Fat and lazy I gave become,
With fat and lazy thoughts; what
Lies beneath this guarded self-deception?

It's ok, don't fret it, I ain't greedy,
I'm lonely and I gotta be that way and I know it,
But all I'm asking for, really, is a single moment,
A single moment of complete happy-ness, that I
Can stretch like jelly to wrap everything inside.
But my warning still stands, and you better heed it,
I know what's due to me and I know that you know it
Too, so don't ***** me over because I'm not gonna
Go out with a whimper if you try to *****
Me out of the bargain that we made a long time ago,
And you know and I know you do,
That a lot has happened and I've held up my half,
So you better hold up yours too ...

At the center lies not the
World tree, holding up
Everything,
But instead a vacuum, into which
Rush the broken pieces of things,
Torn apart by the
Centripetal force
Of a chronic
Absence.

It rushes away from me, I to it
Around me grey mush, dark space
But there, a smooth plane stretching out both ways,
The White Wall

In the dimness I see others around
Me, going about their ways, but
Do they not see or do they
Not care at all?

I move vigorously, but stay in place
As does everyone else, but
Is this enough? Am I not
Supposed to fall?

To fall towards it (or away from it),
I make painful progress. I cannot judge
By parallax whether I draw nearer or
Not, to the Wall.

But I must. I know I must,
Make it here sooner or later,
For when I am silent I do most
Clearly hear its call.

If you fear something,
It never truly goes away,
But festers and grows.

It multiplies out of sight,
And returns,
Stronger, bolder,
Scarier.

A many headed hydra,
Which must be dealt with
All at once
Or not at all.

These are the productions of evil
In your life,
In your mind.

These are the monsters,
You must slay,
Or else be
Enslaved by them,
And become as they are,
Forever.

The sharp angles
Of the skyline
Cut my eyes.

I turn away
And fall on to
A passing cloud.

But fall right through it,
And as I fall,
The ground is smooth and patchy.

I see birds,
And little dots going about
Their business, peacefully, below.

And now I am peaceful,
And now I wish
That I had not fallen!

They shuffled on down
The long winding road between the mountains,
Each following the other,
Their faces stony and grim.
"Don't go!", I shouted at them,
"Don't you see that it
Doesn't have to be this way?"
I ran around them,
Waved my hands and tried
To get them to stop.
But they marched on,
Slowly, forlornly, on
Into the falling night.

Like tears in the rain,
Embers in a roaring fire,
My thoughts among theirs.

A vessel shaped
In a form I cannot see
Tries to fit me in.

Don't hold me in!
The sun is coming out!
Let me see it one last time!

There is another way!
I know it!
There has to be!

A way without pain,
Without  hurt,
With boundless happiness.

But I know it, don't I,
This way.

It has always been the simple way,
But not the easy one.

Is it too late for me now?
I have been down all other roads,
But sit locked up now.

Can you free me one more time?
Can I have one more chance?
Can the right way be my way?

I am cursed;
My wound is larger.
But therein lies also
My blessing, for I cannot
limp along like everyone else.
I must heal myself or die,
There are no half-measures for me.

Sit and tap away;
Messages fly by like rain.
What am I seeking?

No, I'm not ready yet!
Please, you don't understand,
There's been a terrible mistake.
Yes, I know this is the right
Address, I was supposed to come here,
But I'm early, and
It wasn't supposed to be this way!
I know, I know, I said I wanted it,
But that was some time ago,
That's not who I am anymore ...
... no, open the door, stop the
MACHINE! Before it crushes me ...
... I'm up against the
Wall, and it won't be long now, but
Just a few moments more?!

I thought I did the right thing,
So what does that mean?
Either what I thought was right
Was the wrong thing,
Or I was wrong to want
To do the right thing.

Traveling down yesterday's roads,
In rocking carriages filled with happy people,
While a ticking sound ticks away beneath.

Dark clouds with silver linings
Retreat into a golden sunset,
Past the horizon of my
Less luminous past.

I ride, though uncertain
Whether I am passenger
Or cargo,
Being chained to the seat
For my own safety.

Traveling through time
Requires caution,
Nearsightedness, and a
Generous suspension
Of disbelief.

What's under this leaf ?
It looks like
A little man.
Come on,
Everyone!
Let's crush him
In turn.

Do not be quick to discard
Messy things in favor of more
Elegant, more
Symmetric, more
Ones. After all
(As I have recently learned!)
A baby is more
Beautiful than a
Diamond.
All life is messy, and
Your search for
Perfection might lead only to
Corpses.

The slow falling rain of water
Drops below the enduring
Reign of words.
One pelts, drenches, slushes out all,
The other penetrates and hold captive
Long after the remnants of clouds
Have withered away.
Impaled thus on words you seek water
In the growing cracks of the parched desert.

I try to keep them out,
I really do.
But they swarm over me
And into me.
Creeping, crawling
And squeezing in.
Soon it's like I have
A second skin.
That moves
And coats me
Inside
And out.
The whole is indistinguishable
From the millions of them.
I hate bugs.

Periwinkle bloom,
Overlaying what remains
Of an unlived life.

Peel back the layers;
It's horrible to behold.
What is it saying?

I shuffled through the long corridor,
Dragging my broken foot behind me,
Illuminated by the flickering lights above.
The scratching and screaming to my right and left,
The moaning down below.
I could not outrun it, this I knew,
But still made some distance
Before the
Hound
Was upon me.

I see them by the wayside, groaning,
Ask them why they do despair.

"Why do you sit here sighing,
When there is so much wonder here?"

It hurts, they say, too bad to live.
The world's taken all they have to give.

