Leah’s Garden

Posted on by meltingneurons
All credit for image to Fairy Homes and Gardens

This doesn’t feel like the first time I’ve walked through this garden, even if the gate hangs with a different name. The scent of potential hung over you like petrichor drawn in deep and lingering long after the thunder. Half-constructed trails meandered through the beds of saplings, seedlings, and sprouts before disappearing into mere suggestions of where they might continue. The promise of beautiful life elegantly displayed with artistry and love. Grappling to find the light. Just in need of some gentle tending to realize its magic for all to see.

I walked your cobblestones until they turned to dirt and brambled overgrowth. Poured heartfelt time into removing the obstructions so the sun could shine openly and feed the newness aching to reach the stars. Painstakingly watered while I worked, a labor of love. A dream of what was emerging. Marked new trails. Scattered endless new seeds. Coated all the leaves in a spray of herbs and words to drive the bugs away who would seek the generosity of your flesh. Cleared and cleared and cleared the brush, which grew back faster than I could ever seem to keep up with. When my back ached, my hands blistered, and my face was crisp from the sun, I kept at it.

You fed my soul in turn. Nourished my belief in all the possibilities as I saw the petals opening. Sweetly urged me through the darkness of inner nights with the simple innocent affection of new beginnings and growth. I saw shooting stars against my sometimes impenetrable blanket of desperation and fears You inspired me, challenged me, and loved me with bright flowers. Chittering laughter as the wind swept your fragile branches together while a dance of light scattered through your blossoming leaves. Your smile was dew on grass blades refracting the sun and capturing the world in a sphere. You spoke to my heart as I labored to speak to yours.

I heard the flames crackling behind me as I left, and now all you are is ash.

I had no more water left to pour, no more energy left to give. My home garden needed my love as well, and all my time was spent drifting through yours. I failed to find the balance they both needed, and that failure had a heavy price.

Someday, I hope to walk past your arched entry. To see your name proudly gleaming in gold. Friends, and admirers laughing while taking in all the beauty that you are. To know that you burst into life in my wake.

Not because of anything I did.

Because of the magic that has always been you.

Sometimes ash is a better gift than any human effort.

A clean field to start again.

It doesn’t mean I’m not sorry.

It doesn’t mean I don’t wish I’d had more to give.

Or that I hadn’t listened better as you tried to teach me how to tend you better.

Or that I’m not grateful for every moment I was privileged to spend inside your walls.

So very, I wish, I could have, and I am.

Even if you never see this….

….please know I will always love you.

Fantasy Love

Posted on by meltingneurons

If I could cross the distance, I’d show you a world of magic. We would listen to the tinkle of fairy wings beneath the sundering roars of dragons. We would wander down trails carved from the age old stone of mountains with peaks housing mythical creatures and the ancient miners of the deep earth. The woods would spiral out in a cacophony of mystery, beckoning us deeper into the vastness of the land. We would sip tea with the pointy eared ones with immortal eyes, play checkers with the bridge dwellers, dance wildly beneath the tops of mushroom villages and their pixie residents. We would hold hands, smile, and drop down waterfalls where the rocks have been tumbled smooth, their jaggedness run down over ages of gentle pressure and the tender ministrations of a thousand children creating a playground straight from the planet.

If I could cross the distance, I’d show you eternity above. The most lovely of pink hued edges wrapping across a sun of glossy stained glass against the vibrancy of blue. Soon the sky dancers would spark into existence as so many millions of eternal fireflies placed on a black canvas. The moon would climb out of it’s slumber to grin and translate the inkiness of night into a soft violet hue. Wolves would howl in somber songs of love, crickets would chirp their worship, and owls bathe the world in their questioning symphony.

Against the night, I would lay you down in the softest of grass. We would wave excitedly at the luminescence of our heaven bound ancestors as they rained their glow down on us. Our fingers would become paintbrushes as we connected their souls from the infinity above to each other as we painted portraits and fantastical creatures into the night. As the dark deepened, we would wrap ourselves in each other, merging as we bathed beneath the softness of infinity and the gentle eyes of the universe loving it’s children. We would stare into each others eyes and the moment of climax would break the hold of our bodies over our souls. Our cries would match the wolves and the entirety of existence would freeze for a moment of purity, ecstasy, and innocence.


If only I could cross the distance….I’d take you there.

Hail and Thunder where Hope Meets the End

Posted on by meltingneurons

Hail and rain beat the red off the tin barn roof. Thunder stutters while the salted tears of angels loosed from cream raiments pour onto the ground so much as snow stacked too early for the season. Apocalyptic droplets at the end of days that have run into themselves. Greed piled holiness tramping through the beautiful “could have beens” as the doomed masterpiece of the hopefully broken trod heavily across the land.

