She rose in the morning
as she always did
entering the caravan
to wake them all up.
Except the caravan
was wrong
a different id
another joke, get over it.
Video games give a great reminder of lives
too short, and too easily run over;
these days, easily re-built or re-booted,
according to your app, or whatever’s closer.
Your avatar lives as though a real you,
ducking, diving, dashing – always a fight
to save your last life, as though those before
the last one didn’t count for nought.
Except the reality of play is a metaphor of real.
Why play at life, when it’s a fragile gift.
Here and gone in a heartbeat, it is.
Like a game, life’s time is swift.
It’s funny how a family grows
in newly cutely ways.
my one of origin hurt me raw
tipping through the centuries.
the new family I’m creating now
is startling me anew
i have so much love around
a fresh purpose to pursue.
I have two choices in life, as I peruse
the menu of the near middle-aged:
to close my heart, keep it starved,
or remain open to all manner of plates.
A closed heart is cruel, deluded,
refusing the delicacies of life,
complains about service, never leaves a tip,
self-righteously deprived of that extra slice.
An open heart can skip to the table
that’s rich with the finest cuisine,
selects the plump, the juice, the core,
and dines with the grace of a queen.
Hard-of-heart leaves me safe but cold.
An open heart is at risk of hurt.
Hard-of-heart picks at the bones of life.
Open heart eats starter, mains, dessert.
Waiter!
I’m putting my order in now…
On a good day I see in the flames
a dancing horse, swishing tail
head upright, ears aloft,
prancing to the heat of the fire,
soul alight with joy.
On a bad day I see in the flames
a devilish anger that burns down
all my hard work, a ghoulish glee
that turns my dreams to ash,
hope depleted, plans destroyed.
Stand tall, stand true.
Find balance in what you do.
My four diamond holes
to help find what you extol.
My three central blocks
to stay firm against life’s knocks.
The column at my core
to align with what you adore.
The security at my base,
to remind you to live with grace.
Tides come, tides go,
time shoots its arrows.
Stand true, stand tall.
One day you won’t be here at all.
That sense of dread, that
pull in the depths of
my stomach that
absorbs my days and steals my nights, that
smothers my thoughts with a heavy
blanket of angst. That
happy life that eludes me, that
love that never truly feels
real, only that dread that idles and
festers is solid and true.
