Wild, chaotic, run away probabilities coupled
And wound, bound, to the variances of impossibility

Many halls are wider than entire vistas, the walls lost in foggy distances
A few halls have stars wheeling overhead, under a far off roof bathed in night
There is a rumor of a hall containing an entire galaxy, spinning, but
Lies can exist here too, so that is nothing strange unto itself.

Water flows through the walls like life blood, writhing and alive
The constructs of the halls are optional, walls can be ceilings
Floors can be nothing, light can be missing, but dark not found
Glass exists in strange ways, reflecting only when it chooses
To not allow other horrors to pass, to watch, to observe

Dark is prevalent, dark oozes from the corners, it slinks
But it is kind, not evil, not malicious, dark wonders aloud

The halls are my home, the magic originates from here, my mother lives
Within its embrace, sequestered from the normal worlds, eschewed
My father dreams in these halls, fighting dust motes in his madness
Crazy can exist here too, and that is strange when you think about it.

You found me here, wandering in my youth, and you, shocked by my normalcy
My pants were only pants, with two legs, my shirt was tucked behind a belt
Sure, my hair was a bit wild, and I had some dirt on my hands,
But I was a normal guy wandering the Neverhalls, looking for something
You asked what, and I replied that I would know it when I saw it.

I do not say it aloud, but I feel the water seething, it knows
The oceans are challenged, and they do not wish to be controlled.

You were a lost thing, fell through a crack in your world, an absence
Death can do that, I tell you, offering you a bit of a pastrami sandwich
You nearly fainted, thinking you were dead, I assured you the opposite
After all, why would I offer a spirit a sandwich?

You ate both halves of the sandwich, and that was good, you were famished
You tell me your name is Catherine, but your friends call you Kit
Your parents died, and you collapsed into yourself at the funeral
A bench in a garden, secret, under the church gable covered in vines
You leaned against wall that was a hall and have been here for the night

I realize that you are the most beautiful person I have ever met
And the Neverhalls have amplified your uniqueness tenfold

Can you take me home, you ask, looking over your shoulder at the vorcigaunts
I assure you they are quite friendly, even though they look like …that
Birds made of corpses and old books can be offputting, but lovely otherwise
You smile haltingly, and I assure myself its temporary, death has visited her.

I offer my hand to you, here in the hall in which you fell,
A good one though, this at least had running water in the twilight
And the vorcigaunts keep things clean to keep away the predators
You are smarter than you know, hiding beneath their eyries, under shadow
The dark likes you too, I hear it whisper, it thinks you are kind

With the rapid explosive flight of my heartbeat to the roof far above,
You take my hand fleetingly, your touch as light as a deadeye moth

I lift you to your feet, free from the rocks in which you clung
And it is like the Halls is giving birth to you, welcome to the world, Kit
I smile gently, and you return the smile, stronger this time
We should probably take you to my mother, I say, she may be able to help

Will it be far, you ask, stepping lightly over rocks, letter jacket clung tight
Not far, you came much further when you fell into the halls, I laugh
My mom chose to come here, she knows the secret paths to the worlds
She knows how to find the signs, the markers, the doors, avoid guardians
That stand steadfast against the outsides, the reals, the questions answered

Everything beyond the Neverhalls is potential, cusped, wholly realized
There are many realities, and all of them are terrible in their own way

Can I trust you, you ask, tentative perhaps, hesitant for unwanted truth
I think you can, but if you don’t, that is ok too, I will give you space
You can follow me, and if you don’t feel safe, you can come back here
You know this place is safe, right? The vorciguants will protect you

The dark whispers that it will help her too, I feel it in my bones
Ok, you say proudly, loudly, and your voice rings against the rocks, let’s go
I grin stupidly at your innocent bravado, and you chuckle in turn
Truly, I mean it, you say, I think we should go, the birds may be nice
But I rather not find out the hard way, and where do the babies come from?

