Just run away, until there’s no one else around. Until all you see is your reflection in a pool of water sprung from the ground. Dirt and trees and wild grass. Have you ever felt like running away, like dropping off the map, off the world? For a long time I have. I’ve fought the urge to go camping and not return until many days and nights have set and rose, until the rainy season has passed and the flowers have bloomed on the hillsides. Not come back until I’ve made my own path on the side of the mountain, rocks and sand pounded down by my shoes until a groove is worn. Left and not come back until I found my own way.

What would be left out there of me? What would I hold on to and say that this is it, this is what I will call myself? What would I find, who would I meet? Someone new? Or someone forgotten?

How can it be done in a world like today? So much debt, so many bills, so many dreams that require me to be here, in this place I chose, in this path I’ve worn…

What would be left behind…

fragmented life, i can see it bits and pieces, here and there about where i want to be.
afraid to sleep, like always, so i don’t miss a thought
miss something that might take me there
that would possibly be a breakthrough
i hate sleep, it’s filled with dreams
life more loved than this one
just the same, that’s why
i love sleep, window
open, rain falling
cold room
blanket
warm

I had to take a deep breath today and decide, again, that this is what I want to do. This? Yeah, this. This is what I want to do. I want to write.

Every step you take towards that goal, no matter how far apart those steps seem to be, it makes you realize just how much farther you have to go. With every step you have to decide, again, that this is worth it.

Panic. Every step I take closer to the goal, feels like a step farther out on a ledge, a ledge I built, decided to walk towards, and decided it would be okay if I fell. But what if it does work out? Then those last few steps come quicker, they become running, sprinting towards that ledge, those steps become jumping into the air and possibly flying, or feeling like flying…even for just a second. That would be worth it.

I don’t know if I will be able to find anyone that is willing to walk towards this goal with me, but maybe that’s part of what this is all about. What am I willing to sacrifice to make this happen? Can it really be considered a sacrifice? Isn’t it just timing? Will it not work out no matter when and what…I can’t think about that. That’s the real cause of panic in this whole situation. Until then? Just a lot of sleepless nights. That I chose.

i said just wait a minute
just, yeah, just wait a minute
put that down okay
okay, just put it down

can you take a deep breath
can you walk away
can you leave it be
just for a minute, before you become someone you dont want to see

take a look back at it
that mirror you broke
that image you lost
that person you forgot

it’s you in there
in the shards
in the pieces
in the broken light on the ground

yeah you
hey you
i said HEY YOU!
just wait a minute

okay?
okay…

lets bang drums and walk through fields
empty and lined with trees
dandelioned and green grassed

lets bang drums and look towards the sky
open mouths and sing aloud
all that we feel and all that we see

lets bang drums and run to the west
through the forest and through the mountains
through the sand and through the ocean

lets bang drums and forget what you heard
about what it means to be
and what the birds say is right and wrong

lets bang drums and sing new songs
with words and rhymes and stupid little lines
that say what we mean and mean what we feel

lets bang drums until the sun comes back down
and the moon shoots through the pink and purple
joins the stars and the black in the sky so high

lets bang drums until our arms fall asleep
until the world screams for us to shut up
until it all slips away, one closed eye at a time

lets bang drums and run in circles
notes touching notes
forever

this..this…th
th th th this is what i feared

ending up somewhere
without the right words to say

i picked up a tennis ball tonight as i walked home from work, bright green in the yellowing street lights, and i bounced it all the way back to where i live. two blocks from where it came. someone must of accidentally hit it over the fences above, just like the countless other lost balls that probably litter the bushes around the beverly hills tennis complex. i bounced it all the way back to where i live. put it on top of a bush in front of the door. someone might see it tomorrow morning and wonder how it got all the way there, on top of that bush, so far from home, with seemingly no meaning attached to it’s place. i bounced the ball all the way back to where i live, and now it’s lost.

i can’t make sense of it anymore
why it happened, why it’s happening

i feel so far from where i want to be
sometimes

all by choice, this is what i feared
attached to a thing that has no place

a person that can’t fit in my life
chose to fly over seas of blue

dance for eyes that are not mine
while i cry and wave at her with her bags

this is what i feared
like a tennis ball on a bush
in a place with no meaning
so far from home
bouncing to rest
lost and confused

she lays in bed
two days before leaving
not even that
a day and a half

i tell her to stay
but she can’t she won’t
not even her feelings
can keep her

and i say nothing
i can’t say anything
i can only kiss her back
and pull her close

in two days
on a plane
22 hours away
on an island

if i could strip everything
from her past
my past
naked, bare, clean, anew

i could squeeze her hand
tell her to stay
no
if i could strip it all away

these words wouldn’t be
the plane wouldn’t exist
the ocean wouldn’t see her
from the window in the plane

work work work
you always have to work
until it’s time to play again
it’s always time to work

play before you work?
no, work before you play
work work work
you always have to work

the hope is to find the place
where the two can meet and greet
maybe they become lovers
and spahn a little love child

where work is play
and play is work
and all i do all day
is play play play

not now, not tonight,
but maybe someday
they’ll catch each other’s eyes
and do whatever it takes to meet

to mate.

severed dreams
deferred beliefs

i want to run into the ocean
paddle back to sea
watch the sun drop behind the blue
hug the point i lost what i know

dive down
through the green room
beyond the black
breast stroke with the fish that glow

land looks good from here
watery and magical
a different world a different time
come up for air

the moss grows on the east here
it comes from the north
it swells from my feet
and reaches the mouth

back then i could see
almost three days ahead
and smile and laugh with the rain
on my head

run back to the sea
back to the start
back to the dreams that reflected in mirrors
always so much closer than they appear

yellow lines and blue cars
green mountains and canopied trees
back to the water
come back to me

so close to living
dying to try
if only i could go back
watch the moon rise above summer eyes

was there ever a time i didnt run
i didnt feel like i wanted to hide
was there ever a time
like now?

rocky beaches and hideaway forts
patches of grass around dark wooded fences
nothing prepares for the thoughts that come
when you stop living in dreams and what’s already been done.

she doesn’t want to believe me. is it the tone of my voice? maybe because she can’t see my eyes, the phone line can only say so much of what you’re saying. she doesn’t believe me when i tell her i don’t want her to go. that this is hard for me too. she doesn’t want to hear it. and that’s the only thing i can hear. wrapped in emptiness, looking for something to throw in the void to keep the body busy. it’s how we all feel. isn’t it? the resounding silence from the crowds that look on tell me i’m wrong. but no matter what they don’t say, i still feel it, i still want to feel it so that she’s not alone, so that i’m not alone, so that we all aren’t all alone in this.

she won’t believe me no matter what i say. words from other tongues in different times are too loud in her ears. pain from different hearts have calloused mine, but that’s not the only thing i want her to hear, that’s not the only thing. it’s complicated. i wish i could stay with you, with your decisions, your actions, but it’s within me, the thing that says i can’t. and i know it’s right. you are not the victim, we all are. life takes it’s tax for every year we live. some more than others. it’s never a fair tax.

i want you to hear me when i cry. maybe then you will know. it’s here for now. but it will pass. you will forget those moments you remember to think of me. and i will find another broken smile to try and fix. it’s all so expected by now.

is that why you can’t hear me? can you hear me? are you listening? does anyone ever listen anymore?