Three, two, one,
The sisters spin,
Hands clasped,
Then one slips.
A ring, a home,
Life takes hold.
Innocence gone,
Turned to cynicism.
Go back now.
A time simpler,
Roles defined:
Big, middle, baby.
Fast forward,
No more reruns.
The roles reverse,
Hands outstretched.
Offering or taking,
A strange cycle
Of expectations
Unmet or unspoken.
An unknown face, once familiar:
A smile that crinkles the eyes, a laugh that attracts attention—
A warmth that bleeds kindness,
Until kindness runs dry and warmth disappears.
The smile touches nothing; the laugh turns hollow—
And coldness overtakes.
A familiar face transforms into a stranger—
The same features slightly shifted,
Same words dripping with a different flavor.
Turn the hourglass back to Once—
When I knew you.
Strength incomparable, smile sincere.
Now is the engulfing twilight that sees the dimming—
Of hope, of love.
Unhappiness, the worst of all diseases,
Poisons from within, subtly overtaking—
The best of people.
If strength wanes, look around—
A sea of faces surrounds you,
Others whose will can bear yours.
I hope mine remains familiar.
The hardest part of getting older:
I don’t wanna, I don’t feel like it!
Followed by:
No one else will do it for you.
Ten years pass and I still feel like
A kid fresh out of college,
A little naive, a little excited,
The world my oyster.
The other hard part of getting older:
Hearing the child within,
Crying with insecurities and doubt,
But realizing you can handle it.
A broken watch counts.
People, like seconds, pass by,
Their cogs misshapen.
Once upon a time all the forks went away,
My confused coworkers searched and looked all day.
Little did they know,
That I was the foe,
A quiet miscreant guilty of horseplay.
In my dreams there are faces of people,
Men and women whom I watch,
As they adventure over landscapes
Beyond reality, hovering on the scope
Of my imagination.
When consciousness returns, they
Disappear.
Who were they, these nighttime
Crusaders—these familiar people
With unfamiliar faces?
They could have been:
The fashionable girl on the platform,
The beleaguered man I bumped into,
An anonymous face among the masses,
Who snuck their way into my mind.
The awkward silence stretches like hours,
Between old friends, new acquaintances,
Locks the jaw tightly,
So no words
May pass
Freely.
False smiles and honeyed words,
Tittering like a flock of birds,
Infect the mind with expectations,
Just beware the confrontations.
A Curious Hermit 