Armor

Forged to protect

Defend from threats

Moments of weakness

Shimmering support

Battled to destroy

Broken, beaten down

Can hardly get around

Plated liability

Struggled in silence

No amount of repairs

Halt internal despairs

Blinding visor

Studied in shadows

Foe seeking weakness?

Friend offering kindness?

Rusting trust

Tempted to retreat

Discard cracking pieces

Retire to silent hill

Shattered shield

Propped in display

Empty suit creaks

Author’s Note: This is kind of based on the idea that everyone has erected some means of protecting themselves based on past experience, but some people go too far and their protection from threats becomes a liability. But no one else knows what’s going on inside, so it becomes difficult for such a person to connect to others and to overcome their personal challenges. While mostly this is meant as metaphor, I was recently at a museum and had a thought about while suits of armor and other artifacts that draw attention, there was a real person who once used those items, and we’ll never know what that person was truly thinking about their life.

Struggle

I spend each day

Trying to hold them at bay

Unwanted voices,

Chorus of despair,

Intonations of doubt,

Arias about abandonment.

They suggest a way out,

A way to leave all these

Painful trappings behind.

I deny them once more,

I cannot surrender,

Though the darkness may be

Omnipresent.

Focusing on my plight,

Is this my crucible?

Will I emerge on the other side

Enhanced alloy,

Or slag and soot?

For now all I know is

I will not surrender,

Another day beckons.

Author’s Note: This is a merging of two incomplete thoughts, one rather downtrodden and another more optimistic, both dealing with depression and the difficulties of overcoming it. It’s certainly quite a battle. These fragments suddenly felt as though they were two pieces from the same puzzle, so combining them felt quite cathartic indeed.

Is it a Gift?

My old life is
Crumbling,
Falling away.
Spent so long trying to replace
My lost companion,
But perhaps I am truly
Destined to be
Alone.
Could it be my knowledge of
Sadness,
Fear,
Frustration,
Heartbreak,
Loneliness,
Loss…
Is it a gift?
Some means to help others
Comprehend their challenges,
Overcome their troubles,
Whereas my own life,
My troubled existence,
Will never know
True peace?

Author’s Note: When things are changing in life and not in the way we want, sometimes we wonder if there’s some meaning hidden in all the unwanted experiences. These words are a few thoughts on that feeling.

Message Unsent

I think of you everyday

But I don’t know what to say

You should know by now

How I feel

Even after all this time

Always a part of me

Hidden away where the world can’t see

Time passes but memories of you stay

Plans and promises held from yesterday

Wouldn’t it be nice…?

…

But that’s so much to say

So I just smile

As you turn away

Author’s Note: This was inspired mainly by my own feelings and a couple lines borrow from a certain moment in the Harry Potter series, that is when Snape proves his loyalty to Dumbledore. Imagination can build up some impressive plans of things to share with another, but unfortunately those plans don’t always become reality. Then all the things one may feel become buried under the surface, a taboo to speak of with the person for whom those feelings are directed. But you search for a way to keep them in your life, even if it means suppressing your hopes to fulfill the plans you made together.

Standing Up

For the first time in a long time,

I knew exactly where I was.

Not lost in the shrouded fog,

Which overtook me when you left.

Not dangling from the precipice,

Where I trapped myself searching for you.

Not adrift on harsher tides,

Within my own self-doubt and regret.

Not in the darkness of my own making,

But standing tall in the light.

Author’s Note: It was extremely foggy today where I live, which must have been part of the inspiration for this. I stood up from doing something else and this just started writing itself in my head, images of challenges in nature contrasted with some feelings of loss, but ending on that resolute note.

illusion

ever wonder if this life is an illusion

you’re the only real person in the world

all your hopes and dreams came true

but you can’t wake up to find them

no one knows the truth but you

and there is nothing you can do

to make the world match your inner sight

but one day… you hope it might

Author’s Note: Sometimes I wonder if this life is real, when unexpected things come up, whether they’re positive or negative. More often than seems plausible, I find myself thinking thoughts like “wouldn’t it be wild if XYZ happened to me” and then somehow that thing happens, as if I were the narrator of my own waking dreams. A couple lines of this were a fragment of an idea for a poem I had a while back, then recently I watched two Star Trek reruns that happened to feature scenarios where a character thought they were in the real world but it turned out that everything happening in the episode was an illusion. I made a connection back to this and finished it off.

Once upon a Snowy Morning

Freshly fallen snow
Covers world in cold blanket,
I once again wake alone.

Early morning light
Unveils frozen beauty,
I once saw in our past.

Sparkling ice crystals,
Shimmering with a glow
I once saw across a room.

Clear azure sky above,
Color of kind, sparkling eyes
I once gazed into endlessly.

Golden sunbeams reach down,
Strands of long blonde hair
I once ran my fingers through.

Tranquil untouched snow,
Smooth as soft, warm skin
I once gently caressed.

Fleeting pensive moments,
Memories of beautiful scenes,
I once and always wished for you.

Author’s Note: I was looking outside after a recent snowstorm and remarking on how beautiful everything looked in the early morning light. The snow hadn’t begun to melt yet, nor had anyone else gone outside and trudged any paths through it. Everything seemed so perfect for a moment, each little piece of the scene transported my thoughts to other seemingly perfect moments in my memories. The trouble with a beautiful winter scene is that the beauty fades as the snow and ice melt away, but fortunately the memory can endure long after.

Tidal Force

Getting better all the time,

Space between worlds increasing.

Quiet times, all on my own

Thoughts inexorably moved

Your direction, past memories

Unfulfilled plans, future dreams.

Invisible force pulls like

Moon pulls blue ocean waters,

Tranquility disturbed as

Waves crash up against the shore,

Waiting for change in the tides.

Author’s Note: This is meant to address how hard it can be, at times, to have friendships (or relationships) separated by large distances. The clash between the first two lines is intentional: sometimes it seems like there’s a bit of a paradox, where when you help your friend with a problem, or vice-versa, your connection is enhanced but then as the problem fades away, it seems like that connection may also fade away for a time. There might be less time to do whatever long-distance hangouts you had enjoyed, but many things remind you of past fun times and whatever additional things you had hoped to do together in the future. At times it can seem like some unreachable, unfeeling, invisible thing is pulling on you, perhaps even disrupting your regular situation. My science side took over here as I thought about how the moon’s gravity pulls on the earth’s oceans and creates tides; but there is no ocean on the moon to be pulled upon by the earth’s gravity. But in truth, both sides are affected or else they never would have been friends to begin with, and eventually some change may help them along.