The one where I tell the truth…

 

 

Things have been hard. But they are getting better. I’m standing taller. And every day there seems another thing to knock me back down. But I’m getting up again. Every damn time.

But I’m not writing a lot yet. So I’m speaking how I can. Healing as I can. Getting better as I can.

 

Truth

I wander,

lost

In the alien void,

a cloak,

a ghost.

A ripple of blackness in the void of sharp things and night.

 

Then I see one,

lost and alone.

A perfectly formed creature of light and life

grimly trudging in this place

where it does not live,

and does not belong.

 

For it stumbles to its knees.

And my heart aches

For this is a being of the sun

but its glow is so faint

flickering and faltering

weeping golden drop of dusk into a dark world that does not care.

 

I glide forward

insides twisting and dancing

deathly afraid of the glowing, beautiful thing.

I touch it and it burns me.

Fire upon my dark skin

But the light, the light is brighter as it searches the darkness for hope.

 

I see the embers of my flame kissed hand,

and to the face of beauty that weeps

and I spread myself like the dusk

and settle upon the burning beauty

The agony is immediate

And it fills all my senses as I scream…

 

And then it is gone, running.

It is bright again,

it is healthy, whole.

and as fireflies borne of my own skin flicker past my eyes

It is able to move on

and it does.

 

I see the burning dawn on the horizon

I know the angel will be alright.

So I flee into the dark

The caves, alone

in the night that never ends

alone.

 

But again, in starlight

I emerge and wander in my sadness

and again, a beautiful wanderer

and again, used and discarded.

To make them strong

left to convalesce in the dank.

 

But it changed me, these angels.

I saw a simmering radiance on the walls of my cave

and I knew the burns had healed black

But inside, the fire still burned

Still glowed.

And I wondered if the night would ever have me back.

 

But then it came,

An angel with only a flicker of luster

wounded and alone.

And I stayed my hand,

for fear and memory burned me.

Worse than any reality ever could.

 

But those eyes, those glorious portal of a sojourning soul

could finally see me and begged for contact,

for understanding.

I dove into the angel and the fire turned me into a bonfire.

But I knew the true nature of love.

And it is what you give, not what you receive.

 

I fell to the rocks,

Fire tracing my every fiber, discarded and alone.

I heard the angel shift,

I waited to hear it walk away.

But then it touched me, lifted me

and held me to its burning breast.

 

I screamed and I roared

I burned and I felt I would die

and so it set me down

and began to walk to the dawn

but even as it walked, and the fires died on my skin

I saw the angel, and saw the beautiful burning soul streaked with the blackest night.

 

I dragged myself from the thorny ground

And I flew for the celestial form

I settled about it

but it flung me off

and ran for the dawn

powerful, and light, and dark, and strong.

 

I chased it with tenacity

and with speed and soul and songs

and still it ran.

Until I realized it wasn’t running from the night.

It was running from me, and the hurt it could do to me.

And we came to the celestial line, and it stumbled again.

 

I raced beyond it as it again fell,

Standing between a painful life with it and the doom behind me.

and I saw the sparkling streams of sadness

strung through with darkness, my darkness eating at the light.

But the sun was coming. Coming for me.

And the angel reached for me, afraid.

 

I burst with speed I flew like the wind.

Into the arms of the sun.

The light it seared me

it punched through to my core.

It ripped apart everything it touched

And I screamed in the light, my flaws laid bare.

 

I cried as I burned, in the light of a new dawn

Fears like fissures dripping with fire

and an amalgam of truth punching into my core

as I screamed.

I cried.

The angel crawled beyond endurance to the edge of the dawn.

 

It reached for me

from inside the night,

Tears falling like rain.

And I reached for it,

fires from my body

pouring black smoke into the sky

 

The angel lurched, it flailed, the sky burning the night inside it

and it came under the nourishing eye of the day.

It enveloped me into its arms.

and together we burned,

and together we cried

as the night was taken from us in a conflagration

 

And finally, finally,

one did for me what I had always done for them.

And after I looked into the angel’s perfect eyes.

And I waited. For we were burning.

But I had hope.

