Covered in shadow as you darken my door

Jaded by damp souls who feel no more

An inevitable crossing of these lines pass

Pretense wrought wound as lies are cast.

...as espresso and tables mingle, conversation and study share the background of a guitar. I wait, I watch. An obscure delight warms me to see life lived through the fellow patrons eyes. The steamed caffeine soothes my tongue yet sparks my memory, this time of reflection is an anchor in my travels.

Frost

...in my past he saw my future, passing away decades before my birth. You needn't be knowledgeable of the tangent to see the trend. Was there a warning? And to what forum was it asserted? I'd like to think it was revealed to him by the formula of setting. Through the right rural revelation and countless of deaths devastation, being of what to come his articulation. Between epitaph and farmland the answer lies. To three words he proposed..."life goes on."

choice (c̸ho̵is)

noun

1. the act of choosing; selection
2. the right, power, or chance to choose; option

So it's a simple word and a well understood definition. Then why is this "simple" word a mountain to climb over for so many? I'm really broken up inside by all the confusion and loaded pretense that keeps us from performing this seemingly straightforward action.

It's right there, so do it. Make the choice. Why is it not that easy? What have you built up in your mind that makes you almost scared to move in a different direction. If you aren't happy where you are then wouldn't there be a mental process of "hmmmm....I think something needs to change."? I've said it before about the civil war between your heart and mind. It's a vicious fight where reason over healing usually "wins". A false win but none the less the heart can only take defeat for so long and then it wont bother to put up a fight. And I honestly can't tell you how many times and in how many different settings I've heard the words uttered to me..."I just don't feel anymore. Why am I so numb?" Well I can't tell you what your tree of reason looks like for you but I can tell you what the root of this crippling growth is, it's fear.

Those four little letters swing the course of lives and generations like you wouldn't believe. Would fathers run from their sons if not for fear of failure? or a strong woman reject her own potential and take whats given from a shell of a man from a fear of loneliness? or an artist who dreams big but lives small out of a fear of rejection? To call this a crippling growth doesn't do it justice. I don't feel as if I'm being over dramatic on this point either. It's very real and I know you probably already disregarded some of this point due to this root in you. Don't take offense to this because it's true for you and me. We have a great deal of fear that we just overlook and chalk it up as just something you deal with in your day, but there is so much more than that and we settle before we even make it around the next corner! There is a life to be lived that is truly free of this fear. And you know what it is that holds you back, lies like "I better not mess this up because I can't do any better than this!"(if it's a friendship, a job, someone you love or a skill set) If you are holding on to this "familiar comfort" and you're not happy then I plead for you to make a choice....life is waiting.

No matter what you tell yourself you can't always stop your feelings.
I by no means seek to be dramatic but there are times like right now
when I'd rather not feel anything. A deep breath and a distraction.
That's all I'm asking for at the moment. Oh to have the rush of oxygen
in my lungs to loosen the knot....cause it's not about who I was or
what I did, but what I can and will be. The pruning doesn't always
feel "fair" but if I want to go an inch further I have to let go. May
I decrease gracefully.

it's eating at me....
I know the honest truth about me.
However I cannot get my heart to chip in with my thoughts, why such a variance?
Do they truly counter balance each other? Or do I just secretly enjoy holding onto pain?
Sounds sick to you?....well it is but I can't for the life of me let go of certain things. So what
do you hold onto to make it through to the other side?

Do you ever feel like you are the only one trapped?? That everyone around you has an
infinite freedom to basically do or be whatever they want, and you wanna know just how they got a hold of that. I'm forever on the outs with one person and i feel as if I'll never make it in the club....he keeps me on the end of everything and I just wanna find my way past his curve and
see what I'm in for a little sooner than he does. Some have just met him and some of you are subjected to not being allowed in his clique as well.....he's usually referred to as Hindsight. You might feel his intro a bit excessive but if you've been where I have with him it's not the half of it.
What a seemingly esoteric way of life.....I'm not shooting for the center, I would just like to belong.

why do it? why do we make our way through this life? there are so many moments in this self aware existence that we stop to ask....but do you ever hear an answer? or do you just keep going since you haven't stopped breathing yet? artists, scientists, theologists all speculate but who has the clairvoyance to know whats past our sight? could it be the little moments throughout our lives when at an unexpected intersection through the foresight of providence we feel whole or "warm" inside due to a certain event? or person??

some say this is it. what you see is as deep as the rabbit hole goes. others give their lives in an effort to gain what riches are due them in light of their sacrifice. and then another camp has their eyes set on the return of something more. this last camp has set a course towards something not about them or the "tit for tat" lifestyle it has been marketed to be. who has the answers?

in the early hours or deep in the night my heart finds me off guard and has but little time to relay its needs. and sure enough it tells me it needs something more. not wants....needs. enter the conflict of more. more what? happiness? money? fulfilling career? i can rationalize almost anything but this pull is real. and in those moments it pulls hard. what "more" can i give this pull to satisfy its hunger?

forget being poetic, forget being clever. i know there is something more...