Opportunity

My shirt says: Absolut: Opportunity.
Opportunity to overcome fear and self-doubt: sweet!
Can I push through this pain (safely)?
Can I keep running til the top of this hill?
Can I keep my mind calm and focused in the dark.
I know my body can handle the mileage-the question is: can I wrap my head around it?

Sudden.

Just not big enough.
Too tiny. Too, too tiny.
Sweet little boy, born too soon.
I wish you a short and peaceful journey.
Go quietly.
Do not cry.
Do not fight or strive.
It's ok to give up, to let go, to slip away into the morning.
Don't reach your tiny arms to the sky, it isn't worth it.
It isn worth the tubes and stabs, the million painful moments between here and any joyful one.
If you ever know joy.
If you ever shout and run and skin your knee.
If you're ever grounded or lose your homework.
If you ever grin a boyish grin.
Chances are you won't.
So leave it all behind, drift off into endless sleep until your turn comes again.

Alien and miniature.
A blurry, bloody, garbled sprout of the forested future planned for you.
I'm sorry for you. For all of you.
And I hope you find your way out.

Sometimes, babies die.
Such a taboo to even think or write... But I know what this one faces,
And in my heart, I hope he dies soon.

None.

Your ghost haunts me through the halls.
You tug at my pants when I stop to breathe.
Startle me around the corner.
Invade my ears with your silence, and echo through my sinuses.
I open my mouth to forget for a moment, and fail again.
I was ok earlier, but superstition overcomes logic
Limbic overcomes conscious.
My reptilian brain destroys me again.
Like a fog, like a choking mist from an age-old waterfall: it never stops, thunders on from a stream to a river over the edge, and who is to say- who draws the line between the pounding downward force and the fine lifting fairy drops. They are one and the same- carving the rock and filling the air and so they are one. And so they are one.
My eyes sting, lungs burn and hands ache, grasping at straws for a meaning, an answer.
A cause or a cure, I have neither.
So, follow me if you will.
Scratch at my neck, howl in my ear.
Boast your very existence, until you forget how to be, swept downstream over the rocks.
A cause, a cure, meaning or answer, I have none.
None.

Desert.

All the things we said, all the skies you heard.
Gentle, broken, twisted words.
All the laughing loving moving on
Held me in the morning light.
"The only woman..."
Complicated.
"I thought it was headed that way..."
Wish it had, but it all really does flow in the right direction.
Whether that be toward or away, it is as it should be.
I am as I could be.
I could be with you.
Shaking, trembling trying something new.
But I am left in the driveway,
Holding my keys, dribbling memories onto the concrete.
Before this dream melts into the sunrise,
Before we dry off completely,
Before we start to clean up the mess we live here in,
Before we even begin,
Hold my hand, open your heart, let me in.
I'll send you back out again, whispering and grinning your small triumphs.
A mess, yes. When you jump this high, it's a long way down.
Sometimes, we have to stop and scrub our elbows clean again, but the times we do are so worth the times we don't.

Working Title.

Bodily harm.
Stretched too thin.
Goal.
Overboard, overwrought.
Phone call in the night.
Looking forward, I have a choice of focus.
Downward slope.
Open water.
Take me home.
That brief, electric touch- one moment met carries me through.
Superstition, jinx. Murphy's Law. Always.

Going for some wide open space.
Clean air, goodbye.
Clear night, bright sky.
Temporary license, leave your trace.
Decipher your intent, you're intense, test my patience.
Death by veiled negligence.
Loving your quiet, awkward elegance.

Higher.
One.
Indignance.
Rude and vicious.
Whirlwindbluroutoffocus.

Forgive me my melodrama, it's in my history.
Sometimes, I just can't help myself.
I dip a toe in, and stir it up.
Woolly little caterpillar on my finger, you're terribly cute and amusing...
Can't wait to see your wings.

Process.

Just let go.
I know it's just that simple- to just release, "relinquish", give it up.
To not give it more power or meaning than it really has.
To not get wrapped up in a story starring me.
But...
Dark lips move behind smoldering eyes, a puffy white flash smeared in red yawns in slow motion. I taste metal. I still breathe bitter and liquid.
Wild-haired and slack-jawed, I rinse torn skin over and over again in my dreams,
But I cannot seem to wash it away.
And so, I wonder though these images have taken a life and a command their own: if I can learn what I am supposed to learn, simply find the right perspective...
Can they hold me ever less captive in their grasp?

A & R

Wax doll, eyebright no more.
Paper peels away, cherry-red beneath.
Crying wax tears, here, too.
Crumbling where you should be filling.
Chafing and breaking where you should be bouncing.
Another go around, I know.
Wasn't right this time, I am sure.
Reason for everything, yes.
But it's all little comfort.
It all pales in your presence.
Tiny stolen breaths whisper over my shoulder.
Am I there yet?
Take me home?