Trampled, trampled beneath the weight of heaven collapsing. Soaked, soaked in the dreams of all of those that once knew the direction they sought to follow. We let this happen. We let the monsters in and bred them in our hearts to be beggared, then sold off to the lowest bidder. We let this happen. We set fire to the oceans of life and love until their ashes drifted haphazardly across the ruins of our world. We let this happen. We decried the openness and jubilation at our fingertips to rejoice beneath the sun or moon-clad sky as free creatures wandering the magic that their brethren the stars choose to sparkle upon us. We let this happen. And now we rejoice in the blistering misery of our own defeat.

In the gasps of our failure, we can find ourselves. We are the dust of ancient suns decayed into life. We can reveal our nuclear radiance that would bless the entirety of time with an essence of gratitude and beauty so bright that it would shine into the endless void of the universe as a testament to what grew here. What fought and bled and lost and won and cried and mourned and shared and thrived and moved and wished and laughed and cheered and hoped and dreamed here. The lost will be brought into the welcoming arms of house and home as new families are born of that most primal and powerful light, love. Smile through tears most special ones, we stand at the cusp of all and nothing, let your eyes see the mysteries beyond, glimpse our eternal everything, and all that we had inside of us.

Hold each other close, and whisper your final breaths to those dearest. Our hour of despair and our hour of most compelling beauty comes now.

Hello human.

Trek

Posted on by meltingneurons

Wealth I found

past the cracked shoreline

where the temper of the rain

is always less than kind.

Across the grass gone to rot

in fields capped gray

seared to pathetic dust

fed on by insects

and home to spiders.

Beyond the sealed tops of wells

whose water had all soured

from dirt made mud

reeking of sulfur

which fouled the clarity

and the taste.

Against the backdrop

of a melted sun

pouring its soul

into an endless blue

as night shadowed close

to extinguish the light.

Deep in the badlands

mind spinning wildly

sparking against the solitude

a heart caught flame

and in the darkness

exposed the gold

staining each footprint.

Awaken the Statue

Posted on by meltingneurons
All credit for the image to Conscious Reminder

Etched ink drawn out in scars so colorful and deep they collapse the night around them,
I stare at them, on my arms, on my chest, on my fingers, on my neck,
this collection of reminders I wear to remind me of experiences,
they are my gateway to recall, to the moments that shaped me, that broke and remolded me.

Memories pour across the neurons, a kaleidoscopic whirl of time merging from past to present,
let me bathe inside the warmth of the smiles, the haloed intensity of each saturated moment,
let me wander determinedly into the shadows of loss, the grief, the regrets, the mistakes,
let me step boldly now across the insanity, the passions, the desires, the absences, and the half forgotten faces.

Take me to the sculpting block where all the roads merge to one, where stone is chipped with experience,
where the cracks define the figure and are the map into my soul, the escape route for my heart.
Let me see the tools we used, from tormented days to breathless ecstasy, from fear to love, from madness to peace,
all the fractured chunks on the floor, finally appreciated for the masterful strokes the universe wielded.

Walk me toward this newfound person, chiseled from the inside and the out to become a reality,
able to see and be seen fully without the cloak of mystery that all raw material has.
It took decades, it took patience, it took heartbreak, it took courage, it took honesty, it took determination,
it took error after error, it took forgiveness, it took deliberation, it took choices, it took exhaustion.

It took every painstaking moment, every particle of hope, and every bout of confusion to get to this moment.
Etched ink drawn out in scars, paint that will never be removed on flesh that yearned so desperately for meaning,
reminders of where it all began, and the journey to where I sit today. Grateful for the path,
mindful of what it cost me and those that entered the studio of my life, open to the light the bathes this world,
in love with existence and the chance to shine bright enough that others may find their way out of the dark.





Heated Gaze

Posted on by meltingneurons
All credit for image to https://mothergoodsmiles.wordpress.com

Summer becomes the tone of fresh and old love mingled.
Of exhilaration, fascination, inspiration,
all put in skin sacks, given names.
Each heat riddled day the sun bakes us,
we are entwined in passionate reverie,
where no mere words will penetrate the sanctum.

I Was a Stigma to Myself

Posted on by meltingneurons
All credit to Emotive Brand for the image.
So often I would sit and wail about "why"?
The frustration unending,
the obsession ongoing,
a gut wrenching demand to understand 
that in itself
kept me from the knowledge,
the peace I sought.

Sick in the head druggie,
psychopath,
crazy as a shit house rat,
lunatic,
insane,
addict,
"something's wrong with that kid" -
Drug user stigma phrases shown on an image with a haloed syringe from the words.
All credit to Stonetree Harm Reduction for the image.
I tried to own those labels
make them something to be proud of.
I tried doing that,
by doing all the things
I imagined people with those labels would do.
I followed that up,
by demanding that I not be persecuted,
not be judged,
not be looked at differently,
though I had just behaved in a way that demanded all those things happen.

