The Mind Is Limitless

There is an uneasy
quietness
in me and I’m not sure
what to make of it.

This mind so often
found churning with
reckless abandon
now holds still
and the lack of ripples
makes me wonder
if there’s something
hiding in the deep
waiting to attack,
if this is simply the
calm before the storm.　

Days.
Long days and
short days
and
loud ones
or quiet
and those days
where it’s all
and none
and everything in between.

Days when the world
sees you
and doesn’t
and smiles back
but doesn’t notice the
way behind your eyes
you just really
really
really
miss someone and
know you won’t
be with them again
for a while.

Not the way you want
to be with them anyway.
Not flesh and blood
and closeness
where you know what
the other’s saying
without words.

I don’t know what
sort of day it’s been
and can’t put it in words
so let’s just sit together
and sip tea
and look at the clouds
as they tell stories.　

So what will it be?

Remember to watch those                             Girl, remember, just
feet and hands and                              trust and keep faith and
heart and where you                                   use that dash of intuition
put them ‘cause your                         to keep you safe and
openness will crush you                         don’t be afraid to throw
and yours and you’re                       yourself off recklessly
placing yourself in                                     into the chasm and take
harm’s way again-                                 risks- remember the
watch yourself and                                       best plans are those
think with that head.                        that can change fluidly.

Cold body.
Cold eyes.
Cold face.
Cold hands.
Coldness. Stiff and closed
you reach but they remain
unfeeling and unyielding,
daring icy fires that mock
and dare you to break in
where no one can enter.

Closed off encased in ice
freezing river and cold lake
with no ripples nor proof
of feeling, scars frozen,
unrecognizable, thought
you knew those eyes and
hands but that coldness
was not something you
knew them to be capable of.

They turn to you and you flinch
under the unwavering glare
of eyes that once welcomed
your soul now pushing you
away and you lose yourself
in that abyss without an end,
lips turned up in scorn that
eat up all your happiness.

The pattern sets in like a format
stenciled in a uniform portrait
without variations but you do not
seem to notice as you sit there.

It spins. The fan spins, three wings
round and round blowing air as
the door creaks, back and forth on
hinges that badly need oiling as
the conversation comes back around
to the same three topics we’ll
discuss and it’s really getting tiring.　

On repeat, the same tunes wail,
pain on pain on play repeating, forms
layers of the emotions collected
and you can’t see the core anymore.

In the spaces you do not see
but feel, unconscious knowing,
unknowing trust, brash
as it breaks and flutters away
it falls and cracks where you
see it and can’t, ephemeral,
you miss it so easily.

Like at waves of heat rising
you narrow your eyes perplexed
wondering if it exists, and if that
was your name called or you’re
just imagining things again.

Which is what they keep saying
silly you, such vivid imagination,
of course there isn’t anyone there
(as they miss you being dragged,
away to nowhere, you’re lost)
you’re choking and they still can’t　
see the gags and the chains on you.

(This Makes No Sense Because You Cannot See)

Icicles hang down creating deep
Notches for your fingers to play

Apologetic tears freeze in place
Numb with feeling, slipping,
Dropping down like stalactites

Over many layers collected
Under the calm demeanour
To imprison your eyelashes

There’s just a buzz
numb static, trickle
of half-frozen water drops
behind puffed eyes
where hours of sleep do little to
ease the tiredness and I’m
pretty sure I shouldn’t always
be this tired.

There is no other way
to describe her but
as a weed
between concrete slabs
growing unwanted, resilient
under the glare of the sun
defying norms and cheekily
staying put
where others had been crushed,　
deep roots stubbornly set into
the ground.

Why do people hate weeds so?
Because they exist without
permission, uncontrolled?
They have mastered all survival
skill save that for
growing in rows and are but
unloved flowers.

Hourglass figurines spinning in the sea foam
their dance mesmerising and you enter
their hold and are overwhelmed,
their melodies become unbearable
a cacophony that takes over-

But this poetess screams in silence,
feet bleeding on tiny plastic fragments
as they wash up on shore, remains
of plastic lives, and wonders how
people do not see the pollution
pouring into their reality and ruining them.

Their skin shreds and they, blindly,　
trudge forwards over sands composed
of artificiality, they do not notice.
The beach is drenched in red. Your life
you give away with your apathy
and it drains away without your noticing.