Born from fallen books, the ones thrown from ledges and library shelves
The knowledge within given birth to sentience, pulling life from death in turn

Instead I say that someday I would explain, but for now, let’s start walking
I walk ahead of you, and you follow, I whistle lightly, spreading my hands
Out from my sides, my arms stretched widely like a scarecrow, I call the leonids
What are you doing, you ask, your eyes questioning every decision yet

Calling some friends to light our way, like lightning bugs that you know
Here they come, I announce, and small stars pop into being around us
Their light is red and gentle, suffusing the air like the soft breath of promises
What are they, you ask breathlessly, amazed at their silent arrival
Leonids, red giant stars that decided they rather be small, I reply

How absurd, you reply, shaking your hair out, taking a few quick steps
You move up to my side, and put your arm in mine, surprisingly

They are quite lovely, you say, I notice the corner of your mouth go up
Its a quirk of your smile that I will treasure forever, the curve
It is there when you are mad, it is there when you are being sarcastic
It is quite lovely, I agree, talking about something else altogether

My mother’s house is in the Hall of the Shattered Elm, you will love it
As we walk under a twilight, red warm light showing us the way

There are lies here, the dreams of yore
The dreams of your parents, grand,
Their parents, unbelievable and great,
But to the wastrels of the embers
At the crest of the pit, are our children

So enamored with their reflection
Narcissus would be envious of such
Folly to be had at the hands, laid
On the devices that promised wealth
Knowledge, vast and unrestrained

Corrupted by the wealth of those afraid
To be lined against the wall of their
Entitled, notarized consequences, sat
Shat on the children of those come after
And for what? More indeterminate wealth?
More cock? More pleasure? More rape
Of the those that cannot stand or push?
Such losses have they carried, such horrors
They have endured, only to suffer at the wheel
Of a world that does not suffer the weak

The weak always are, until they aren’t

Those beasts tolerate the hypocrisy of a mirror
Reflecting the envisage of Lovecraftian horror
Dressed in the latest Prada and Gucci
This season is so last season, already
Nevermind the bodies, they shall pile nicely

What of the disassociated of us?
What shall we say to them? Rise up
Against the systems to which you slave?
How would they feed on at the trough
Of loss and value capture among the masses

No, those flames do not burn at the glass
They reside deep within all of us, ignored
We pity those who hope, for we know
We have seen their losses, a study, a narrative
That is distilled through money, filtered

And yet, we hold out hope, that the world
Is salvageable, saved from the ignorant smart rich
And the less reliable rich smart ones that lord
Over us serfs, scrabbled in the hard packed earth
Fighting over seeds the terrible have deigned
To spread over our yellowed scrabble
Will we bounce back against these captors?
Can we find their pencil necks among the chains
Or will we throttle the babies first
And pray for absolution in the utter silence beyond?

History is poetry, it turns like a good limerick

That woman from Nantucket, whom
Gives good head with a bucket
Only to feed her kids, since the third job
Laid her off due to cost measures
The owner needed a third boat

I hoped once for a new world, without
The blood and death of revolution
But older now, to dwell on childhood dreams
Is to eat candy without the sugar
And now the wall awaits its rich blooms

Like a painter of abstraction, absurd
The billionaires will bleed gold
Line them up first, to set the highlights
Then the oldest wealth next,
They will black and red the rest

Can we survive an empire fallen, asunder
It dies by degrees, small choices and folly
The seas rise, the coasts subsume, and the poor
Fight along themselves, never blaming the oligarchs
They sit on their ivory, isolated from the peasants
They argue over the next million they shall burn
And the limerick gains speed to its conclusion
The revolution simmers beneath our fires
It waits patiently, standing guard of the corpse
Of a country ready to eat itself in its discontent

Bloodless revolution is change without impact.

