Hardly Just a Name

Names are merely symbols. They are really nothing more than a few letters pushed together so that we may give a title to something we are told is significant. Yet it is the name we all recognize, that word that sparks our acknowledgement of association and puts into perspective its meaning relative to things like it. It works just the same with people. They have names, which we learn, memorize, register in our minds upon the sight of their face. Many shall be forgotten, but some are more important. Their name is forever chiseled into the stone tablet that is our memory. And I say stone tablet not as a generic, insignificant metaphor, but because some things, some people, cannot be forgotten. They stay with us forever, not necessarily in physical form, but very much so in our thoughts. They’ll not be erased, perhaps worn down like the engravings in stone, but never erased. Because they’re more than just a name, and really without anything of substance a name is worthless. It becomes a placeholder of emptiness, a representative of nothing.

We tend to forget that every now and then – that there is a person behind a name. For we begin to categorize and prioritize these names. We enroll them in lists and give them an order based on their usefulness to us or the role they play in our daily lives so that eventually a person becomes a thing. Just a tool to be used when needed. But what happens when that tool is no longer there, yet its name still exists? Then that thing is recognized and taken into consideration for it really is. Sadly, the same can be said about those we know. Consider the teacher you see each day, the source of homework and burden and undesired stress; he is gone. You never realized how funny he was and how enjoyable his class could be. Consider the room next to yours belonging to that pestering sibling you never really paid attention to; it’s now empty. It’s amazing how much they really meant to you.

We have sadly unpersonalized those who we interact with the most out of an unrecognized selfish tendency. It’s no one’s fault, but it is a problem. We have turned the concept of a name into a definition explaining what someone is, while at the same time we’ve totally forgotten who they are. Only you can determine what significance a person has to you, only you can assign them meaning. We must recognize that what is really important, what truly represents something to us, is the person behind their title; their emotion and personality, charisma and individual presence, their strange, goofy nature.

Do not forget that they add something to your life that would be lost without them; do not forget that they are far more than just a name.

With Snakes

To fraternize with garden snakes
It doesn’t take much spine –
One can cross their paths unscathed,
Get bit but end up fine.
See, interest in the garden snakes
Marks fear of the unknown;
She’d rather be with something plain
Than bored and all alone.
So with her little garden snake
She’s sitting while she ponders
Of then and now, what ifs and whys
But then her focus wanders…

What is that frightful creature
Slithering with such tuned finesse?
Why, none other than the cobra
Come in search of its new nest.

Now, to tango with the cobras
Takes a hell ’a lot ’a nerve;
She mustn’t get too close
Because if it decides to swerve
Then she’s caught in the undertow
Of its commanding power.
Her garden snake is useless now,
In fearfulness he cowers.

But she forgot about the garden snake –
The cobra’s much more thrilling.
It is danger in a living form
And she is more than willing
To function off adrenaline
And leave her sense behind.

Why fraternize with garden snakes
When cobras coax your mind?

Second Thoughts

He stared at the gallant glint
Dancing on the rail in a midday sun,
And in reality he'd have appreciated
The sight had he not been on the run.

But he was in no mood for awe
Or even inner, neutral content.
His mind was fixed, rather consumed,
With the months he'd just spent.

A whistle blew from someplace
Down the line, signaling the train.
He glanced around the station,
Thinking it filled with sorrowed pain.

He fitted his hat comfortably on his head
And lifted his suitcase from it's place.
He took on the image of a traveler
Bound by a nagging, nostalgic disgrace.

The train rolled up slowly
And halted with a screech.
The platform came alive with movement
But was dead without speech.

He made his way to the door of the train
Knowing it would not be his last.
And as he entered he stopped himself,
One foot in the future, one in the past.

He took one last dying glance
Across the sullen station.
Why he did it, he had hardly a clue.
Yet there she stood looking at him
And for the first time ever he had
Absolutely no idea what to do.

Our Words

Our words,
Wondering and weaving,
Easy,
Almost like
Silt-stained water.
Urgently choking
Through a twisted hose,
Gasping and heaving,
Stuttering spurts.

We will strip down bare
While winter grips cold,
Holding hands,
And watch
As summer
Slowly
Sets us free.

Rule of Three

First, silence.
Blinded light slips through
Cracks in the window.
Inhale with inspiration,
And allow
Darkness to sweep through
With the midnight haze,
Alone.
Let go.

Now, another,
Though not quite quiet
Wave washes sullen solitude,
Fanning candles of the past,
Sparkling eyes and a hint of a grin.
The world becomes content with two,
An embrace of companionship.

But, the third,
The dirty third,
Snatching still calm,
Consuming night and
Breaking balance.
Sneering and snarling,
While they tremble and cower,
It takes a place amongst them
As they gradually
Become the beast
They always
Despised.

Violins

Violins are reverberating through me, their echoes mark the boundaries of my skin as they shiver through my spine and breathe me in. I am rising and falling to the strings, alas they reach out into my depths and pull out the bittersweet I forget. This corporeal body is turned inside out, no longer bones and skin; curving music arounf my fingers and I am an entity of emotion, or movement, of being.

