The Poetry Marathon

Familiar smile, tickling my heart,
Have I known you?
You notice me.
Have we known us?
Hesitantly, walking for each other,
Breaths hitched – it should be obvious by now –
Was it that we’d known each other in another life?
In another time?
The spark of recognition hits
And our faces
Widen.

Old Friend —

There’s this feeling of Awe
When you’re in the City
With Towers to humble
Even the mightiest of all —

Saw the sky scrapped
With pillars of steel
And glass, reflecting the clouds
They level —

Making you feel as
Little more than an ant
In a world so much grander
Than you care to remember.

But even more profound
Is how you feel
When you stand
Atop these mountains

And look down at another view
Over which you preside
Yet still…
Makes you feel just as small.

New age angst in a time
When things go so badly that
There’s not even someone to blame
Because the only one you can blame
Is yourself

Is it not your fault that you cannot do
As others around you can do?
That it is obviously not so easy
To escape the voice
In your head

Telling you that it is
Because you are dysfunctional
Because you are wrong
Because you are not enough
Because you are not amounting to

Expectations I have set for you
Only because I care
You know very well I only want so much
Because I love you so much
Please understand

It is not your fault
But still you must blame yourself
Because it is your nature
Because it is what the voice tells you
I say to you

When you cannot understand
What I mean.

I was alone.
I felt, with the deepness of my heart,
That I could not escape this
Feeling which consumes me.

I felt, with the deepness of my heart,
A rush of breathlessness, a
Feeling which consumes me
And threatens to pull me under.

A rush of breathlessness, a
Silent struggle, weighing against me –
And threatens to pull me under.
It hurts to face – it hurts to know

Silent struggle, weighing against me –
I was alone.
It hurts to face – it hurts to know
That I could not escape this

There was a girl who took her time in finding her path.
She was free, as far as she was concerned.
Knowing she’d find her way eventually,
She felt no urgency.

Clever and bright,
Her wit astounded those around her.
“So smart! Think of a career! A doctor! A lawyer!
Just use that head and-

You’ll surely be someone successful.”

But what was to define success?
The adults would pet the girl’s head
And praise her ingenuity as she behaved and got good grades
And though she did not know it:

This pride would be her undoing.

What does she do now?
Has she chosen something yet?
What? Why isn’t she in school?
What’s of her path?

Odd looks thrown her way –
Why does the girl flit when asked a simple question?

She does not know.

Anxiety is
Caused in a soul forced to walk
A path not its own.

What started as Sticks and Stones
Designed to break bones
In a time long gone

Grew into the cultivation
Of a civilization,
Forming nations

And eventually becoming
The aching,Need for accompanying –

Words and connections have
Consumed us halves
Trying to find wholes

In a big, big world
Stitched up together
by Technology

Before Darkness
There is Light
That shines on the town
As it bustles along
And shuffles to an early Grave.

Am I really lost
If I mean to be?

Wanderlust
Fulfilled across
Green, Green Grass
But never satisfied
Never done –

Anxiety
From a need to see
White, Tan Sand
Between these toes
In these hands –

Enthrallment;
Marveling at
Red, Red Pillars
Stoic, yet passionate
Timeless and ancient
Speaking of a love
That the Heavens cannot
Contain.

Is it home?

Am I lost
If I mean to be?

He beckoned Me,
In the end.

Time moved slowly
When his hand so tenderly
Took mine.

And the moment,
Was so tender,
I could not help but wonder
If this destruction,
This loss of being,
Were a dream.

But he beckoned
And I followed
And I would soon see
That –

Reality often
Fiction surpasses,
In the end.