Category: aging

Lines

Give me a map
and I will trace the lines
of where I have been

A timeline
will communicate
my raison d’être

Report cards
demonstrate the depth
of my conformity

Lines on my face
a testament
to personal efforts

Good girls colour in the lines
and I am no different
waxing orange and green

Wishing to create contours
differentiate self
from the compliance

Essence is fluid
and lines flimsy
and substance seeks
exposure and celebration

And try as I might
the orange of my soul
bleeds into blank spaces

and green of my nature
reaches across divisions
and I shall not succumb

to prescribed limits
and I invite you to do the same
colour with me outside the lines.

(Art my own)

Come Closer

Disregard the obvious –
I know how time has marred me

Disregard the glare –
eyes clouded with cynicism

A fledgling heart beats
within this disheveled nest

Come closer and behold
a childlike yearning for love.

(Come Closer first appeared September, 2022. Image my own)

I See It Now

Commit doubting
Unaware of agendas,
inferiority driven
tainted by dependency

Seeking familiarity –
anxiety in togetherness –
a stranger to pridefulness

Shouldn’t love be comfortable
at least, at the outset?

I am spontaneous,
I tell myself,
rely on Fate’s presence
no need to discern

Might as well send out an invite:
This heart is unlocked;
abuse welcome here!

(Image my creation)

Nightmare

This malaise
this undeniable melancholy
product of isolation…
of an unreliable mind

What shadows awaken me?
a flash of car beams
or something more sinister?

Illness heightens sensitivity
I am set on ‘wired’ –
Internally running,
externally frozen

Sleep will not return
I don bravado
call out the ghosts
“Show yourself!”

Nothing.
Now I am raging –
“Who dares to disrupt slumber
then cowers in corners?”

Shadows grow eyes
and the walls undulate
a figure emerges
self in negative

I cower
pray I am delusional
mirrored self points downward
where floorboards recede

Skeletal remains
fill the earthen pit
nonsensical bones
of immortal pasts

Danger lurking
and I am not immune
the time has come
to submit…

(Image my own)

Dear Dad

I miss your wisdom;
could use some about now,
confidence lacking

Life’s what you make of it,
you’d say, and
You’re doing a good job…

Truth is, I’ve made a lot of mistakes –
call it stubbornness or stupidity-
but I failed to plan, Dad

Not bemoaning life
It’s been really good
and I know you did the same

I’m just tired of doubting my self
Watching the rest of the world
reach their goals and then retire

While I can never tell –
am I doing a good job
am I even appreciated?

Remember the day my marriage died
and I came to you, crumpled
spewing anger, defeated…

And you cried with me
raging on my behalf, said:
Goddamn it, you deserve better than this!

Funny that through all the pain
your walls, my walls
you, alone could see me

Tragic how I only understand that now
death and years separating us –
my need for you still raw.

(Image my own – cut and paste with AI)

Labour

Extract the miracle
from the celebrated

Each story is lifeless
until told – its patterns

Stubborn, are innate –
We all crave renewal

I crave renewal
arms extended
fists unfolded

Believe in will –
the power to breathe life
into inert corners

Does not life support us?
Is not consciousness infinite?
and the divine patient?

Yesterday, I gave up
resigned myself to failure
(It’s a joke I play on myself)

This soul labours to find meaning
and I will breathe life into form
until quitting time finds me cleansed.

(Art my own)