I thought learning that I know nothing was a milestone
But it was only the first gate that allowed entry
The alarms blared, the siren screaming profoundly
As if to announce that such things are a rite of passage
How did I know then that it was not such a thing
To realize, to grasp, to touch the face of the truth
That few reach the gate intact, or pass through
Unscathed, without mar or burn, because I am privileged
I did not know hunger, or loss, or the lack to move
Beyond my means or resources, did I ever struggle
So now that struggle knocks, and I heave my chest
And find that it is insurmountable

It is a question that hangs behind me, against the wall
Touching my shoulder gently, reverently informing
This is fear, my friend, this is edge of darkness
Depression is two doors that way, and happiness
An illusion, masterfully crafted encouragement
Propagations of a lie, a promise made of opportunities
They did not exist, no more for my role models
Than for myself, and yet, it lived, crawling forward
Zombie-like, shuffling with groans and grunts
Tapping on windows of chance and luck, smearing
A face that is my own, for I have seen it before
But now, it is graying, fallible

Am I on a precipice without awareness it lies below
Do I walk on the edge of a ledge unknowingly
Is there an actual truth to be rooted out, seen
Touched and admired, brushed free of the detritus
The remnants of forgetfulness, of something sinister
Such things plague the world, death and fear, hate
Hope is failing now, in the twilight of the empire
For the emperor has no clothes, insists they are fine
Everything is fine, fine, everything is fine
Lies are not fine, injustice is not fine
Does anyone care that the squalor is accepted now
We wallow, and that is the dream

Relevance is a funny thing from a throne
I see not what is outside my throne room
For my castle’s walls are held up by belief
Self soothing rationalization with stones of lies
That zombie of self reflection is meant to be there
It is a servant, it cannot be discarded,
That fear it will always shamble towards the shadow
To sit on the chest, and squeeze sorrow from your eyes
Lemons and limes, sour fruit that hangs strangely there
But as long as we are able to lie enough
Psychotic will to persevere, to challenge all
Is fraught with self loathing that truth lies

Such things are dangerous toys, arsenals of ideas
An RPG that carries intractable, unresolvable thought
A grenade of blame and c4 plasticity of truth
These things will blow up in our collective faces
Truth is not subjective or personal, truth it universal
A life cannot matter if at any stage it does not matter
Ultimate belief is a prison to be coddled by
Held within, not to question yourself in the echo chamber
Because being hyperaware of those that suffer more
Only shines a light of discomfort upon ourselves
So we lie, we shutter the windows, against our family
Our society, our neighborhoods, and call it freedom

Every generation that has come to the problem
Has pushed it forward by a single horst cart, only
To have it roll backwards across their ankles
Snapping and tearing, and revealing nothing changed
The people are harvested, a resource to be leveraged
And cruelty, mindless and wanton, seeps from our leaders
Infects our people, makes them sick and tired of everything
Did not the tablet decry to give us your sick, your tired,
Your huddled masses? Here they are, huddling from violence
To wear a rifle is to be a patriot, but to wear a mask a victim
The victim is the ideal of who we should be, aspiring
Not woke, but self aware, seeking the ultimate truth

Self reflection that I am a lie, built over decades
Scares me to my core, it hollows me out to show rot
These dark things are not age spots, it is failure
Relevance to the greater ideal, of what we should be
Of who we should be, of what we should strive to be
Am I capable of the ideal? Will I ever fall long instead
Of short, of poorly measured, not found wanting,
To be the best version of ourselves, screaming not in anger
But in robust, raw, turbulent joy of each other
When was the last time we sought to embrace the fearstrikers
The odd, the misfit, the opposite, the others of ourselves
Am I capable to reach across to others that I fear

Death comes for all of us, some hidden beneath our sheets
Some standing before something they are afraid of
Some beaten down for believing in the ideal before them
Some cowering, unconscious, more spaghetti than man
Spread across a room of beeping machines and stale air
We are not meant to do it alone, our spirits are wired
To connect to others, to greaters, to the sky, the stone, the sea
The crash of the ocean, the bird calls, the sound of wind
The trees breathing around us, calling to our spirits
Threads, woven and intersecting, gold and silver
To the heavens, where the gaps in our spirits are filled
Because we should be relevant to each other

I am relevant to you, as you to another, to me
Is this a secret to be shared, some vast truth unspoken
This is the truth, for untouched it remains untarnished
And the lies are what we stack upon it, futilely
Because it is fucking easier, isn’t that righteous
We cross our hearts, and say our prayers, and fucking lie
To who? To ourselves? Yes. To our children? Yes.
And for what? Some short term pleasure that removes the pain
To know that we are in this together, but individuals
Believe that we are better off, trekking the waist deep snow alone
The right thing is obvious, and it is not the individual
The lie is to ourselves without measure

