Without certainty you cannot begin
Foundations always moving are not
For on such you can never build
But only to be moved and carried
Endlessly without rest always changed
Discarding the old attempting the new
But waste and futility, no mastery nor success
What knowledge gleaned very soon irrelevant
Here today, everything's changed tomorrow
Always a toddler, crippled for life
To stand for a while the pinnacle
To walk or run, foolishness, for falls
And you break, never crawling again
But for grace the sand steady as a rock
That you may know sand shift in winds
And to search for rock before you build
But not boast the death of certainty

Leak into another night
     I am dead mechanical
Cut black lines into my skin
     Tattoo me with asphalt
Touch my face one time--kiss me goodbye with an insult
          I'm just fading tail lights
          It isn't my fault.

               Your fingertips are tracing something...
         And my reddened eyes are craving something...
     Some might hope for for the weather's improvement,
                        but, me?, I'm hard in love
                        with the cold front that's
                                     moving in.

Let me crawl across the sky--
     a skull coated in red wine.
The Titan's getting tipsy.
     I'm at home in the sweating night.
Cracked my ribs one time, kissing asphalt on Orange Street
          Then I had to stand up
                    screaming
      after sweating through sheets!

                My memory surrendered something...
            Your frozen face was mending something...
        Might have hoped for condition's improvement,
                        but, me?, I'm hard in love
                           with my aching--that's
                                     all I am.

Dead Mechanical
     Romanticize it.
Dead Mechanical
     I can't eclipse it!
Make me fiction, or ***** my fingertips.
     Let me lie. I am Dead Mechanical.

And how would you live your life?
When no rules exist, how could you be
Where would you check your views
To whom would you run for clues?

You lay rules for all life; to live
A grid line on what and how to be
Not an inch your ideals bend
And no broader your wits extend.

But I don't just mean that you're strange
Every reach in history builds your range
But break your limits for once,
Let your instincts run amok; advance.

With a bit of mud upon their peak
a pair of tiny birds ventured into our abode.
I asked my mother, tinged with excitement
“Mother! Why have they graced our home?”

“To craft their dwelling,” replied Mother.

My childhood routine altered—
to oversee the endeavors of those winged beings
and witness the splendid nest they shaped.

Then came the day when Mother uttered,
“The swallows have birthed their offspring.”

Swiftly,
the fledglings matured, mastering the art of flight
and on one uncertain day
they soared away from the nest
yet didn’t return.

My heart echoed the emptiness
of the now-deserted nest.

Mother sighed and shared,
“It appears, the fledglings have departed their nests.”

Weary of my persistent inquiries
regarding the rationale behind their departure
Mother, one day, responded with irritation—
“Their progeny has blossomed into adulthood
they’ve left the haven of the nest
bound to their mates
busy crafting a new abode afar.”

I rushed to Mother
clasped her in a tight embrace, and
with resolute tones, proclaimed,
“Mother! I’ll never make another home!
I’ll stay forever young!”

-०-

my heart can’t catch up
stuck back in time
when i was your world
and you were mine
the world kept spinning
a tad too fast
but you moved on
while i stayed behind
reaching for your heart back

it’s bittersweet
watching you grow—
cold on the gym floor
melancholy pouring
out of all your pores
i lay in my blue dress,
trembling in your eyes
pouring out my heart
about our demise
your blank words
hit me hard as stone
you said, “you can’t grow if you hold on to me”
but my heart has never
loved anyone else so deeply
but love like this doesn’t vanish
so, i guess, i’ll someday, let go softly

he drifted away
while i stayed the same.
he sits behind me in class
and im still,
silently grieving our past
i turn around
searching in his eyes,
aching for his ghost
but his sand in the hourglass
slipped too fast
“it’s not like we’re strangers”,
he reluctantly said
shifting his eyes away
as my ruptured heart bled
my mind had too much
and reality was ahead—
i never knew that
“i will never get bored”
expired with a “yet”

A rod of iron twists, it bends, it breaks,

It rusts, it greens, it browns, it changes,

Yet every bit of metal still remains -

How so it's not with life, with consciousness,

With the red of love and hate, with sorrow, passion -

All these can exist in inconceivable multiplicity.

So, feelings bend, and space does not, souls twist

Inside and out, they tangle, we laugh and burn

When the orange iron bends, we cry for it,

And when the blue sky turns to ash we suffer,

For we, the immaterial selves, we are true motion

Amidst the phantom change of the physical.