I have walked this earth a thousand times.
Dirt. A loose aggregate of particles, held together by gravity, and moisture.
Rain. Water suspended. Resurging. Cascading in plumes, like sheets of smoke.
Sky. Blue. Stretched like canvas. Abstract. Nowhere. Everywhere.
I exist. Here. Standing. Thinking.
I am dead. I am being born.
I am existing across all time and space, but I do not know it.
At this moment, I am trapped. I am unconscious. I am unaware.
I have walked this earth a thousand times, and cannot even remember.
Because it has not happened. Has yet to happen. May never happen.
Future. A nonexistence on the horizon.
Hope. An ache. A nothing replaced with nothing.
Misery. The wretched face in the mirror.
A child wears my eyes. She drifts through life.
Scared. Alone. Free.
She plays in the forest. Her small, sap-covered hands grasp branch after branch.
She enters intermediate school. Is called freak. Is judged by her skin, her eyes.
She realises she is different for the first time.
Alien. Deviant. Other.
Her eyes fill with self-hatred.
I have watched this moment a thousand times, yet can do nothing.
Disintegration. The act of separation.
Loneliness. A billion strangers condemned to live together.
Existence. A billion billion billion particles, shifting beneath my flesh.
There is no death that can end my being.
I have felt the atoms of my past collide, and spark into biology.
I have felt the atoms of my future shred like fractals, spiralling into a dim, dark nothingness.
I have felt all this, and none of it.
From infinity I came, to infinity I’ll go. Forever cycling in the pantomime of existence.
This pretend construct of space and time.

O *****'s opposite,
A great wall
     Of spine,
A Yin and Yang
     Of tongues,
We tug and pull
At territories,
     Acupuncture,
Our souls
     Populous
Of me and her,
As our energies, powers,
     Superpowers, stirring,
Growing, binging,
     Surging, and resurging,
Engulf
     A blazing evening.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

waiting watching seeking
in vain
anxious eager expecting
in vain
unrelenting mind thinking
in vain
hopeful  aspiring dreaming
in vain
golden memories resurging
in vain
gazing searching reaching
in vain
lonely aimless existing
in vain
painful destined sojourn
in vain
hoping moments solace  
in vain
wishful hoping a glimpse
in vain
desiring deeply belonging
in vain
closely warmly approaching
in vain
missing pining crying
in vain
A dawn to come, this pain
no more in vain

my face burns
a flame of emotion across a clouded sky
my insides swell and heave
a ship rocks from the tidal waves
i lose my footing,
or did i jump?
Why did I do this?
I already know the answer.
-silence-

the air ripples my clothes
i fall for hours
crash.
the ocean.
i remember the feeling.
it's cold; i am solid
i cannot move
water is in my lungs
the salt stings my eyes.
there is nothing for miles
only i exist here
It isn't enough. Most life in the ocean isn't this high up.
i let out the remaining air in my lungs, and i begin to sink.

I see you.
Watching me.
we both relive our pain.
the stinging of the box jellyfish.
the pierce of an octopus beak.
it hurts.
I see our blood color the water.
The tears in our eyes, or is it the brine?
You say something.
I couldn't hear it.

I have to keep sinking.
I have to find you, see you,
Ask you.
I pull us both down.
your stinging stops, for one moment.
the jellyfish and the octopus.
is it an embrace? is it a struggle?
I hold our memories,
cradled in 8 arms.
I feel your fear.
I see my mistake.
jetting upward, I force myself up.
upward in the roiling ocean.
Why did I do this to you?
What can I do to fix it?

the octopus pulls
it pulls
it pulls it's arms off.
it can't look at itself
not with these arms
not with these eyes.
Looking back now, I really didn't see her.
I promised my heart to her, and I only gave half.
he stops moving.
floating motionless.
the jellyfish has drifted away.
he watches in silence.
she has painted new pictures.
he closes his eyes and thinks of what he's done.

the months pass
he meets the other fish in the sea.
he wastes his time.
on them.
on his hobbies.
on working.
each night he sees her in a dream, but by morning he says it's washed away.
I can't blame her.
I wasn't there.

september.
he feels himself climbing up the side of the trawler.
Maybe I can stay alone.
By myself.
Maybe I really am the devil of the ocean, and only god can redeem me.
he argues with his friends
"You still miss her, don't you?"
is what they ask.
he hesitates.
he feels the love resurging.
I am different. This time it is different.
he wakes up early and works out.
he takes on another job.
he resists the pull of the sea.

he thinks of the jellyfish and his wrongs. he wants to share his unbridled love.
I'll look.
Just one more time.
the waves, they're back
the sky is gloomy and it rains for days.
he wants to dive again.
back down to her.
he knows his mistakes and remembers hers. but it'll be different.

the ocean looks the same.

I cried tonight.
I cried as I listened to two believers tell me my dreams are still possible.
Tell us all our dreams are still possible.

I cried as they told me what I already knew.
How possibility to grant gravity to our progress as a people was unjustly ripped from us almost four years ago.
Ripped from me.
I cried four years ago as well.
Different tears.
Very different.

I cried as I felt my chest fill once again with a breath I haven't drawn in a long time.
A breath of freedom.
A breath of hope.
My lungs expanded as tears welled and my throat caught.

I cried as I heard words of processed thought and genuine care.
Ideas of resurging justice and critical vision.
I cried as I watched inspired people inspire me.
People of service.
True service.
Serving me, serving us.

I cried cheer and joy.
Of illumination.
Enlightenment.
I cried as my ears became filled with complete and coherent sentences.
Sentences of reason.
Reason and truth.

I cried for the tortured eagle in all of us.
Carelessly beaten.
Recklessly injured.
But surviving and resilient.
I heard that bird's cry.
Knowing how high it can fly once again.
Higher.

I cried with tears of promise.
Promise of the next.
Promise of the after.
Soon.
I cried happy tears hoping for an end to our nightmare.

And I slept like a baby.
A baby eagle...

The moon is bright tonight
That resurging light
Reminding wrong things will eventually go alright
And things will mend into scars
like the moons resurging stars
And a strong tree
reminding me one day I'll be strong and free
And the faint cloud smear
Reminding me of my once fear

Never made
Much sense to me
To sit and think
Subconsciously
Allow autonomy
Of mind
To find
The guide it hides
Behind
And reassign it
To the fore
Without a presence
To assure
Its resonance
In sync endures
The onslaught of
Controlled despair
The inundation
Of nightmare
Resurging as it purges
Out
The sounds of peace
With bouts of doubt
Tumultuous,
Unmoored
In a frenetic
Clangor ringing
Desiccating ear canals
With streams of conscious
Sirens singing
Ineluctable refrains
That beckon me
To stray
So far away
Reclaim my brain again
Never again
Let it convey
The end