That at least We would burn together.

 

Burn until the night, the darkness inside,

was gone forever,

and we could walk hand in hand.

Through every day, and every night,

together.

The one where I go back to my roots

Not mine, but it speaks to me. Much respect to the artist.

I started writing as a poet. A bad one. Yeah, I’m sure that’s a surprise to everyone.

Pimply, round. Lonely. I could only express myself through words packed like a fist from the mouth of a volcano. On paper.

I have gone through a divorce, as clean and fast as anyone I have ever heard of. The emotional cost, however, has been vast. It has taken a toll on my creative side. Every time I get to something emotional, something real, I shy away like an animal faced with fire.

My health is improving and now the emotional rebuilding has begun. My temper has been bad as of late. Adversity is no longer a mountain to be overcome, but a punishment from a fickle and uncaring god. I can’t live like that, and that means a change. I can only hope those around me will cut me slack when I need it and be hard on me when it is called for. I have also decided to go back to the beginning.

I need to start writing. For my sanity, for my future, and for my… To have a purpose again.

So, back to the beginning. Bad poetry stuttered out from an embarrassed pen.

And by that road, I will get back to where I need to be.

 

It Survives

I am told that my love is water.

And I worry.

For water, tempestuous and tossed,

It swallows and it storms.

And shatters the heavens with electric fangs.

It uses knives made of its own body

to carve stone from the mountain face.

And to rush down valleys sweeping everything from its path.

The voice inside me, it knows these truths

And it burns with the cold of a thousand fathoms

Feels the pressure of merciless depths of my passion

And I wonder who will plumb me.

To know me even where the brightest sun cannot see

But who would want to,

And who would dare

To swim in the uncounted

unknowable

depths

Where the brightest sun cannot see.

But then I remember that the sun does shine

And it dances on the surface of my adoration

like angels at play.

And though it can rage, it can also heal,

Falling gently on living things

Bringing life to the moonscape

and health to the wilting.

It can fulfill any vessel,

And quench any thirst

Brave enough to press lips to sip

And it may be frozen

Locked in prison for millennia

it may be buried in the shifting sands,

too far for mortal hands to reveal

But though it be boiled on desert rocks

Or tossed into the sky on thousand foot drops

It may be smashed into vapor, trod into dirt,

It may be beaten and left and forgotten

But my love is water

and it will sneak into the sky

And form dragons and wolves and lions

It may turn black and threaten

It may scatter the sunlight into beautiful spectrums

But it never dies

And it never fails

It cannot be destroyed

For it is my love.

And it always, always survives.

Even where the brightest sun cannot see.

No shoes for the cobbler’s kids

You know what? I’ve been hella busy. I had an editor basically tell me he would rather not post a story because of the direction it went. As a professional writer you learn to quash the question of why it took 7 months to come to that point , and simply accept the 3 week deadline to turn in something else.

That being said, I do have to keep this blog up.

So, in the greatest tradition of famous and almost famous people, I shall inflict something equally painful upon you, my fans. Poetry:

Untitled #1

Don’t make me

Don’t make me go back…

A long time ago poetry was a refuge of dreams

It was a place where my hopes played out

Drawn against the stars in rainbows and unicorns

Before the clouds of adolescence rolled in

And stormed against the rocky face of my sandstone self

My face faded from the façade

Twisted and deformed by the fists of erosion

Bright eyes becoming dark caves

Leading ever downward into labyrinthine depths

Carved by the tears of the sun

I tell myself the jungle above has made me stronger

Intricate roots boring deep have lent me their strength

An untamed and unknowable abundance of life

But I know that deep inside is the hollow core

That cavern where my soul rests in the cold and damp

Don’t make me go back there

Where insanity and fear grow from the ceiling like long, stone teeth

Where my inadequacies weep from the walls

Where ancient rages pool on the floor

The deepest levels of my mind where the perfect words grow

Don’t make me go back to where the truth lies

That dark, dismal place where my poetry grows

For the truth is powerful but it is not beautiful

It is simply me

A temple to a forgotten god I had hoped never to see again

And it scares me

Don’t make me go back…