We lie fallow alone

I remember the me in high school
An idiot by every measure, there is no shortage
Of those measures, long and short, near and far
I failed in everything in some way, but no one
Would tell me or I failed at the listening
I feel like iconic defining moments may have
Been wasted away, like a tree without sun
It is there, but it provides shade to nothing
Except its withered core, hidden deep within
My heart was never open, my empathy never came
I was a shell of the person I could have been
And I have had to fake it ever since
Do people realize that I am a robot?
Does it ever occur to them that it is a ruse?
A lie to push others away and hide my pilot
a terribly frightened child. Cowering.

The me that should have been could still be
But to push at those boundaries of concrete
Require strength I cannot muster or request
The person that is eager to form cannot
Because of the shell that now contains it
We all are constrained by the choices we make
Acted upon by forces that may be labeled
Sometimes not. They are insidiously invisible
Hunting in the dark, in the light
Through systems or culture, assumptive asinine
Dangerous creatures of wilds explored
Those other versions of myself are victims
Themselves, brutalized by necessity
Or mismanaged by circumstance to an unequal end
That now cannot be counted or measured to
a standard unfair. Unchosen.

Those other versions weep in the dark
Huddled and scared, feeling for the hope that
Should exist and be prevalent in all things
Is this the limits of my person? This?
What I am will never be more than a crude
Imitation of a human adult, misshapen and folded
Upon itself, a unknown galaxy of time
Shuddering in its own dark blanket as
Whisps of the eddies of the distant stars
Buffer each other in the long empty above
Pulled into the dark above my bed
Pushing at the corners of my room, expansive
Such moments are exquisite of themselves
A time to marvel at the majesty of everything
That could be, that should be, that layers
a finite possibility. To change.

To change the shape of me.

As of late, I am struggling with hope
As I know we all are, our people
Cowing to the lowest, accepting trash
Eugenics are frowned upon, racism is
Undeniable sin, we are capable of rational
Thought, wrapping us, binding us up
I posit that souls from heaven lined
We do not decide our birthright or family
But society should value the new souls
See the gold, from the silver, from bronze
Outside of circumstance, skin, economics
I ask the impossible, demand it wholly
With reverence?

As of late, I am struggling with hope
As I see that you are, yourself
Looking for purpose among services
Seeking value among things without such
Measure, and you look upwards, hoping
A plan exists, and all is inevitable
But we were not allowed this existence
With the shallow plan of death on earth
Such cowardice! Such idiocy! Such
Unbelief, in what the possibility is
Don’t you see it now? The incredible
Do not be incredulous, do not
Doubt us?

As of late, we should not struggle hope
Downwards into the dirt where we wallow
She is beautiful, timeless, and whole
No matter what evils we may attempt to
Assign or attribute, we do not gain
In the assignation of poor labels
She is a brilliant glorious goddess
And our duty is to look to her light
It is said, Hope Springs Eternal
But I argue that Hope springs within
From all of us, it is humanity
Our nature to strive, overcome
No question.

This place is not our own, it is borrowed
Earth surrounds us and we declared ourselves
Masters and owners and drivers and destructors
But no thing such as that can be owned by man
Our ancestors knew, they intuitively understood
That holy places do not fall under deeds
Nor are they contained in writ or word of law
Except to except them from such things
No treasure this great can be owned by man
Tetons laugh in their ancient grinding tongue
As their arms spread wide to the universe
Wheeling above them in matching grand majesty
We pave roads, we build lodges, we find paths
But all of it is temporary, an itch, a fever
That the earth must endure, but will surpass
We are nothing but witnesses to their glory.

The lift is heavier for my children
Than it should have been for my myself
Than it could have been for my parents
I saw an article from 1900 saying coal
Could end this civilization, and even then
What? Apathy? Dismissal and scoffs?
Men in walnut paneled rooms not caring
For a future they would never see
For an impossible possibility ignored
They carried on, pushed further
For human progress was the greater goal
Could they know that there is no other
There is not another step, there is
Nothing beyond the edges, around corners
This is all there will ever be
And the mountains shall not mourn our passing.

