Malaise

Loathe to do what needs to be done
Mired
What is it about "shoulds"
Even those you really don't mind doing
That seem insurmountable mountains
When you're lounging at the bottom
Without a sherpa

Instructions En Pointe

i must tiptoe around it and never speak of it aloud

this providential mistaken identity which has landed on me

hush my celebrations

- if the powers should notice

someone might change their mind

and return me to my normal programming

i must never disregard it or take it for granted

never stop being grateful in my heart

because of course it can't last forever

i’ll let it glow through me

but dust off the sparkles if anyone looks too closely

any attention may bring unwanted scrutiny

it’s so obviously undeserved

i must revel in it quietly

bathe it in til the bubbles burst

luck this beautiful should be savored

and before someone realizes they gave it to the wrong person

i'll happily relish it - in secret, and on tiptoe

Away & Back

It's beautiful here in so many ways
the lightning shocks the sky in electric waves
and you can drink the air like warm tea

Away from the pressure of years of sameness
away from hundreds of people with a firm idea of who I am
there’s a freedom here I can’t get in my hometown

But after just a few days, I miss that life
The texture of the silence is less satisfying here
the sky is too big and the trees are too round

Former irritations become nostalgic in the traveler-mind
My unkempt backyard and domestic chores,
even work demands take on a rosy retrospect halo.

There I chafe at the pigeonhole I feel shrinking in around me year-by-year
Here I miss how well my real life “knows” me
and envelopes me like a comfortable protective second-skin.

My wife sends me a text message to “stay in the moment.”
She means it as a reminder to pay attention to schedules and directions.
In a wider context, it’s a good manifesto for the rest of my life.

I should bottle the freedom I feel here
and apply it every morning like perfume
enjoy the things I love (and at least be present for the things I don’t.)

I’ll remember to be anyone I want to be despite what’s expected
I will breathe in the silence and breathe out the craving
to get away to somewhere "new"

when whereever I am can feel new at anytime
if I just determine it to be.
I’ll remember how lucky I am to BE at all.

I’ll be glad to get back home,
but for now I’m content to be
-right here- too.

I Ate the World

I ate the World today.
Not really a binge - I justify -
because I didn’t eat a lot of any one continent.
But I surrendered to an anonymous fickle hunger;
blind-folded and willing taste-tester of planets.

I ate like an empty person
trying to fill up
not sure exactly where the leak was
but certain I could stuff it up with pistachios
if I ate them quickly enough to bind.

I ate like a person trying to cover up a tattoo
smearing on denial like makeup
pretending no one could see how deeply my skin is scored
by years of shell-building
and other ill-considered cheese grater decisions.

I ate like the act could change reality -
like each bite could be basted into my cloak of invisibility
over the atrophied limbs of my creativity
wasted from spending too many years strapped in a chair
where the main challenge given me
is juggling seventy-two-thousand dusty details
without letting anyone see my arms move.

I ate the Whole World today
(and drank some of it too.)
I didn’t do it in a cloud of self-doubt and reproach,
but in a probing, searching, grasping way.
In a hungry-for-something-if-only-I-could-identify-it way.
In a way I thought was behind me and evidently isn't.
I still can’t regret, it even so.

Yes, I ate it all.
But as I recall each vacant crunchy sweet salty mouthful,
I see how far I’ve come from the unexamined appetites of my past
that blindly accepted calories over real nourishment
and concealment over bravery
and I find I’m a step further than I was yesterday
from the World eating Me.

Coming Out of the Compliance Closet

Oh, people pleaser,

steeped in false humility

gagged, obstructed, stifled, dammed

choked silent by overlings

who want you only so good

but never better

than their apparent

superior strain.

How can you lay there

whored to mediocrity

wasting your luster

patina peeling, rusting

hiding your glimmer.

The time will come when you’re forced

to throw off the yoke

seize reality

declare your godhood

at last, to shine true.

None of your excuses then

-your child self wasn’t nurtured-

-they won’t love you authentic-

-you do what you have to do-

None of that holds sway

when framed in the light

of your last sunset,

you find that being YOURSELF

was the real purpose

and you sold out to avoid

making any waves.

Flow

the words are flowing again
not in straight lines; never in straight lines
i struggle to get in the habit of catching them...
they're cottonwood fluff balls
wafting by on hot summer days
i try to snatch them out of the air
like mr miagi with his chopsticks