Desperate Wanderlust

(Pre-Script: This poem should be read as the song, "Going the Distance," #17 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

I have a horse called Desperate Wanderlust.
I ride him bareback.
He's not exactly the kind of horse you can saddle,

though sometimes he lets me guide him;
mostly he just runs and runs.
I am convinced we are trying to find the outmost reaches
of grace's wastelands
but we never get there,
I just become extremely tired

sick, even,
so we go back home, where I wrap myself
in the thickest comforter I can find
and sleep until I feel better.
The horse doesn't get tired;
I don't even think he rests.
He just huffs and paces impatiently in his pen.
He can be distracted by small domestic things,
-for long-ish periods of time, even-
A sugar cube, A quilt on his back,
new hay, the melody of wind chimes on a porch
in the late afternoon-
but these are just distractions.
It occurs to me that grace has no wastelands-
that all I do is exhaust myself with the effort I put into finding them,
that I am safe here,
and that warmth is a pleasant feeling.
But then Desperate Wanderlust starts to whinny,
and I start to itch...

-XOXO,

Leprosy

(Pre-Script: This poem is meant to be read as the song, "Keep Breathing," #24 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

Let's face it

(or don't face it, if that's easier)

no one wants the cure

we all just want the leprosy.

No one wants to wake up,

we all just want to dream through it

and believe that we're happy,

smiling as our fingers bleed and our flesh

is eaten away

one nasty gash at a time.

-XOXO,

Centered

(Pre-Script: This poem best felt when read as the song, "Bend and Break," #47 on the playlist, plays in the background. After that, click on "Maybe," #19. Go down to the playlist, click on those songs, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

I didn't even know you existed

until you showed up on the screen,

bright and blinking like a homing beacon

in the middle of some dark nothing,

and it centered me.

To think that there was light

and goodness

and something perfectly thriving

in the center of me,

and I'm not even that great of a person,

not half as healthy in my habits as I'd like to

say I am.

But that's the mystery of the thriving thing,

of a hope haphazardly placed

in the center of

where you thought only nothingness

and destruction were low maintenance enough

to survive.

I don't know everything;

I know that now.

-XOXO,