this will be my first poem to appear in anything other than my hand-made little booklets or heart-felt greeting cards. it was composed in a haphazard fury, with hardly thought or revision, but somehow... it meant something to me. it captured something that was capable of moving me (something that doesn't happen often anymore).

Let Go (The Human Condition Can Be Summed Up In Two Words:)
Ryan David W.

“explain to me the universe,”
she said, with lemonade in her hand,
and a hurt in her eyes like the Marianas Strait,
“and why,” she followed, “goodness and rightness
are just scattered, flowing blemishes
on the face of all this evil.”

i searched the linoleum tile
as comets completed their cycles.
i examined the backs of my eyelids
while the matter that composed them decayed.
i offered a plea that she thought was meant for her:
“Father, forgive me, i don’t know what i’m doing.”

---

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

to witness the gentle winding
(like vines, like ribbon, like wire)
of our two lives
into one cord holding fast-
one beautiful bow-
a steel spire stretching up-
was the deepest life
i have known.

to know the gradual unwinding
(the bend, the seperation and spinning apart)
of our tender thread-
the catch, the fray, the tear-
the slipping of the tether-
our tower’s shudder and collapse-
is the deepest death
i have felt.

---

storm (within, without)

1
no phrases or pictures
could transfer or transcend
the emotion of this storm,
of this rain, of this rage.

an open window--

no bottomless sleep
or infinite stumble
could wake me up from or walk me
out of this desperation.

an open window--

for breaking through or peering in,
but not for climbing out.

2
ceaseless rain,
show me constancy.
darkened sky,
grant me hope.
drifting clouds,
prove me stable.
rolling thunder,
teach me love.

---

“The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
- John 12:25

i’ve said it for a while now. the human condition can be summed up in two words: let go. but what shall i release myself into?

do i trust the cold machine of the human race? do i admit myself to after all be an automaton and a by-product of this vast apparatus?

act and react.
live and relive.
move and remove.

i care too much. i tried to love my family, but ended up only needing them like a cripple needs pegs and props. i tried to care for someone, and found myself merely and endlessly infatuated. attached. i tried to give myself wholly and genuinely to my friends, but ended up the same as a crack addict or dope fiend. i inhaled them.

the only way to survive in this world is to become as cold and as hard (they call it "objectivity" and "individuality") as a lead bullet carrying out the death sentence or a genocide. i will rip you up.

i used to see a light and feel a pull--the bright weight of it was too much for my questions and emotions, my fear and hate. it dragged me up by the chest, out of the dark water. it sustained me. now shadows and thunder are all that i am. the only illumination is by lightning, the heat and speed of which i cannot approach. who says goodbye? who feels? who speaks? who cares? who cared? i used to.

who cares hurts.

---

now i spend my days walking in circles,
waiting for appointments.
i am early for the first time in my life,
only because i am empty.

i wear holes and paths into the grass
and through my ugly carpet,
exposing the foul dirt and poor woodwork
that have lied hidden for ages.

likewise, my thoughts loop and circle,
grinding away at my reality,
exposing a raw heart and a fragile soul
that should have stayed buried.

---

i am homeless.
welcome home(less).
where shall i rest my head?
Jesus would have none of it.
i wanted to wander with him,
but he left me while i packed.
(is that not typical of him?)
all i want is security,
and Maslow would sympathize with me.
all i want is a home,
but home will have none of me.

---

Gender

i am
a man,
i think.

i think,
therefore
i am.

---

Theory of Composition (thanks to Mary for the inspiration)

you are every work of art,
every fine sculpture and masterpiece.
your hands are the works
of a far greater master than Raphael.
your left thumb exceeds the L’Ouvre
by it’s grace and intrigue,
and your smile makes a fool
of the coy and childish Mona Lisa.
the smallest, surprising detail
and the grandest artist’s theme--
the accomplishments recorded
in every art history book--
are contained and surpassed
within your mild earthly frame.

---

this is an old verse from an old me--from a much happier and care-free time. i'm using it to try to remind myself that cruelty and apathy are not the only ways to stay alive.

love has no
if or also

(you can drown
in because
for all i care)

if ever i love,
i just do.

i do.

---