Differential

I’m left to sleep wide awake

And instinctively breathe all alone

In a construct that owns my name

Determined to steal my memories

But I won’t let go- so easily

Like a martyr I’ve made my stand

Determined to outlast as an outcast

I dream of our time in Sunshine’s past

Reliving every moment once again

Inhaling and smiling for a few moments

Until the horizon becomes dark again

I hold you close forever in my heart

Whispering your name in every thought

I love you too much… to ever let go

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Applicable

I will not feel tiny any further

By people or things tinier than I am

I will be shamed no more

Nor for the unwarranted scars I wear

Inflicted by mistrusted others

That failed at both integrity and love

And I’ll not hide away myself

So, my abusers feel more comfortable

I am who I am and then some

For better or worse- affirmed or not

I’ll not claim myself perfect in any way

Except I’m perfectly happy being me

I am friend or foe of your choosing

In tandem with a gentle whisper…or tsunami

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Microseconds

Unexpectedly in the wee of twilight hours

As if I’d been summoned mysteriously

I dress and head out in darkness to watch

Clouds of fog tumble over mountain summits

My naked vulnerability lends me no comfort

With only the moon and stars to escort me

Just enough lunar light to see it all happen

Before Dawn reinvigorates life with her colors

And after morning has begun its full bloom

I head backwardly in a subdued sense of silence

A kind of silence that quietly sits next to you

If for no other reason than to deny loneliness

A place to park and overstay its welcome

At times my life feels stale and… uninviting

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Gradients

“Sometimes” is a word we often misuse

At times we have answers for questions

When we don’t, we substitute it for truth

To seem illuminated and protect our ego

Pretending we reside in black and whites

When in truth, we live in shades of greys

And anxious about things we don’t know

“Sometimes” might be some of our times

We’ll spend avoiding reality or ourselves

Lost inside an unfamiliar shadow of grey

Looking for answers we may never find

Or longing for someone that’s never existed

“Sometimes” someone existed for a time

As some of our times…define a life lived

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Unexpectation

Sirens off in the distance

Moonlight in the silence

Here I sit alone on a cold bench

Watching snowflakes slowly falling

And all I can really think of

Is the last time we held each other close

Inside I was trying not to break

But I begged you to let me go

And you did and in silence I broke

I never believed it would be

Our last time in person

For you and I or hope

Thinking everything would turn out right

But it didn’t and I’m left…forever broken

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Venerated

We all slip into muddy puddles now and then

Some of us will worry the most about

How we’re seen or miscalculated judgments

While others of us will carry on like children

Paying little mind to what will wash out later

Caught up in our shared moments of laughter

I’ve learned that the apocryphal of others

Is of little or no concern to me or my truth

Bearing in mind that perceptions are snip-its

In life’s untimely captures that depict a collage

Of unknowable context beneath colorful layers

As treasurable chapters lived and loved separately

In an ever-changing world of values and cultures

Can only speak of my journey… not my character

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Illustrious

There’s been too many times I’ve felt

The torn pieces missing from my heart

More than I feel in the scars that remain

No matter how deep those wounds are

Nor who played a role in their makings

And I must not let it go without saying

The role memories play in a limited capacity

Can never be substituted for the original

Who’s absence can’t be measured logically

Arrogance and pride often blind our eyes

From perceiving what a heart innately knows

I am who I am not because of who I became

But because my missing pieces brought me life

Only warped egos tout victory… in true defeat

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Strides

For the longest of inconsistent times

I’d remained near an escape avenue

I built out of necessity in former days

An accessible bridge to an off-ramp

Should I wake in foreign fogginess

And that plan has served me well

But intervened with newer growth

Recently I moved further from there

Adding distance from my older past

While adding a bit of solitude to my present

Sometimes old bridges need abandonment

So. a few extra seconds could be lived freer

As old ways became refreshed with life

To let old triggers become…new scars

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Cognizance

I’ve come to believe I seek a lost sense of ordinariness

That remains absent from my life in present terms

As my naked frail scars and internal battles wage forth

I get caught up in the warzone of preventing further trauma

Through the emotional inundation of unsuspecting others

In part as an empathic soul seeking to convert

My absorption of human ugliness over my lifetime

Into a more human sense of beautification

And from time to time, I’ll win some eccentric battles

Without forgetting the overall war will last a generation

So, I seek to alter the legacy left behind for others to inherit

In part as a martyr predicated upon an act of love

Knowing few if any will know or understand my history

To leave them a better chance of living love… eternally

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Jetties

Some days can pile up like a bad extended weekend

While others linger for what feels like forever

As I wander aimlessly between their vivid projections

On transient sugar highs and dehydrated withdrawals

Fading in and out of times lost or senseless fogginess

You used to keep me grounded and feeling safe

In all honesty, these days, safe seems rarest and elusive

And even memories feel too intangible to pretend alternatives

Sometimes fragments of me want to run until I’m breathless

While other fragments want to bury beneath a blanket

Until a warm semblance of your embrace captures me asleep

But the sobering reality refuses to let me try those anymore

So, I sit peering across a cacophony of dimly lit silence

Defeated on my side of tired brokenness… by your absence

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