Forest of the mind

 

Stay with me

when the sunlight

slowly fades into night.

I need your heart

to beat

so the rhyme can

hold me steady,

as these waters

make me ill at ease.

 

Stay and speak,

let me hear

the warming fires of home,

let me feel the stones - those burning embers;

Smouldering coals

of days long gone.

 

Stay

and if my

memory

should fade,

rain in stories

of our love

to make me feel again.

 

And if I should

get bogged down,

feet clogged

in the swampy ground

of this ever darkening

forest of my mind,

would you hold a light

and guide me home?

Hold me warm

from the shivering cold,

and remind me of who I was

before the clouds began.

The pleading mirror

 

I used to believe in daydreams,

silken images

painted in crystalline

beauty.

I'd walk in the open air

breathing in

all that they granted to me.

The perfectly perfumed

golden imagery.

I'd watch the dancing memories

floating in symmetrical majesty

and I'd fall in love

with the scent of the sea.

 

Saltwater stings what you neglect to see.

 

I used to believe in a world

a step away from reality.

A place where hope

blossomed on trees

and we would

pluck free the fruits

to taste the flowing juice

of a symphony.

Letting it soothe the fire burning inside.

The passions consumed on fiery nights

 

Fire burns what can never be

 

I used to believe

that if I woke, then

my newly opened eyes

would still only see beauty,

that all of this would survive,

that with you beside

we could pull those

dreams into real life,

creating a mirror of our love

in the air we view.

 

Mirrors reflect a side we don't wish to see

 

I used to believe in you.

You told me tales as high as the sun,

You took my hand and through

those fields we would run,

making love under that harvest moon

I thought your heart was

a pure river we could wade through,

but then your depths got murky

and the true terror became a threat

as our footsteps dredged through

to your true surface layer, and the lies

started to claw at feet

like eggshells severing

every nerve ending.

 

Endings are freedom from misery

 

I fell to bleeding

knees as

stones crashed

my pleading mirror view,

showing the lies told as truth.

I had opened my book,

and your name

was no longer in it.

The story was never true.

It was no longer a loving sonnet,

more a warning nursery rhyme.

 

For written words can spell a million lies

 

I slipped and my heart

broke clean in two

I opened my eyes

in a scream

As all I saw was

a nightmare,

the dreams

stolen away from me.

 

But dreams always grow back when

we keep planting seeds.

Beg, Steal & Borrow

 

Beg, steal and borrow

to feed the poison within.

I should be a better man.

but I just keep a tight hold

of the shame I told myself

to bury with the pain I hide,

the tears I cried when I knew

you were not watching.

And here’s the thing

I never lied, to anyone except

myself when I said

I was okay.

 

And I poured myself another

to comfort the one before.

Can't have a single

when a double is company,

and once you’ve had two

you may as well have 4 more.

Because I’m past

the point of no return

and who is keeping score?

And I begged, stole and borrowed,

I owed more than I ever felt worth.

And I should be a better man

but I just kept asking for more,

to push out the noise inside,

block out the pain that

had already broken down my door.

 

And I sunk and I dived,

drank the poison dry

and somehow survived.

I wanted to jump

but you pulled me back,

only to kick me down,

and I licked the salt

from my tears, and added lemon

to the scars that covered my heart.

And I poured some more

to scold the me that I couldn’t hold inside.

 

And I begged, stole and borrowed,

I burrowed myself into a hole

and waited for death to follow.

And yes, I should have been a better man,

but I sat in my hole

and swallowed

the dirt until the dirt was gone,

then I searched for even more.

Rock bottom is a fallacy,

When you can always dig into the core.

 

And I let that winter pass,

then the summer then

the winter then the summer again,

and the pain didn’t lessen,

but in my hand I held a pen,

and I begged, stole and borrowed

words I could read,

to see the world

with a different lens.

And I sank, and floated,

drank and dozed,

I relapsed in regret, I sparkled

and I cut and scarred up again

it’s true. I regressed and I grew.

 

But I survived the winter cold,

the summer heat,

and in the spring that followed.

I finally found my feet

and I walked so much

bolder than I ever had,

with the sunlight guiding me on.

And now I am a better man,

with a heart that feels again.

I let not the pain drag me down,

or bury me in its garden.

I stand with my arms held wide

and I welcome all to come in.