Now, forests burn uncontrolled world-round
The darkness is encroaching on us now
Pushing further on, embittering us to a future
That no one wants but few stand against
Deniers and apotheosis of ignorance
Elevating opinion to beyond science
They revel in their misinformation
Finding destruction preferred to acceptance
Resolute in their mud prisons of idiocy
They wallow in their filth of usage
Discarding trash unrecoverable, surmountable
Eating acres of flesh in their desire
For comfort and fulfillment within, bottomless
They are depths of pits without end
And we all carry the cross which we will hang
How will this not lead to the end?

Such questions are fraught with uncertainty
Such concerns are shot through with fear
But what are we, not improbable creatures
To pull ourselves from the soup
From the impossible aims of dumb evolution
From the mired counter of human driven
Pressures of hate and tribalism, unbound
Yet we gather, we sing, we alight
To a shared human experience, inescapable
We are the same at our cores, in our hearts
We love, we care, we share along our tables
We must surpass our tribes and banners
We shall cast our flags to the fires
We must forget our mirrors and remove
Our own that create such prejudice and division
We must incrementally craft hope within.

We must find ourselves again, hidden now
Our natures are here, among us all, our hands
Need to feel the earth again, we must touch
Like an eager lover, full of anticipation
The turn of the dark soil under our blackened
Fingernails, and we must fill our neighbor’s
Bowls, ensuring they can eat with us
That we can serve them our labors and loves
And they can care for us when we struggle
We must find the sparks of hope within
Pull them from the husk covered shells
Breathe upon them shallowly, give them breath
And speak to them of love, unbound
Agape of the soil, of our neighbor, ourselves
We isolate the sparks, blowing into fires
And bring our hope brilliantly into the future.

Will the mountain care for such things?
Will it speak of us in its ancient language
As the planet continues onwards its journey
Interminable, hurtling billions of miles forward
But our children and their children can
See all of this, and marvel upon the glories
That we managed not to destroy and remove
They can stand upon this clearing
They will take this sight and internalize it
Weeping at the glory discovered
The sight now fulfilled and brought home
To share with their hope filled friends
Their loves and their passions
Apart of this earth, hands feeling warmth
Of stone and soil, sun and stars
All of them, made ours, true progress found.

I look back, cringing in horror
Will upon my review of my current self
Shrink into the grave unbidden
Wary to relieve myself ostentatiously
Pretentious, my own corpse shrugs
Such things are left to my children
To make that face, the squished eyebrows
And curled nose, over a filled diaper
Invisible threads of disaster, present

To think I called it poetry, verse, rhyme
Time machines were invented to kill ourselves
Mercifully

I sat across a table today from a young man
He is brash to rough, and bold as brass
Wondering where his earned dues are from all
As if he is God's gift, expecting reward
Hand outstretched, placatingly seeking nothing
Nothing that I can provide, evaporating
Glances, furtive eye contact, desperation stinks
It is in my nose, I can feel it on my skin
He got it all over me, and showering fails

But my time machine of my inner mind 
Fired up, the time rods shifted upwards
Humming, thrumming, turning about, thrusting upon
And I found myself, there… on the other side
A young man, a rock star, god's very own gift
Blessed upon the earth with aplomb and gusto
Circumstance for pomp and praises trumpeted
Aloud, that is where I was, deserving
Palms wide to outstretched, expecting gifts

To think I was him once, the verve, the noise
I spent twenty years to abandon him
Thankfully

Grace is the gift of the elder, given graciously
Wisdom is the curse to know it takes precedence
Over anything else.  Kindness matters, once
But in these things, I am certain most soundly
No emergency flare will light, no alarm will sound
Canaries might die in their cages at the mines
But the messenger will not notice their passing
They will only notice danger when it is bare
Present, bearing its teeth eagerly

