Muted

I am dumb while I stare at these hands
Gaze on this face
Muted by this strange pink that is usually so familiar.

I can’t help but laugh… silently
at the seaming illusion that’s my own line
My own form
My own splotches of yellows, reds and grays.

Forgetting myself, losing myself in the way that is not comforting
or freeing.
Not like that world that I daydreamed in my childhood.
That world I was so convinced existed somewhere just out of my vision.
That I could touch if I only held my breath long enough or stared long enough at the gossamer strands lacing the sunlight.

Instead, it is muted. Dull, without a glistening pulse or familiar rhythm.
An absence of…something. Like that place you land when you fall between wake and sleep and before your body jerks you awake.
I want to wake.

I want to feel vital. Alive. Thrilled.
Moved to action.
Moved to touch
Moved to tears
or screams
or gut splitting laughter.

But, I am muted. Not even truly restless.
But that ache is there. That ache to reach past this thick, viscous, wall
That’s coated my flesh, my innards my breath with nauseating stillness.

That ache is my hope. My solace. My resolution that this will pass.
That this is only a moment.
A moment poised in stillness, while my body rests in emptiness.

Muted

Hong Kong

Float body
float
float
But I want
I want
I want to dig
Dig through the five feet of concrete that leads to the water lines
The sewer lines
The water pipes filled with alligators, giant rats
Old tin cans
Dig past the lost cities
Through the core
And find you, upside down.
Walking with thousands of slanted eyes
Dark coarse hair
See if in your eyes you see my reflection
Like I see yours.

I want to see you, speak to you, know you.
But you aren’t there.
It is you, upside down.
It is you, topsy turvy
I can reach your feet, your calves, your hips and touch them gently
Like a child’s hands might.
But still, you aren’t there.
My arms, dirt, mud, sewer covered slip and I climb.
Claw back through the water piping, swat at the tin cans and alligators.
Ignore the lost cities.
And there
Body float
float
float

Hong Kong

Grow the World

When playing with words
So many grow ill with
Fear or even hate
Because nothing new
Comes with them.

But, with words;
The tongue
The hand
The ear
The heart
Has the capacity
To work in unison
(even if in confusion
or confession.)

Then anything new may come,
All in the noon day sun.

Grow the World