Dash

Nearing the end of the year,

She starts to remember the last time it happened.

And so a heart clenches every beat, small irregular thumps of pain knocking inside a fragile ribcage.

She is made strong, but no rival for memories like this.

River like this can float you on a good day, and drown you on a bad day.

Today.

Moments

Moments of extreme,
love, hate, lust, fear, laughter, adrenaline rush,
curves of a pounding heartbeat.  Fast and dancing.
Compressed, we treasure it at the one chip corner of the mind.
The part that ignites glowing memories, the part that guides subconsciously what we do,  how we do, and leading to, who we are.

For the first half of our lives, we are taught to grow,
grow into a child,
grow into a man,
grow into expectations,
grow into fulfillments.

The second half of this life, we learn how to undo the growing.
Understanding, accepting, and being.

A life's first half could be the first thirty, forty, or fifty years.
Some may never arrive at the second half their entire life.

Ask me where one begins and one ends, and I look to you with a light brown depth of unknowing.

So I pray, that I meet you not sooner, not later,
but right here,
right now.

Fall in Korea

Trees ablaze with every fiery rouge, the season announces arrival by setting fire to branches, ferocious and without fear.   Winds icy-cool, blow whirlwinds of dry leaves around dark boots of passing pedestrians. And sometimes there's is rain, grey skies shower teary good-byes to friends who have kept her company since Spring.

One wonders, when nearing that time in life, if to stage such a dramatic Fall like that of Korea's would be preferred.
Or maybe life cycles to its end with no warnings of Fall.  It'll wander carelessly into it like that a Taiwanese Autumn. No big announcement, almost too brief to be noticed. Then you look up and winter falls smack on your face.

I Read to a Parrot

Seeing the parrot in distress,
I began to read aloud, turning the pages slowly so he could catch my every movement.
He eyed my bookmark warily.
I bent myself into a half slouch, half standing position so he could read what I was reading to him, if he could read.
He cocked his scruffy grey head to one side,
listening, as the words tumbled out of my mouth.
A chain to his right claw was there to make sure he was prisoner.
He strained that chain so he could hear better, or maybe aim better so he could take a bite out of my thumb.
He might have been once a handsome bird,
but pressure of being isolated took out what made him sure of what he was.
If a parrot can go crazy and lose defined intelligence,
I guess humans too can walk into their own mind-trap.
If our reality is based on structures of experience and belief,
I come to the conclusion that no life is 100% objectively real, because no one is me.

Based on my belief that I am the reality.

If there was a second life

If there was a second life parallel to this one of ours

in the next millionth of a second lives another me, and another you.

I wonder too sometimes what that he, that she, and that what I would become if fate spun the other way.

I would never know, not in this coming existence anyway.

My wise sister tells me there are no shortcuts with time.

Every deal is fair, non-wavering and universal, an invisible force of law we are bound to.
What you buy with time, you will eventually pay back, with time.

This curious thing, we are the experiment.

Wanna live on a warm weather island

Wanna live on a warm weather island

Wanna grow a free-man’s summer burn

With warm eggs from chickens

And footprints on wet sands firm.

Should there be a raindrop,

I will capture it between flutters of lashes and eyelids

The soft crystal glowprints a story,

You may need to hold me as I bend to listen.

Is it just me, or do you hear it too.

Tomorrow

So when you called me home,
I took off my shoes and padded into the living room.
Where light flickered off the fireplace in waves of orange aurora.
There are familiar shadows and voices, deep murmurs, with intimate frequencies.
I adore.
I adore every inch of your voice, it takes me to places.
Places real and not forgotten. Places existing but un-existing by our timeline.
Take me with you when you go.
I will be light and easy to carry, I promise
I won't cause no trouble at all.