There are headlights tracing this familiar path and I do not think. I am thought. I am the wind coursing through the trees, swaying branches, falling leaves suspended in the air and twisting in the light. I am the waves swelling in the moonlight, the unseen turbulence and power that will sweep you away into the deep, rippling the stars.

I know where these lines will take me, where they always have, when I smooth down their long spindly arrowed fingertips that point to a box, that I take a sledgehammer to again and again and again.

You can't stop me, no one ever could. This is the breath waiting to be taken, a million wanted words like stars taped silent now bursting through the seams, the horizon of a sun pulling itself up and over the edge of the world, catapulting into brilliance.

I am more, I am.

Decisions, Decisions

There is a flower sat a-bloom

On the table before you,

A beautiful red rose

Spiraling in the subtle sublime,

And you lose yourself in

Its entrancing intricacy.

And my god, your heart's

A-flutter, restless within your chest.

You beg it to silence but it

Refuses your feeble instruction.

Then, as your eye traces the

Peeling petal

'Round its soft edge,

A menacing thorn makes itself

Visible, a sobering reminder

Of Pain's potential.

And thus you are left Mesmerized by a rosy,

Velvet passion's fire,

But hesitant and afraid

To grasp what you so desire.

Unity (Liquid)

deep air vibrations twisting tight
hit-bump boom popping reels
and you know the way you spun
I felt you fierce and twisting too
hip-pounding, shoulders meet
her body beams brightly with her face still
rays wave out stray thumping sway with her
and you know damn well she doesn't dance
you know loud light, heavy piercing pulses
show me how to move
down and down lead me closer now
bring her to the lightning
feel her body (my body) drip, drip, flow
exude light captured in motion
her still face twisting tight in your arms
frozen bright fire, momentary flux
channel, guide, and bend the stream
my body like fiber optics, energy transposed
show her how to move

a friend's advice

he said I should go West alone
bring a knife to ward of wayward suitors
hike canyon walls and pray I never slip and fall

he said youth is the time for mistakes
for learning, for growth
I cracked the dry earth with tremulous uproars
uprooting

the campfire glow would light my face alone
bears drawn to my tent by my menstrual blood trail
would find themselves still hungry
afterward

the sequoia sunset would rattle only an island
of bones
alone, cracking to drink up desert air

Windows

He knows enough to fight me, I can see it in his eyes
I turn away, and think of other things, this time I'll let it slide
But as I'm sitting here pretending it's not obvious I know,
I see him reaching down the rabbit hole for times from long ago
The past is calling, but it doesn't understand that times have changed
All the pieces are the same, but who I am is rearranged
Just like you are, because I know that you back then was not you now
And I'm not sure just when it happened, but I think I can guess how
So you can keep your indignation, and stick to your newer way
And when ill miss you, what I'll miss will be a memory, not today.
But back to him. The lesser problem.
I feel sorry for his shell .
Cuz that's not him; just the persona that he's trying hard to sell
And his hands are in his pockets, and he's smiling when he tries,
But if he wants to hide, then he shouldn't have looked me in the eyes.

Remedy

You have your way, I have mine
But who knows where they're taking us, just hop up on that greyhound bus, and get myself away; no, I'm not here to stay, I'm here to say, that's not today
Tomorrow is another day, but who knows if that's one to dread
I wish that I could sleep for days, avoid the demons in my head
But in my sleep, I see their eyes; I'm fucked up, yes, it's no surprise
Or maybe so: I guess I see
It's obvious you don't know me
But then I know, obviously,
There's more than one that I could be
To you, it may be simple, but
It's deeper than it seems at first
I could be heading for the worst
Of times, the best may be behind
The diamonds in the sky, my mind
Is desperate, it's about to burst
No moment's peace, a devil's curse
Of constant screaming, dawn til dusk:
I need escape, a cure, I must
Keep searching, though it never lasts
The mirror bleeds with shattered glass
And in my head, my senses freeze
I need a dose of something, please
A remedy to cure this numbness,
Tell me, how have I become this
Cold? Of course, it comes with truth,
If this is it, then what's the use
Of feeling anything, a spark
cannot warm up my frozen heart, and I am done, I'll stay on ice. Alone, I'll search for paradise: a destination in my mind, my remedies can help me find a point where I can almost touch, but never reach. A sigh, and such a shame because I'll never leave; my only option is to deceive myself. And chained up in these locks, my mind becomes my paradox.

Homeless Man

Combustion and tension, a rip at the seam
Destruction that rivals the worst of our dreams
The thought that we're different, no, we'll never die!
But mortality grasps in the blink of an eye
Too busy with terror to think about pain
Material shatters; a life, down the drain
The future, the madness, I'm only assuming
Ferments in their minds: a disaster is looming
And with yesterday's fears and today, all this sorrow,
The question is dark: what's in store for tomorrow?