Nature’s Contract

The rose grows lovely and lush,
Smelling as sweet as sin.
It will bite you with its thorns.
A corpse flower, putrid and dank,
looking as lovely as a lounging lady.
The balance of beauty.

The Moon is cold, empty, and dark,
Yet glows with Solar radiance.
The Sun is life-giver and cancer-maker.
The levels of life.

Winter: dead outside, but
Snowmen and hot cocoa inside.
Spring: lush and green,
With flowers bursting at the seam.
But the bugs are back.
Swimming at the beach while sweating
and sizzling on the sand all Summer.
Autumn holds the heat at bay,
The trees turn into a bright array,
But the days are short and hide their beauty away.

Who is to choose what Life has to offer?
The light isn’t so different from the dark,
both have their ups and their downs,
they are all a part of Nature’s Contrast,
Our contract with the natural world.
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Malleable Memories

Harken back to yesteryear:
The joys of childhood,
The pangs of adolescence.

Revel and frolic in your visions:
Superheroes dashing about the yard,
Climbing trees that were skyscrapers.

Relive and recoil at your nightmares:
A tender note; rejected.
Peals of laughter as schoolwork is sent scattered.

As you travel back in time,
The good gets better.
The bad gets worse.

We recraft our memories each time we recall them.
Did you never scrape your knees on those trees?
Did no one ever love you back?

Memories are malleable.
We can change them.
Though they depict the past,
They are not written in stone.

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Disco Power

Too close. Fragmented faces following a gaze.
Too close! Broken and betrayed, belittled and dazed.
Too close. Distracted by the darkness; driven mad.
Too close! Picture perfect profile pulsates badly.

BACK UP! Back off. Back down.

Spotlight shining sends shimmering sparkles. Back up.
Radiant rays are rescuing ribbons, back up.
The mirror cracked just makes many moonbeams. Back up.
Illustrious luminations light fires, back up.

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I Never Could

days roll into weeks; weeks — years; years to a lifetime.
and still I never could.

strangers become friends; friends — lovers ; and love is forever.
but I never could.

heart sends words; words — mouth; mouth stays silent.
because I never could.

I never could.
I never should.
I never would

silence to words; words to paper; paper to you.
strangers to friends; friends to strangers; then back again.
a lifetime rolls back into days.

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I’ll Lie

If you ask me how I’m doing;
If you wonder how I’m feeling;
I will lie to you.
I’ll tell you I’m fine.
Things are going OK.

I might hint at the truth of the matter.
I might stumble through my words.
I might give you a half-truth.
I might give you a non-answer.
But I’ll probably never tell you the truth.

I’m not fine.
Things are not OK.
I’m drowning in fear and worry.

You probably ask because you care.
But I am not capable of believing it.
Because I don’t care. So how could you?

We are all conditioned to hear these questions as small talk.
We are all conditioned to respond in kind.

“Hey, what’s up?”
“Fine, you?”
“Yeah, nothing much.”

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