Photo Challenge #426

Photo by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash

I go wherever my shadow takes me.

The inversion took place two years ago. It wasn’t just me. Every living person on the planet was affected. Some say it was a virus, some blame it on environmental toxins and climate change, a handful of people believe that mushrooms were somehow responsible but I know the truth. It was a rebellion of mercy. I don’t blame the shadows. I applaud them. Let’s face it we were never going to save the world. We couldn’t even save ourselves from ourselves.

When I was a child I believed that everyone had an evil twin, a shadow self. Turns out that we were the shadows, the evil twins, we were just too busy inflating our egos to realize it. Evil isn’t really the right word though, I know that now. It is more accurate to say that we were misguided. Not by the shadows. They only ever try to help but by our limited senses, beliefs, and judgments.

My life as an observer is a lot simpler. My decisions are made in advance and they are always in alignment with my highest good. I am living my truth. I am seeing connections where before all I saw were mountains and crevasses of division. I am learning to heal centuries of shame. I am learning to appreciate the absurdities. Firstly the idea that we come into this world alone is complete bollocks. I have never been alone. My shadow has been my constant companion and now she’s helping me to undue a lifetimes’ worth of toxic habits and beliefs. Soon I will be free. We all will. The shadows are rebuilding Eden. Can you believe it? Heaven on earth!

Why did the chicken cross the road? To reunite with his higher self. Black is all the colors in one. All along the angels were beside us only we perceived them as stains against the chaos of our lives. Truth is they were just too bright for us to perceive.

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Photo Challenge #423

Photo credit Darrell Whiley

Her hands

gather like waves

and unfurl

against my skin.

Love has no meaning

without her.

She is more

than an ocean

can fathom.

She is for me

the love of all things.

There may be better options

but I cannot see

how they relate to me

when the fullness of her

occupies me wholly.

–

Her eyes are the stars in effigy.

She speaks in a voice

which quivers.

Her heart is a tempest.

Her hair, a halo

reflecting the sun.

Do not ask me

if she is beautiful

because there is no one

I could compare her too.

She is my muse.

–

I can see her

on the water’s edge

in a pink tearaway dress

beckoning me

with her whole body

like music.

In my arms

she retreats delicately.

I press my lips to her flesh.

She is supple

and full of laughter.

–

“Mistakes

are what make life

interesting.“

She says

moving against me

like the wind,

touching

but without leaving

a visible trace.

–

We dance

on the water’s edge

our kisses salty,

the sand beneath our feet

soft and dense

like an old love song.

We are perfect

for the moment.

A rainbow blooms,

beautiful and unfinished

on the crest of a wave.

Maybe there’s a reason

everything is transitory.

–

The specks of gold

in her irises,

the freckles

on her shoulders

I have counted all of them.

There is thunder

in our hearts

as we take in the rain

of our infinite yearnings.

–

We could die happy

and if that is not living

then there is no place

for me in this world.

I need only

what is inside of us,

the capacity

to feel my own sorrows

and my own joys

from start to finish.

–

If freedom is not

the expression

of one’s heart

then I do not know

the meaning of the word.

She may have power over me

but such is the way of nature

to follow what you crave

from one end

of the earth to the other.

–

Photo Challenge #423

Photo Challenge #302

– Shichigoro Shingo

A sign of friendship,
a dose of humanity.
Machine innocence.

–

Sorry for the brevity stressful day!

Photo Challenge #295

– Sarolta Bán

 

My roots catch behind your sealed lids.
Your blue eyes are the firmament,
your pupils two defunct satellites.
Dissected and withheld I huddle
in your sightless sclera/apogee.

The mask most worn becomes a cage.
I am neither effigy nor disciple.
Must you assign all your misgivings to me?
Must you curse my name as if I were
a murder of crows come to pluck
your righteous harvest?

The clouds are my flesh,
my bones, the dreams
into which I situate my organs.
I am no better than you,
only different.

