Butterfly Kisses

27 11 2009

The whole world was singing that day in the park, but nobody was listening. No human being, at least. They were all magnificently trained to listen to each other, in their multitude of parallel languages and media outputs, but they had lost the ability to hear even the blaring clamor of a scorching sunset or the relentless whisper of the wind. Human language had come to define their existence. If it could not be expressed in words, then it must not be real. In most cases, it would pass right under the radar of consideration altogether.

But the sound of a tree falling in the woods still resounds, even if no man is there to hear it. So nature continued its elegant discourse, as was its purpose, patiently awaiting the kindred response of man.

I was humming a tranquil melody that mild autumn afternoon when Sophia nonchalantly settled on the park bench next to me. She opened her American History book and immediately gave all her attention to the words on the page. Unaware of my gaze, she made frustrated faces at the black and white print.

Sophia was an intelligent young woman. She worked hard and played fair. But life didn’t seem to respond in kind to her earnest intentions. School was always a struggle for her, with grades that did not reflect the effort she exerted. Solace came in the form of art classes, where she did not feel the same pressure of having her intelligence measured and judged. Instead, she was free to simply let her hands be moved to create her own truth, one that could not truly be measured or judged. She relished these moments and was grateful for the creative outlet.

What Sophia did not appreciate or even realize, however, was that her hands were not moving of their own will, nor was she herself willing them to move in any particular direction. Instead, her hands were listening to the world and speaking its truth in the curves and shades of her sketches. The world was crying out to her through her very own limbs. But she didn’t even know that she was supposed to be listening.

Of all the subjects she studied in school, mathematics was the strangest. It seemed, to her, purely rational and yet so magical at the same time. The laws and formulas and equations all made so much sense. But why? Why should there be any such laws at all? And how did these laws simply exist, without any intervention of man, other than to uncover them for their own personal use? She shook the feeling and continued on reading the next paragraph in her history book. There was no reason to be thinking about math at the moment anyhow.

Sophia had taken an American History class in high school, and also studied the subject in elementary school at one point. But now, in her freshman year of college, she was learning it all over again. The same history, recounted in different words. How many different ways could you say the same thing? Was there a mathematical formula for that?

An unsettling ripple of energy surged through her, and she felt compelled to begin doodling in the margins of her textbook. It started out as an oblong geometric shape, then thin wisps of texture began to form on either side, and in a moment she could name the sketch as the image of a butterfly. It was in that moment, as the neurons in her brain relayed to her consciousness that her hand had just created a butterfly, that I swooped down from the branch of my oak tree and skimmed by her just closely enough to gently brush the perimeter of my left uppermost wing against the blushing flesh of her right cheekbone. She never even caught a glimpse of me before I fluttered off along another whisper of air. But she had felt me. She knew I was there. She believed in my existence.

In the days that followed, Sophia would try to describe her experience in many different ways, with different words and shapes and colors and sounds. And although she would never quite succeed in replicating that moment, she somehow knew that this was not her true aim. There was something more important than trying to define our interaction that day. It was the fact that she knew, and I knew, that the next time I spoke to Sophia, she would listen.





Wake

24 11 2009

It’s like my whole life has been a dream
until now.

In one unassuming moment,
I kicked over an invisible domino
and set a whole new world in motion.

A spiritual precipitation.

But part of me is afraid
that I’m really just going insane.
And another small part of me
thinks I’m just being vain.

Still, most of me is
unconcerned
with giving this a name.

For better or for worse,
my senses are awakening.





Fixed Perceptions

23 11 2009

Without glasses
to correct my vision
there is a halo
around my lights.

Without drugs
to correct my chemistry
there is a fire
inside my mind.

Without society
to correct my beliefs
there is uncertainty
throughout my soul.

Without correction
life is pure.

The only chaos
is control.





Shifting Prism

20 11 2009

It’s red-orange-yellow time!
Passion, come burn me.

Take me high,
higher,
high as you can,

so I have something to dream to
in my next blue slumber.





Snap, Tap, and Split Into Pieces

18 11 2009

There is a miniature man
inside my skull
tap-dancing
on my corpus callosum
to the beat of blood vessels
wrapped tight around my temples.

He is tempting my brain
to split
and let each hemisphere fend for itself.
They’re always arguing anyway.
Feel this!
No, do that!

I can’t bear to hear them bicker anymore.

So maybe the man is right.

I will compartmentalize
each reality I realize
and access only one axiom at a time.

Contradictory beliefs,
you are no longer allowed to cross paths
or even approach the bridge
to leave change
for our resident street-artist tap-dancer in-training.

He will starve to death eventually,
without your handouts
and propaganda.

It sounds cruel,
but it’s just self-defense.

I can’t find peace
in pieces.





Virtue Reality Check

15 11 2009

Keep a muzzle on your mind
and a leash around your limbs
unless you dare to die
in a battle you can’t win.

Principles have perished
with virtue on their side.
But life cannot be understood.
Greater men have tried.

It’s best you take it lightly
and silence all the sounds.
The best that you can hope for
is just to stick around.





The Meaning of Life

11 11 2009

You’ll just know.
You’ll just…
know.

I finally know.

Intuition
like a lightning bolt,
like a realization
at the tip of my tongue
yet light-years away
and not composed of any words at all.

Reaching out to touch it,
my chest caves in
as I cross over dimensions
and break through magnetic fields.

Crushing. Imploding. Recoiling. Resounding.

The universe aligns
and I catch a glimpse
of a worm-hole
black-hole
holy grail of light.

If you open up the sun,
life as we know it
will end.

I catch my breath.

Yes.
This is it.





One-Word Self-Portrait

25 10 2009

If there was one word
that I could use
to describe myself to you,
it would be
UNSTABLE.

This does not mean UNABLE.

It just means that I live my life
like a run-away fable,
a story that
may or may not
be untrue.

A lesson handed down
to you
on one leg
instead of two.

Because BALANCE
is overrated.
And I will not be sedated.

I will just keep stumbling
by and by
until I reach
the unfixed sky.





2nd Amendment, 1st Responsibility

25 10 2009

Let’s start a revolution,
bring retribution
to the poor souls
too lost to find solution.

I say EXECUTION
to this way of life
and all the strife
we think we need
in order to fulfill our greed.

There is a system
and you’re in it
but let’s push it to the limit
to see how far
they’ll really take it
before we break it
from within.

We are the only ones,
so lift up your guns.
Even if they’re only pens.





Groundhog’s Dandelion

17 10 2009

A cluster of vital organs
with profound prophetic potential
was planted in the dirt
twenty-six years ago today.
Nourished by a diet of
acid rain
and intermittent blazing sunshine,
a strange and unstable seedling
was born.

Here mother!
I picked you a beautiful weed!

Yes, indeed.
The dandelion is a sight to behold
in all her un-glory
and poison
and pitiful waste
of unrooted
undisciplined
potted potential.