pretended to keep myself safe
inside myself,
some part of me knowing
  very well that I was in fact a fool.