Who was I all those years ago? 
This very question prompts me to think 
Of the moments spread in morning to night
I am what I have pretended the longest
Conning even myself with some actual progress
That kid, man. That kid, he scares me
Writing poetry on beat nights, caffeinated 
Being miserable without license and fee
Carrying a mountain of self invented shit

Life is nothing but irony illustrated
Truth laid bare, barren, exposed and shirking 
Unforgivably

As you walk down the aisle, the lights reaching only the spines

Eyes flickering up and down, back and forth, looking for something

A special thing, a hidden thing, a thing that belies its existence

Tells of it from far away, a spoken whisper of a secret carried by the wind

The scent of a loaded cast iron skillet humming away on its stove

Sizzling, the popping, the hiss, aromatics being carried to every corner

The knowledge is floating on the wind, the words, the secrets, the power

It caresses your cheek, as your four fingers brush the shelves as you walk

The smells of paper and parchment, leather and string, folded press works

Between it all the effervescence of the new thing, the strange thing

The book that hides its secret, sitting on a shelf unreachable

Its binding is black, with no letters, no marker, plain and simple

True knowledge is plain and simple.  It requires no magic of its own

It is built upon the things that came before it, the shoulders and shelves

Of other works and other obvious things that required only understanding

This black book is such a thing, risen above your shoulders, riding a precipice

Astride the gulf of learning, one foot planted in ignorance, the other, more

Questions waiting to be asked, and felt, and explored to other questions

Somehow, you manage to climb the shelves, starting with a simple stool below

And relieve the black book from its wary sleepy sisters and brothers

A fine coating of dust slipping from its compressed pages, the silt of time

And books that came before, explorers alone, looking for their new secrets

You flip open the hard earned prize, and find the words you felt reaching 

Out to you, they are open to you, they are yours for the taking

Experience begets satisfaction, then it delivers momentary relief

Like an insatiable lover that can never be truly pleased, the need is 

All consuming, and pushes relentlessly for more, for more, for more 

The exploration of this new knowledge blossoms within and starts to consume

It brings sadness, it brings guilt, its own presents that were not obvious

Or expected, but that does not make anything less real for the recipient 

Hands are shaking, pupils pin point like an opioid addict ignoring the pain 

This new experience is not what you wanted, but yet it is, this dichotomy

Of split facades between what was and what is and what shouldn't be

The burden of your new knowledge is not the insight you sought, you craved

It is not the release you were looking for, or the answer you needed

Instead it is all the things you wanted to avoid in the first place by looking

Irony in the forbidden knowledge as it suffuses your person and shifts

Your views, shattering in slow motion, cascading like a waterfall of reflections

Inferred, but not seen, observed, but not measured, taken, yet let loose

This terrible curse rides your shoulders now, a jockey on your neck, slapping

A crop against your cheek, jeering and kicking heels, waiting for movement

As you stand there, riven, paralyzed by the wisdom that you should not have looked

The audacity of the seeking is rewarded by the damning of your past self

You now know that the future self is tainted by the currency of the moment

Your mind trading information with it's own states in perpetual shame and fear

The whisper of the books is taken from you, the smells fade towards the light

And you still remain, the fingers clutching the edges of the black book

The stages of grief becoming all the more real by the moment, acceptance 

It is yours now.  This thing.  This thing you wanted and sought so dearly for

This bit of madness wrapped in plastic, shrouded like a corpse of something

Desired and rejected, lusted for and replaced, desperately sought and never

Forgotten, will it ever be?  It cannot, since it is now know, it is in the light

The kings and queens look upon thee, and weigh, measure, and have found wanting

This is the dark fear, the deep one, the one that compels to all action

It pushes on you still, a fire behind and below, the pinch of the pitchforks

The steam, guttural and pitching, upwards as the pressure increases

The scream touches off, the whistle of the engine announcing its birth, its 

Presence in and of itself, the dangers of the fire contained within, maelstrom

Rage is there, yes, Fear is there, undoubtedly, the dangers of this simple

Thing is not simple, it is not measurable, but it will crush you under itself

You hoped for something else this time, something different, but it does not

Change like the seasons, or like the tide, or like a temporary event, it is 

Now, present, here and now, but behind like your solemn chanting footsteps 

And before you, a lit path of stumbling rocks and hidden holes, evergreens

On either side, encompassing you, the dark of the trees, their whispered secrets

And this is your library, these are your shelves, and they judge not

Everything is temporary.  Even this.  Even now.  Everything is forgotten.

