Dodging memories that bring me pain
I scurry through the obstacles
I set up for my foolish self
To keep me from the place I need to be.

I bruise my shins repeatedly
On dangers that I did not see
Due to the fancy mask I wear
That blocks half of my vision.

The need for haste is manifest
By ever looming banks of fog
That somehow scheme to bar my way
And keep me from salvation.
                 ljm

I’m in a contest I can’t win
Or even come in second.
My bird has flown from the streetlight arm
And taken promise with it.

Another lands and then departs
To mock my hopeful prayers
The sky teems with symbolic fowl
But I can’t suss their meaning.

A big one flew straight over me
But I can’t read its message.
Was it promising good health
Or telling me it’s sorry

That I’ll only get just what I have
To get me through tomorrow
And if I am not strong enough
The game will then be over.

Why are birds the messengers
In answer to my pleas
They send me signals I can’t read
And I walk on in darkness.
ljm

In the winter of
My darkest sadness
A candle glows,
Tiny and so far away.
It gives the darkness
A focal point and I
Struggle my way towards it.

Another candle lights my way.
I don’t know where it came from
But it makes a fearful journey
So much easier to manage,
And I eventually will dance
On thistledown to
The music of the Skylarks
In a sun-filled, cloudless sky.
  ljm

19 stones in the satchel I carry.
Some are huge and lots are small.
I hoist them up each morn at dawn
And stumble through another day
Looking for a place to put them down.
ljm

this final cable
of autumn

heavily fettered
in thick leafspit

and bit pieces
of dented crowns

drags along the ground
knocking

about the stalks
and stems

we speed
through life

with all its tiny gifts
all its tiny deaths

we dig
in the dirt

gaze
at the untrimmable dusk

until the lights go out
until they come back on

My
Points
And
Judgement
You
Will
Do
Sieve
Others
Points
And
Judge­ment
You
Will
Do
      -  Amisha priya

It almost happened.
I was almost good enough for him.
He almost took responsibility, our magnet pieces of love almost gathered,
Before the scene got all dim.

I never knew this would be my lesson,
In a closed book, an endless waiting session...
Now, the page turns on me and you,
The story is about to end, not with a goodbye, with the almost, in a blurry view...

If the harsh words you spoke

could ever rebound,  

you would have known

how painful they are.