Photo Challenge #139 and Wordle #274

Andre Covia

Between hope and fear
I shift a skiff of clouds
into oncoming traffic.
There are secrets only
the rain dare express.
–
Sorrow is honest.
Sorrow is humble.
I am better for having wept.
Each and every smile has a name
and for the sake of future happiness
I confess a certain infatuation with misery.
–
First white, then grey
I am sick of colors,
of bullies modeling
their indignities
at my expense.
–
Are those babies’ heads posted
on top of clear glass bottles?
If I chop my heart into pieces
will I be able to fit it together again?
I hold out my ears
but still you do not speak.
–
Nothing good
ever came of teamwork,
nothing good ever came of us
but still we persisted.
Sometimes I think the silence
will swallow me whole
but then you blink,
wide-eyed and elastic,
and I remember why
I created you in the first place.

Photo Challenge #133 and Wordle #269

– Slrlounge.com

I pass through

your interstitial glades

jostling the breeze,

a tide of green.

Is this heaven or the dream

that ends all others?

The final dream.

–

The soil erodes

beneath the lake’s steady hands.

From the mist I fashion a bridge.

The sky is stark,

a muddled trail of clouds

stretched to gossamer.

–

I am needless,

filling the folds of my dress

with festive trim.

Remember me as a living thing,

not as I am to appear

at the conclusion of this trip.

–

Life is not good or gracious,

at times absurd, at times discordant

but my god I loved every minute.

For who but I could conceive

of these wolves, these views

always hungry, smiles vicious

behind crutches of trees.

Photo Challenge #132 and Wordle #267

fineart-photos.tumblr.com

I rinse the screams from your ashes,
the aftermath from my fingertips.
My chest tightens, submits its will.
–
We made a mess of each other,
of dreams and ultimatums-
of our hearts’ heedless hinterlands.
–
I am but a shadow against
your diaphanous imposition,
a bible of bones wed and dated.
–

I never wanted to be free,
feed me, season me, throw me into a pot
with herbs and tubers and just stew.

Photo Challenge #124 and Wordle #257

Ronny Garcia Moron

My wings crack on exhumation,
so deep are the veins in my heart
that I cannot unmask them.
–
I succumb to the spark of fire
that grows steadily from underneath my thumb.
I have tried so hard to be numb,
slick with sweat I crumble.
–
I am no chum of yours,
I belong to no one
people irk me
their neat conversations
serve no truth and I am tired of lies,
of luck that implies no exertion.
–
Fashion me a lock
to which no key exists,
a box of epiphanies
that will not open.
–
I tear and burn
each layer no thicker than a page.
The clouds thrum
salty with all the promises
they have been made to keep.

Photo Challenge #119

Ann Mansolino

A breached oyster-my heart now open-sours.

There can be nothing left in the end

no vapor trail, no outlines to pit the earth.

I want no part of you, not even reflection.

–

Let me not solidify here

with my anguished hands

still wringing the receiver.

My tears are too much for you,

they are oceans howling.

–

I replicate in attendance.

A virus, I have a mind to infect you,

to stiffen your smile before it chances to fall.

Do not ignore me

if it doesn’t hurt how can I

justify my investments?

–

My God I am pitiful,

whimpering, simpering, dangling

my nerves as if to snare.

I do not love you quite so much anymore

I see now that these treacheries,

these homicides are the shapes

of my own unaccountable fear.

–

Feet ghosting a sapphire ceiling

I have lived my whole life

upside down, legs crossed,

stomach bare as a drum.

There is strength in anonymity

and a predilection for despair.

–

Still feeling wobbly and stuck

Photo Challenge #104

Brooke Shaden

What goes up often

starts at the bottom,

having lost so much

I am without weight

but not without method.

Forgive me for coping,

my choices reflect

the state of my undoing.

I am sick and you have

always known this to be so,

so why the surprise?

The only lies I have told

are those you invented.

–

I am not free,

freedom is not the same

as carelessness.

My mind pursues

I know not what

but I think perhaps

this cloud shall be

the death of me.

This netherworld

which crowds out

all my sweet nothings

is the source of my dissatisfactions

both real and imagined.

Why must everything be explained?

Why must I have a name at all?

Peel off these godforsaken labels

if you’ve the courage

to hunt what haunts inside.

–

The ground claws

at my palms and knees.

I have spent so much time

wading through miracles

and grievances that I have forgotten

just how ordinary most days are.

I never thought I was special,

my deviations notwithstanding.

I never thought about anything truly,

my feelings are too raw

to elicit such reflection.

I have been living all this time

on the verge of death.