You scream, you fight, it matters not.  You rage against the dying of the light

But this matters only to the shadows waiting to build encompassing dark

And then something extraordinary happens, like the moment a black hole is born

Out of nothing, something, a raging inferno of energy, a fount unlimited

Hope becomes, Hope builds, and Hope exists because everything is temporary.

Are we not only observation machines?  A result of stimuli alone?

We are born, a machine without language, only biological imperatives

Systems relaying signals along nervous pathways to a simple box

The box converts noise to more noise, as the baby raises its voice

A mother comes running, stimuli causing milk to drop, concern to form

Worry written across a face that has seen programming from parents before

Through ancient timelines from the beginning and the world around

Nature versus nurture is the argument, the discourse obvious to the seasoned mind

Well of course, well of course, harrumph, harrumph, stimuli ergo response

But we are not just this crude thing of a black box that motivates itself

We are not only a miracle of adaptive self programming and outcomes of billions

Of years of adaptive biological replication and matter billions

Of years old, built in the forges of Gods in nebula billions

Of miles across, flying outwards ever further to a lonely hot rocky planet.

We are all these things, but yet, to linger on the disparity lying in plain view

We are not, there is something else to observe, to understand

We are more, each of us feels the strange contradiction within our core

We are both the Universe observing itself, and at the same time, we are our own

A microcosm of uniqueness, that cannot be reduced down

Humanity cannot be reductive, it is accretive in nature, wholly bound to reality

Yet simultaneously, we are a part of it and apart from it

Does the flake observe it's mother sky as it falls from her upcycling embraces?  

Does the microcosm of fractal growth see itself from the storm of its nebula-born sisters?

We are both the line and the force, we follow and we create

Our paths are both at once birthed and yet already existing

We follow the lines of force around us, as they exert their stimuli

And we counter or accept, we twist or we break, we choose a happy heart

Or we melt away, to be ignored and never missed upon our deconstruction.

Touch.  Hope.  Realization.   Each of us carries the forces within

Each of us follows these lines of force, and we can be thoughtful as we run

We can touch the arms of those around us, the faces, the interfaces

Of unique souls bound in matter, to each of us, the singular

We can each hope for a place better than we found it, acting in our belief

To guide each other ever forward, to improvement of all, the many

And we can carry realization of our self that is not alone in the universe

Finding others by their hands and their faces, witness their voices

Calling each other across the skies as we fall, as we alight where we land

Reaching for our sisters and brothers as they land before or after

The forces are our own, are they not?

The lines we follow our own, are they not?

Each of us must make the imperative choice to be in control of both

We are only truly acted upon by our self, ourselves collectively the inevitable response.

I had a recurring nightmare growing up
A sphere that was a square, formed of pick up sticks
Hundreds at first glance, no thousands, no millions
More than all the grains of sand in the world
Each stick, each rod was unique, it had its place
Each rod had a function, each function made the shape
The shape was a sphere, but it was also a square
For in the completeness of how it should be
It was something else entirely
I did not know it then, but I know now
I was viewing my consciousness from outside of it
Why was it a nightmare then?
Viewing my own mind, its strange duality
Alien to the very shape of itself
The rods would shift constantly, moving without stop
Some would fall out of place
I would have to push them back
More would fall fall of place
I would have to push them back
Hundreds, thousands, millions
I could not keep up with the
nightmare

My consciousness was broken, fractured
Parts of myself were flung outwards
They attached to strange things, odd things
I was a human, a monster, a super hero, a robot
yet
I was none of these things
I was not formed to be what I needed to be
I was broken and not even a human then
I did not know that, not yet
not yet
My nightmare, my consciousness, moment to moment
I have learned to shape in my own way
Turning this broken thing into something almost human
And it is who I am now
yet

I am only a chain of memory