He unwound his heart, thread by strangled red thread.

Having searched in vain for a suitable synonym,

He muttered, “What a mess,” and left,

Punctuating his disdain with a bang of the door.

The discarded fibers quivered and with enormous effort

Strove to remake themselves once more.

Without a purpose, without a suitable descriptive term,

They found no word to give them cause.

Hopelessly they stilled and let flow brief bitter tears before they died.

The color leached from them, and all that remained

Turned brittle and dusty with time and loss.

Years passed, and the housekeeper hummed a popular love song

As she swept the floor and emptied the dustpan into the bin.

All for want of a good thesaurus. Sing alas, alas, alackaday.

Flowers stand on my table in a slender jar, a gift.

I remove the petals one by one and hold them.

I softly breathe and send them adrift to the floor.

I lie down in their midst and place two upon my closed eyes.

I do not want visions, only to remember our visit.

I smile.

What a wonderful thing it is to find a friend.

I never wanted you here.

I didn’t want to see your hand

Rest tenderly on the flowers you grew.

I didn’t want to see your eyes

Fill with delight at a bird on the windowsill.

I didn’t want to hear your voice

Call my name in the sleepy morning.

I didn’t want to hear your laugh

Ring with joy at a unexpected kiss.

I didn’t want you moving into my heart

And making it your home.

I didn’t want you; no, not at all.

I shall miss you every moment.

I didn’t want you. I didn’t.

This night you are not here

And so I cannot see the moon or stars

They existed only as reflections in your eyes

This night you are not here

And so I will not dream dreams

They visited only with you beside me

I stare blindly into the immense solitude

In hopes that you, anyone, or even the abyss stares back

But this night you are not here

And so I am alone

This night a presage of all further nights

The heat sits a crouched gargoyle

Hunched right outside the door

The moon does not linger

The shadow of night recedes

Both fleeing quickly

No longer able to offer brief respite

We struggle to move or even breathe

The air thickened

Heavier than any hope we carry

The sun become a brutal god

Indifferent to our desperate pleas

Seeing only his reflection in the scorching shimmer

Our suffering the suffering of all

As innocents die and die and die

We hide ourselves however we can

Covering our ears so not to hear

Whispered spoken wailing cries

Unbearable knowledge

That we ourselves built this pyre

Now the entire world burns

I want the day to still but it has begun.

Light spreads across the morning

In colors denied by the austere moon

But celebrated by the gaudy sun.

Shades of every hue saturate the landscape,

Drenching the birds, the trees, the earth, the sky.

Even the distant mountains display a variegated garb.

I want the day to hush but it has begun.

Noise resounds from the dawning

In cacophony suppressed by the silent stars

But applauded by the clamorous rise.

Sounds of every tone reverberate across the horizons,

Resonating from every living thing and objects made.

I cannot close my eyes to this, nor stop my ears from hearing.

I do not join in the burgeoning revelry.

I walk quietly amidst this festive passage,

Somber; muted; unseen; a ghost.

A story begins in the middle.

That sentence alone makes my mind seize.

Any beginning is definitionally not a middle.

There can be a backstory.

Indeed there is always a backstory.

Someone must know this.

Otherwise the narrative is a partially connected bridge.

Any steps bring immediate collapse or as you continue, pitch you into the void.

How request writing to bear such burden?

Convince the reader to take this risk?

I lack the courage to ask either

But applaud in wonder others who do!

Black spots fly like tiny insects

Black lines appear like bits of thread

Sudden light flashes at the edges

Blurred grayness where once were words

So approaches this looming blindness

And yet

Now I see more clearly

A path never before discerned

My step seems to falter

Make no mistake

My eyes might be clouded

I know where I am and where I am going

I go quickly quickly

What’s past is past.

I disagree.

The past is as amorphous and fluid as the present.

Both change and flow,

Each influencing the other in a Heraclitean interplay.

An example:

As a child I was abandoned in a strange city,

Though I found my own way home.

This event left a mark,

Resulting in me feeling bewildered, unwanted, and forlorn.

Years later, a relative told me something

That transformed what I remembered.

Did that trip change down the years?

For me, yes.

Another example:

A dictator and tyrant acted in ways

We heretofore considered evil.

Today some leaders look back in admiration

Seemingly in order to emulate his results.

Have his actions changed in character?

For an unsettling minority, yes.

We find ourselves living in a strange loop,

Where parallels and paradoxes abound.

We cry sorrow; we cry good;

We fly to the light; we descend to the dark.

Inexorably we find these

To be one, different, and the same.

I drink a cup of tea and laugh at all.

But sometimes I cry.