The edge

Inching towards the precipice
It's not the cliff that frightens
Or the idea of falling.
It's neither plummet
Nor unknown below.
It's not even the thought
Of hitting rock bottom.
...
It's departing the current plateau

Even if you think a million times a thing is going to happen, you are never truly prepared for what the experience of it will be like when it actually does.

Held

Delicate as a fine crystal glass
That shatters beneath the slightest grip
Yet slices into the flesh of your hand
Spilling the red from within.

Until

On wilted wings of gossamer strings,
May we still set flight?

With mast that bends in fading winds,
Dare we sail this night?

As daylight pales and vision fails,
What's to spur us on?

When all goes dark and absent mark,
Peer we t'wards the dawn?

If storms befall our straining gall,
How so shall we cope?

And lain adrift in sightless mist,
Can we yet stir hope?

Then at first light, in harrowed plight,
Will boldness hoist the main?

As morn' creeps on and will is gone,
Might we start again?

Soledad

Forward to the Past

Here's my thought for "Back to the Future" Day such that it is:
I sometimes feel born either 100 years too soon or 100 too late.

Rachmaninoff

Piano Concerto #2
As soon as those famous first chords are struck, I am taken back...
Sitting in my condo, two cats at my side listening to classical music.
And now, nearly 23 years later, here I sit again.
The first movement resonates as it always stirred feelings of "longing" and "enduring."
However, that sense of hope I used to hear in the second seems just an echo right now.
The third, I'm not really quite sure where it takes me at this moment.

Dive

You can only swim beneath the waves for so long.
Eventually, you must come up for air and learn to ride the surf.

Duolingo

Sometimes my Spanish training site comes up with sentences that are a bit too close to home.

"Estos días son difíciles"

Music

Sometimes it's seems too much. Of a good thing? Not sure. Perhaps simply so in tune (sorry) with those emotions bubbling just below the surface that, amplified by the waves of beautiful sound, they boil over and you find yourself sitting on the kitchen floor.

All

When wine, water withers to,
Numbness naught will hold.
And all the pain that you eschew
Cannot but help unfold.

That inner world in which you live,
So much held at bay.
It's flood doors bend before they give
And all is swept away.

As tides rush in and out again,
Will you heed their tow?
See all emotions wax and wane
When still, they fail to grow?

So all may come, and all will pass.
That, you cannot fake.
When all begins to fade at last,
Which road will you take?

'Tis it?

"'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

Since these two states are mutually exclusive how would anyone ever test such a proposition?

Random thought #327

What difference is there between

whispering to oneself in a crowded room

and screaming into a void?

Is there any meaningful distinction between
hoping someone there would hear you and
wishing someone was there who would?

Yet and still

Always these perplex me
Still...yet...
Yet, still.
A turn of phrase
A shade of speech
One in waiting
The other wanting

Right

Open the gate
Lower the bridge
Let the flood in

Draw a deep breath
Tread then the waters
Refuse to give in

Fight the good battle
Hold fast your solace
Let them cry "sin"

Then...

Silence the noise
Pause for what's right
Savor the win!

Walls

We all build our walls
To protect us from those things we find most hurtful
But walls are isolating constructs
Great imaginings may be conjured within their presumed security
So we push them ever further out around us
Yet the more they obscure, the less we perceive and the more that we fear
Until one day, the thought occurs that perhaps...

The walls are not expanding outwards.

We are shrinking inwards.

Grief

Grief is like an anchor that fixes you firmly in place.
If you are very "strong" you may continue along,
   dragging it behind,
      scarcely aware the damage it's doing.

Eventually, though, you will need to reel it in.

Of course, you can always attempt to simply "cut the line,"
Untether yourself and leave it behind.
But, the time will come when you realize that
The great weight held within that anchor will be needed again. 

Healing time

Time does not heal all wounds.
For some it does nothing at all.
Instead, they seem only to grow deeper.
They may scar over,
Masking their depth from other's view.
But, beneath the surface...
they continue digging, ever closer to the core.

Still unstill

I've long accepted that my mind will forever be restless, wandering...unstill.
Yet, stagnation has always been my biggest nemesis, my greatest fear.
To a mind in constant motion stagnation means running in circles.
Action becomes its own focus, distracting from the fact that motion is not progress.
Until, eventually, the reality dawns that I am no further along a path than from whence I started.
Aware of this trap, I can, of course, direct my mental wanderings towards some meaningful journey.
But, still, the question remains...

Will I ever follow them?

Gone

Weeping words fall from fast fainting fingers, find
False feelings waning, weathered and wasted.
The last lingering laughter of a long languished love
Withers while waiting, wishing what was.

Nuvole Bianche

Tonight's heartache brought to you by Ludovico Einaudi and Alessia Tondo

Zane

For twenty years, you were my constant companion, my confidant, my conscience: my best friend and more. Your light has gone out in this world and as it was so often the spark that inspired others to shine a bit brighter, the universe now seems a little more dim. May all those you touched find within your memory the motivation to reignite it and become what you always saw: "the best within us."

You will forever illuminate my heart.

"Joy is one's fuel"