A 24 Hour Place

 I return to the city and it takes 24 hours to put my armor on. I don't want to carry the weight. But it's shut out or shut down in a town full of frown.

Suffering screamers slink down the sidewalk throwing nervous spikes into my ears. My heart does a loud double tap until I see what's happening. Another soul blowing in the wind. Their consciousness splits into one more piece each unsafe hard night on the cement. The rising sun vaporizes it and blows it through the city, making each resident a little more rushed.

Productivity hamster wheels weep wealth through the calloused hands of weathered workers. So rushed that the movement makes the roads rumble and tempers tumble into hands on horns. Rushing so fast the world becomes the edges of tunnel vision and when not in prison they need screens to funnel vision out of focus and focused on stimulation and a snowball of distraction disease.

It's hard to be a whole human when you watch the soul slumped on the concrete possibly dead. Speaking in tongues a daily occurrence with no church in sight. Ghosts and ghouls account for hole of spirit with meth plus no sleep. 

Infernal boiling alleys host reading rainbow of experience. The relaxed charm of laid back reading on carpet quickly punctured with hunched on chair, needle in bloody arm. 

How many people can my heart witness committing slow-motion suicide?

Those poor unfortunate souls wither away with no voice, which of us makes that choice? I've seen a twenty-something, every day for years, living a 24 hour alley life.

Old lady screaming and crying in pain on daily route passing our warm loving home. 

Does my witnessing help or should I help myself to less distressing yelp? I have but one soul I can make happier, the rest must choose for themselves. 

I have a cup of water, not a hydrant, but what does it do to live in a city full of locked burning buildings? When to fight and when to rest and when to be best or be like the rest? 

Should I move to Less Pressure In Chest?

Should I live where the screams are from hawks, where you build not smoke rocks, not people in box, rumbles not from Big Rigs but waves and leaves, highway hum replaced by wind in the trees? 

My soul knows the answer is yes, yet Capitalism says I have not completed the test. 

Time will tell what the Red Tailed Hawk carries with the wind and if I can breathe out as long as the Sycamore breathes in.

48 Hours To Feel

 It takes 48 hours to take my armor off. It feels weird. Naked. Third day and I'm learning to walk again. The lost tension feels unsafe. Where's my rope? How can I climb the tree of life without tension in my line?

What if I fall? 

What might fly into my eye if I unfurrow my brow? 

It feels like someone is behind me like the other side of "Did I lock the door?" Knee jerk insecurity trying to pull me back to the known while I try to climb up.

Stop for the Love

We 

    lurch forward 

            like a vehicle

                    running 

                        out of gas

"putt putt putt" fast 

then stop 

        then fast

                    a body heaving with the weight of overstimulation

eyes gone blurry from

        never seeing the horizon

jaw bracing for a strike

                                        ears ringing from tension

                chest shallow pipes clogged with preparations

                                we look around for an external lifeguard buoy

                                not realizing we aren't in the water

everyone looks to be moving smoothly

        because their jerky pace perfectly paces our own

I stop

and

feel an explosive pressure

begging me to keep going

storm clouds form,

        thunder roars

                no one else can see it

                        but I can't keep doing this anymore

I am going to walk or stop but not

rush to wait in a jerky infinite intellectual hamster wheel of thought

                                    the showers dump a torrential downpour

                                            vibrating my fascia with salt water

until

the 

buzzing 

bustle 

of 

fear 

of 

falling 

makes me 

                                                                        Water

and my heart drops its bristles

I unclench my fist and

raise my 

Heart into the world

to spread love.

70 Years of Trauma

 70 years of trauma

a ball of yarn

wrapped so tight

the fibers afraid

so they poked out in spikes

70 years of trauma

a plant grown in the shade

light blocked out

by a plant grown in the shade

perpetual noise and motion

to the echo and locate

a spot in the sun

determined to avoid being shaded out

not realizing their perpetual positioning

burned a hole in the ground

creating a circle around them where

no other plants can grow roots

70 years of trauma

once seen and not heard

they gobble up oxygen like

a photosynthetic thanksgiving feast for one

none left for others to feed their brains

spinning and spinning

yarning and yarning

I find myself yawning and yawning

waiting and waiting

for him to see himself but

70 years of trauma

have made his eyes a danger Doppler

a blind sun-seeking heliocentrist

a sweet smelling brugmansia

only

free to express their fullness in the dark of night

singed by the harshness of reflected light

on their delicate petals

born the sun of wall of rocks

Cold

and

Dark

poorly constructed and Dangerous in the wind

meant to roam like a wildflower

I see the light through a pinhole

in the wall tapestry

now gone but he holds up a

sheet printed with bricks and

blows on it constantly

trying to be his version of the wolk

yet I choose to see the light

and I dim my ears and

turn up my heart's brightest

light and I hope he sees it's 

just sheet now and he can put

it down, know the oxygen is for all

of us

trust the light will not burn him

and express the sweet flower

he has in his heart.

Cold Plunge for the Mind and Soul

 Being present feels like movement

Like an earthquake pulling in both directions at once

Like trying to scream into a plastic pillow

Screens as hamster wheels

Spinning still and spooling 

Future yarn to unravel

Too tight to loosen the knot here

I must take a cold plunge for the soul

Only quiet still time can unleash

The Chinese Finger Trap between the ears

Sounds pull the ears toward them

And increase the pressure

I must soak them in 

Cool cold silence

The slumped shoulder of solitude separate

The furrowed ears

Because when they're up high

They squeeze pressure 

Into the neck

Hot air that can only be released by

Dragon Breath

I get to camp and

My skin becomes 

Heavy wet rags

My heart a plumb bob

Pulled down by the dense liquid

Pressurized by modern society

Into concrete blocks

They make me feel trapped,

I want to run from

The grey 

Until I see only 

Green

Blue

and

 Brown

Colors that trigger

A memory

Through my eyes and nose

An opposite charge that

Magnetically draws out the water

Like the leaves down a stream

Birds come to sing after the rain

Passes

Porque Camino

 Cuando no tienes manera de distraerte,

de esconderte atras de la piedra de comodez,

de tenerque depender en tu mismo absolutamente,

el viento te vacia la mente y llena los ojos

con la historia y el futuro que no existen y

al final te quedas con un espejo hecho

de respiros profundos que te hacen preguntar

quien sos, quien fuiste y quien quieres ser.

Full Moon Vibes

One moon

New moon

Shadow gone

Layers shed

Cells relaxed

Resistance eclipsed

Full relaxed presence