Now I come to terms,
sit with the idea of peace,
find pride not in my actions
but in the understanding
that awareness and acceptance bring.
To know that I am not an actor playing out roles,
that I lost myself,
but I am a survivor,
no longer needing to play the role
of victim or perpetrator anymore.

It's a small thing,
Which means so much to me.
To be able to introduce myself,
engage in a conversation,
with confidence.
Know that I accept who I am as a being,
that I no longer let labels
define who I choose to see myself as,
act as a script for my identity,
or be my scapegoats when I screw up.

That like so many others,
I am the hero
and the villain,
of my own story.
That my abnormal mental states, 
my addictions,
all the resulting experiences,
are gifts to allow me opportunities,
to shine my brightest
against the backdrop of adversity,
and decide just how much of it there would be.

To know that there are others out there gleaming,
and if we encounter each other
it could be in the form of respect and love,
admiration for the battles fought,
no matter whether they were felt won or lost,
an opportunity to compare notes and grow.

I'm not ashamed of who I am,
or where I am today,
I am disappointed in many of my choices
but they have been mine to make,
and they were made.
I used to have a vision of the perfect person,
someone that I would measure myself to
and inevitably fall short.

Today I am me,
released on the world
perfectly defective,
beautifully abnormal,
gifted with challenge and capacity for growth.

All of it,
so that I have a chance to become
an oh so slowly evolving,
human being.




Inside Isabella at the park.

Posted on by meltingneurons

Liquid snake is common compare,
The river beneath the milk puddled blue.
Joy soaks all the green that grows,
in hedges, lengthy strides and by rows.
Here I watch the ever present of growth
Here I see the catalyzing mystery,
of what comes next.
Along the banks of of proud water,
scales made from ripples,
a mirrored surface refracting radiance,
royal and haunted eye azure to dazzle.
A bewitching tone of cerulean
as you would see skull mounted
to the face of a person of purest pale.
Baby, wouldn’t you take the briefest of moments,
to pause, to break the doldrums of repetition.
To slither our bodies the distance across
and along that charmed prism of color.
We can be washed clean
of the need for forgiveness,
though we might beg abruptly,
for the sky to open,
and cleanse us in the love of yesteryears.
When trouble was nothing but childsplay,
whispered dreams were sought and chased.
found, pursued and realized.
We would go floating,
Bucolic and serene on tides of hope.


Change the Future

Posted on by meltingneurons
Agents of Change

Beguiled and lost in the haze of one life,

Still losing out on what could salvage that strife,

Put meaning and purpose behind all the pain,

Gather the crazy to shed light on the game,

For all the nights spent on streets,

Walking and stomping amuck.

Banging head against wall for the sound of a thud,

Claiming bad luck.

If I had to find solace in all of the facts,

Like the door once chopped down as a kid with an axe,

It would be to show vision of future not so bleak in design,

Make windowless posters and let bleed out my mind,

To a world created unsorrowful, joyous and free,

Pleasure found in success is where I’d seek to be.

I’d be pleasant and loving,

Caring and nurturing,

Devoted and faithful,

Consistent and capable.

Brilliantly damaged with an uncrafted mind,

Open to new thoughts,

Carefree instead of careless with my time.

I’d be playful and cheery,

Opulent in my charity,

Give all with sincerity,

Never expect in return,

I’d find that blistering heat of our sun to which I once yearned.

There’d be lessons with smiles,

Understanding and patience for miles.

I’d recognize your pain that I felt as a child,

Never more would I feel like I was trapped in a zoo.

The display would be dismantled,

Daily shit show would be cancelled,

Put the guardrails away,

Be approachable, jokable and laughing while at play.

I’d tell a story that said all the mistakes clear and loud,

Put nothing out there afloat on pink cloud.

Pride in voice to name myself a survivor,

Through chance and luck as much as MacGyver.

Explore the recesses of why I did what and how it had to have changed,

Look never for excuses, but reasons to grow, heal, and set aflame,

-a desire for beauty to cross ‘cross the world,

Melt away shame for my broken child be they me,

Boy or girl.

Stand owning my personal legend of existence,

Know that at the end of my days,

I made something more than a negative difference.

Glass Walls

Posted on by meltingneurons
Glass maze image from overhead.
Labrynth

Putting pieces back together in a maze made of glass,

Seeing clear the future goals to move beyond the past.

These walls that edge without blotting out my vision,

They feel so tight yet loosely fit and lie about position.

I thought myself to be far in, so buried deep indeed,

Nearly neglected thought and action calls to change for want not need.