For A Friend, On The Occasion Of Her 20 Years

In the theater of our minds,
each we a magician of sorts
the requisite patios
and stage set to our design,
we can spellbind
at least a few
and enjoy a season
where it's fun awhile
until enters one asking
"Why do you do that?"

The disappearing silk scarf trick
was not so entertaining after
and then cognition falls hard on our construct
practiced to keep loneliness within reach
while performance anxiety increased
(it is only during performance we momentarily forget).

I could never do levitation,
but He does it well
raising me off a collapsing stage
saving me from a second career
as a comedian
in search of a punch line.
No, delivering a monologue of truth
in a world of love and beauty
is far more satisfying
than living with a coin behind my ear.

Sharing

I don't want to own you
can't, really
You are not yours
that I could possess
but if you, and yours
would share of yourself
we might come
to a new
understanding of love

Blah, Blah, Blah

Your lips move
like fishes' in a bowl
but I hear nothing
of what you say.
The shell held
to the side of my head
is more clear
and makes more sense

Judgementally Yours

I find him dull
she makes me nervous
they have much to consider
we are wise
you look angry
she is shortsighted
he needs to quit drinking;
my ability to constantly judge
frightens me.

Imprisoned

At times
I may envy prisoners
captured in a just war
confined by a physical enemy.
There's no effort to bore
under the skin, to heart,
and play that sliver of hope
haunting a simpler cell of passions
clinging stubbornly to a silk rope
fraying in full light
of solitary confinement.
No, I'm none-too-bright
for remaining in bereavement.

Honest

Growing from a
shallow pleasure-seeking male
tragically un-self-aware
in his crude long-distance attempts
to violate your form
to a more faceted man
now aware the effects
of his brutish behaviors
I make no apology
for my dis-like of sleeping alone
but I'd rather win your affection
first

Blindsided

How has it come?
there was youth,
then Love;
a certained indefatigable Spirit.
Tending memories, coddling pasts,
those pasts, her,
recalled experiences as exhilarating
as the finest spring breath.
He'd left it all to chance,
or specified women, and now
blindsided by loneliness
and loss,
waxing and waning unpredictably,
but mostly waning;
an ordinary mortal
leads an un-heroic life
until nothing remains inside.
No, tears are not just water.