Floundering

Floundering beneath a wave

of something I’ve yet to put a name to,

I am trapped,

caught in a dizzying dance

so hypnotic to watch;

Breaking the surface,

freedoms first gasp is

confinements last laugh

when I’m pulled back under

tied to and with

the flotsam and jetsam

lurking below.

Even words

Even words can become all too familiar.

Favourite storybook words carouselling around your brain,

read so many times that they’ve lost their distinction,

their flavour.

You dove in, head first,

recklessness embodied

if not for the fact that you have taken the plunge before,

and every inch has once before been swept

with your eyes and your hands.

Sing-song lines and lyrics are sounding monotonous,

making you plough through their rhymes and rhythms

like chores.

Like chores?

Since when has the poets palate been bland to the ears,

a flat line in emotion?

What are you supposed to do

when the verses you sink yourself into so regularly

won’t hold you up any more?

Words are the faithful lovers,

however quarrelsome they may be;

Words are the burning little suns in the minds horizon,

bursting into flame then dying out-- always reborn.

Words are the sweet lips you grow tired of kissing

without a first kiss.

Matches to ashes

Have you ever played with fire

just to hide behind a wall of smoke?

What is it about dangerous things

that hide the most vulnerable?

Ever noticed,

When you run your fingers through candle flame

You half hope to God

something will go wrong.

Is it because you want to pull away,

wanting the sudden flash of fight or flight?

Or does the wound serve the ego?

A story to tell and a sick thrill of victory, to boot.

Maybe its our need to play God with ourselves.

Do we create chaos

just to have the power

to control everything and walk away?

Sort of like throwing the match

exactly where you want it;

the starting point with the most potential,

then stepping away

when the smoke and alarms turn

the spotlights in a different direction.

Maybe our fire, smoke and chaos

is humanities chance at designing something of a legacy;

Fuelled into life by its insatiable appetite for destruction

and instilled with less than no moral guides.

A legacy that can only burn itself out.