I sit here baking in the sun,
the warm glow of heat darkening my skin,
smelling the salty sea spray,
until I cannot resist its siren call.
Sliping down the sandy slope that leads from the hotel to the water,
trying not to let my feet stray too far ahead of me,
hopping through the obstacle course of sharp shells and rough coral,
until I finally reach the crashing waves,
and immerse myself in its cool, weightless embrace.

When two sticks are rubbed together, are flames destined to erupt?
It's a wonder that the trees aren't burnt, and piled as ashes on the ground,
or pillars of fire reaching up into the sky with ragged burning fingernails,
waving their beacon leaves in invisible winds and blocking out the stars.

If that's what trees were like,
the satellite lenses would be blinded with both the light of civilizations and nature,
and flame would battle fluorescence for the eyes and attentions of all on earth.

Moths would no longer flock to the lamps and lanterns lining homes and streets,
instead, they would learn from the blackened wings of their fellows, or be wiped out completely by their curiosity.

We are forever acting as moths to a flame,
reeled in by the vines and temptations in the minefield of our minds.
Destroyed by our ignorance of the obvious dangers ahead.

Gliding across the water,
a foot below you becomes twenty,
and you are a skyscraper skimming the ocean.
Soft fogs of wet cotton flow by you,
and coat every hair with a bead of crystal.
Some days, the roughness of the waves toss you between their outstretched fingers,
and you wonder how long they can go,
before they drop you,
tossing you into the dark sodden depths.
A glimpse below you,
of shining scales and thrashing fins,
reveals itself to simply be your brother,
with his snorkel and fins,
chasing a torpedo across the pool,
and your waves reveal themselves to be merely ripples,
caused by those jumping into the water, again and again.

Imagination lets you believe the unbelievable,
and find the hidden reaches of your mind,
where only you can go.
Your imagination frees you from your boring, everyday life,
and takes you to a place where anything can happen.
In your imagination, you can play any role you want.
You can be a pirate, a spy, an astronaut, and a ninja, or all of that at once!
You can be anything you can think of,
and no one can tell you that you don't exist.

Swooping and soaring,
skimming and diving,
chasing each other on the cushions of air high into the sky.
The birds seem like they belong everywhere.
the forest, the mountains, the desert,
all the landscapes we have adapted to.
They were there first,
building their nests and raising their young.
We have taken their homes away from them,
cut down forests, populated the mountains, and irrigated the deserts.
But there is one place that we will never be able to take from them.
The sky.
You will never see a human with outstretched arms and fingers soaring through the clouds without artifice.
That realm belongs solely to the birds.
We might have planes and jets,
but birds have feathers and wings, created solely for the air,
and that is their true home.

There are few places in this world of screens and shows,
where you can sit, and breath, and listen,
to those small sounds that normally fade into white noise.
A breeze whispering through your hair,
      bringing the chirping of insects,
             and the rustling of leaves.
The heaviness in the air before the first raindrop falls.
Or a single bird calling out into the air,
      sharing its stories with the grasshoppers.

Listening is a lost art.
Even the crinkling of pages beneath the writer's hand,
      or the smooth flow of words from a pen.
We all have things that we need to hear.
All we need to do sometimes, is sit and listen.

How is it, that one day, as sight can be familiar as any you've seen,
A family home, a childhood playground,
Then as the moment passes,
You're lost in a setting where every shadow and every sound sets your teeth on edge.

The voice of a loved one sends pains through your chest,
like a gunshot, or the shard of a lance.
What once gave you comfort and hope,
Now makes you cringe away in pain and despair.
How can you adapt to such a flurry of trauma?

Glass shards that fall from the heavens,
Beautiful and mesmerizing as they drift and shine,
But ready the moment they touch you,
To slash and scar you with what you once adored.

​When your mind turns against you,
Laughing in the face of the hungers that you cannot sate,
And drawing you in with promises of sanity, closeness and home,
What are you supposed to do?
Tell it no? Refuse it?
Convince yourself that that part of you is worthless and unnecessary?
That it no longer has a place within your heart,
And that you'd rather tear it out than allow it to influence you any longer?
How do you convince it to leave you in peace, without setting you aflame or tearing you asunder with its passing?
What do you do, when the hallways of your mind close in around you,
And you are left fleeing,
Searching for safety,
But finding none.

Photo by Allef Vinicius, Allef Vinicius- Alternative Photography

People say write what you know.
But that's not the case for me.
Sometimes I write what I feel, or I see.
Or what I hear, and what I am.
What I watch, and I believe.
I catch, and I touch.
Doubt, and embrace.
Reality and fantasy.
Hearsay and make believe.
Everything taught and conditioned.
Sought out and found.
Left behind and abandoned.
I write what I find and I behold.
Because what I know cannot be written or spoken.
Knowledge itself is fiction,
waiting to be disproved.
If I can, I write life.
Because my life is my truth.
And it is me.
I could write nothing else.