One says, "I'm not a coward, I'm not scared
I've seen, and loved, and felt, and dared,

But It's this pain, you see, this throbbing hurt
That'll stop only when I'm ground down to dirt!"

I take the knife and plunge it in,
Tear off my flesh and give it to him.

He takes it, shuts his eyes; a smile.
Leaps in the air, laughing all the while.

I chop off more, hand it out,
To everyone gathered about.

The blood; it washes all away.
The flesh melts night into day.

I silently wish this to be the end,
Of having of my body this way to rend,

But no! It grows back, all of it!
Bone, muscle, sinew, bit by bit!

But I know I am not whole,
I see the big deep terrible wound,
I try to reach it by subtraction,
But my raft keeps running aground!

I turn back each time, giving of me freely,
Wishing only to be drowned.
But the sea throws me back mercilessly,
My true purpose yet to be found.

Your words, your thoughts, give them to me,
Lend me some fuel for my bonfire,
I'm looking for the waste of human life;
Show me the vanities you admire.

You say you feel alive.
What's that like?

What are you talking about?!
Of course I like to live in the past!
Sure, it's painful at times,
But oh so familiar!
There are signposts everywhere;
You don't get lost in the past.
And it's comfortable too,
And so well-furnished; it has
My favorite books and music,
Though I could lose some of the people.
I keep an eye out constantly for
Wear and tear; I fix up and mend the past.
You would like what I've done with the place,
Come visit me sometime.
No, you're right, I didn't always live there;
Before I moved in, I used to
Live in the future.

Wickedness is here;
A ball rolls up and down hill,
A door opens wide.

Recessed hollows, within the
Ridged and furrowed tree, with its
Rotting bark, its thorns with no
Remaining bite, its fallen leaves
Raked to a neat pile, and
Rocked now with the
Repeated blows of a dull axe.

I have not been faithful to reality,
I have been running from it.

Pretending,
That what is true, is not;
That what is not true, is.

This has many reasons, many causes,
All rooted in the past.

To continue means to wait for
Crises of increasing magnitude.
I can either face things
Voluntarily, or be
Shocked, repeatedly, into realization.

Many reasons, many excuses, many
Allegations of unfairness have been
Put forth by my mind, to
Prevent me from taking the
First step out, to
Keep me stuck,
Keep me trapped.

To move forward means
One, and only one thing:
A commitment to reality.

I kept
Putting off
Life,
Until one day
It had
Passed me by.

Rift opening up,
Stretching apart hands and feet,
About to fall in.

It's my fault,
Of course,
But I don't see
What I could've
Done differently.

On a cloud,
Floating close by,
I first saw this little girl.
I was a little boy.
There was mist between, and
All around was forming and dissolving.
The currents of the wind bore our clouds
Nearer and farther, and gave shape to all I saw.
The last I remember is just a shape in the distance,
A patchwork of color, of skin and clothes and hair,
Before a crack and a boom,
Of what I now call lightning,
That turns all to white for an instant,
Leaving everything charged up,
Scarred and cauterized,
Sending me tumbling,
Down.

Have I been wrong all this while?
Should I have done something different?
Should I change everything now?
Have I rejected wonderland for hell?
If yes, can I go back? Can I undo the past?
If no, how long can I go on this way?
It hurts! It pains! It stings!
The past claws at me,
And my faith grows weak.
How long can I go on,
Without a sign?

Another day, another loss, another
Waste of useless energy,
Moving horizontally,
Slipping on the upward rope,
Hoping not to slip.

Upwards or downwards;
Does it matter ?

Either way,
We will
Transcend.

I think you do not recognize it
For you have become used to it,
And internalized its patterns.
Everything is falling apart,
But not simultaneously,
And at different rates;
So you may pretend
To find stability
In the rhythm
Of failure.

Summer days
Summer haze
Eyes ablaze
With a flickering desire.

Ooh, I told you, didn't I ...
... but you wouldn't listen!
The cycles of time march on, they do,
Days, and weeks, and months at a time.

You're left reeling, wondering, staring,
As your phantom plans unravel.
Don't make these plans, I told you,
Don't fall for wishful thinking!

Yet it felt convenient at the time,
To deny these uncomfortable facts,
That gnawed at the edges,
Persistently. And so you
Brushed them off,
Distracted yourself
With Toys.

Now those distractions have faded,
And it stares you in the face;
What will you do?

Either I will
Be very good
Or very bad;
In my middle ground
Lie burnt bridges
And sunken ships.
One shore or the other
Is where I will land,
I refuse to drown
In the waters between.
Others have built
Makeshift rafts
And occasionally,
Large boats, on which
They peacefully navigate.
But this I scorn.
Though the horizon shows
No evidence of any other
Feature but endless water,
The isles do exist,
And I will not rest
Until I have found one of them.
I hope it is the better one.
But I have lived
Many years now,
Having spurned
The floating comforts
Where others gathered,
And can no longer guard against
The temptation of dry land
After a lifetime afloat.

Was I running or driving,
Or was everything else speeding past me?
I saw streaks; thin lines and thick ones,
Punctuated by gaps and other lines.
I felt faint; all emanated from some
Fixed point
Where the parallels meet.
Was I heading towards  it,
Or we're they coming forth from it?
What was it ?
I stopped and floated.

A meandering course,
Accumulating, weathering, eroding,
Depositing, overflowing, separating,
Whose end and journey are
Composed of miracles.

Watercolor trickles in from the edges of the window,
Smudging out the clear sky.
I flee the angry bucketfuls of oily paint,
That splash and smear the smooth floor below.
Finally I can run no more,
And I am pounded into red, white and brown,
Adding to the beautiful photograph below me,
Stretching out to the horizon.