Peak

Looming peaks.
Mountains of my making.
I have to climb.
If not for me, then for those
Who pushed me up this far.
Warmth of inaction fading fast,
I must start the charge.
To survive, you must jump into the jaws.
Sheer walls of terror,
Built on a cliff face of frustration.
Climb over or barrel through,
Letting the bricks bounce off my tense shoulders.
Freezing winds batter my face,
And I begin to lose human feeling.
The way through is a fire.
Choose the right one.
Rage burns, desire fuels.
Motive.
Hope to avoid an avalanche,
Knowing falling is not an option.
Few anchors to pick from.
Drop down and wait out the storm.
This blizzard too shall pass.
The peak, never seen, shines like the sun.
Blinding.
Below the base is nothing,
A bottomless pit of mediocrity.
No guide but God,
No rope but hope,
Thus begins the ascent.

Cold

shiver

Spine tingles.
Feeling spineless.
Curled into self,
Trying to shut out and in.
Fire warms the body, but not the soul.

shudder

Bleak past, present, future.
Unable to create one's own hope.
Limbs and mind sapped of vivacity,
Doomed to a day of inactivity.
Frozen over heart.

smolder

Blame the self, the stranger.
Lashing out.
Shatter the ice and conscience,
Leaving a pool of broken aspiration
Amidst the nervous perspiration.

satiate

Feed mind and body.
Sustenance and human contact.
Enjoy.
Find an equilibrium
In the distractions of a few friends.

serve

Interrupt the dark thoughts
With the light of tasks at hand.
The future waits,
But I cannot.
Work now, wallow later.

surrender

Make my way to the waiting faces.
A care, a concern, all I could ask.
Numbness fading.
Held by the circle, I won't fall yet,
Not while I still feel one warm breath.

A Performance

Gathering storm.
Clouds form in the mind while the stomach churns.
Anxiety, anticipation.
Fret over frets.
Worry over words.
Which one will fail first?
Confidence crumbling,
Staunchness stumbling,
Temper tumbling.
The multitude materializes.
All waiting, watching,
Witnessing my panic.
One before and out I go,
Flanked and frightened.
What am I doing?
I remember.
Voice breaks free like a slave from his shackles,
Losing its chill and embracing the warmth
Of passion and song.
The butterflies escape,
A beautiful relief.
So it begins.
Consternation turns to comfort
As I croon to the crowd.
I strike gold and awe as I combine
Two of the best things I can.
Shouts, whistles, applause.
Striking oil in what felt like a desert not long before.
The room is an oasis,
My thirst for making music assuaged
By the assuring onlooking faces.
Receive nothing but praise,
Hear my prowess proclaimed.
Forget the flubs,
Cast away the concern.
This is what I wanted.

Now, what was I so afraid of?

As Time Turns

Lose track of time.
Waiting for the next,
Whatever it may be.
Inherited promise of an inheritance
Dangles in the future, rooted in the past.
What brought us here?
Lifetimes disappear in the timeline
Of the one life with no line,
Yet like a line, with no ends.
Ex nihilo, kommt Alles.
As we wrack and wreck our brains,
Failing to understand what we understand,
It was all crafted.
Quantum by quantum,
Endless photons forged.
Space, matter, the elements beyond ken.
Understood by one.
Realized.
We fall in the middle,
Wall ourselves off from revelation,
And attempt to crawl back up the mountain we call truth,
Jumping off the cliffs at every opportunity.
Some are pulled up, thrashing, flailing, trying to fall away.
Struggling in vain.
We are anchored to another mountain.
Our fulcrum.
Two beams, perpendicular.
The center of the universe.
One moment in time determines all time,
And we stand in awe.
Our lives, so short, yet so long,
So full of suffering.
We're blind.
Life is so much bigger.
Longer.
Larger.
Slain by the sword, the writ, the ridicule,
Our army stands.
Broken, battered, buried.
We cannot be stopped.
Wars come and go, but the battle rages on,
So we think.
The back of the book is already written,
Though we can't read it from our page.
That end, so perfectly written,
So incomprehensible,
Awaits the end of our misery.
The opposite of our current life is not death.
It is ecstasy.
We seek purpose.
It's already before our eyes,
In front of our hands,
Ripe for the taking.
But we spit on it and go on our way,
So conceited and arrogant.
To believe that we are smarter than anyone else,
Too smart for a love beyond any we could hope for.
Our intellectual brutality dominates society.
We applaud ourselves for enlightenment as we slaughter our progeny,
Aztecs at a government-funded temple.
Human sacrifice for an agenda to rule all mankind.
Blood flows as we tear ourselves to pieces and devour the evil,
Gluttons for damnation.
Celebrating debauchery,
Cursing the light and making love to the darkness,
All the while complaining that we can't see.
Thus the world stands,
Turning, hurtling, burning.
The few,
Those tied to the truth,
Are dragged up along the rocks,
Weeping for equal parts joy and sadness,
While the world spins out of control.

Tired

Sleep. I need sleep.
Consciousness unwanted.
Over breakfast, slowly realize
The extremity of exhaustion.
Forcing myself to participate,
Another class rolls by.
This day needs to end.
Morose midday.
All the wrong thoughts come flooding back.
Lurch through lunch,
Try not to make friends fret.
Nothing's wrong, exactly.
One more class.
Snapping back to reality.
Again.
Again.
Take the quiz.
Is this right?
Who knows?
Turn it in, walk away.
Try to trust myself.
Waiting for one last display,
Fend off frustration and feelings of failure.
Brief break of boring,
But once again I'm dozing.
Finally, the last demand of the day: dinner.
Eat, talk, laugh, distract the self.
Repress regrets.
Day winds down,
So does my head.
Remember that only your mind let you down.
Tomorrow is a new day.
Dare to enjoy it.