I arrive alone,
just as I have departed
time and time again.

Tall doors,
Small windows,
Open to me,
Revealing familiar souls
Disguised in the faces of
Strangers.

Unwilling to float stagnantly
in the wind,
I go away—
willingly at times,
at others, taken and used and disposed of;
sometimes both.

When, on my journey,
I sense human aching in my long legs,
I know I have approached a crossroads:
Stop, kneel down doubly—
almost as in sacred prayer—
and thank Life, perhaps Luck, or even Love,
for my strength, my endurance, my resilience.

Or, when these same eager travelers
are not the only tired folk around,
I collapse in on myself as a mimosa pudica,
Sinking deeply amongst the dirt and debris,
the grassy leaves and fig trees—
almost as in sacred prayer—
all the while cursing Life and Luck and Love
for their Passion, Pulse, and Power—
and my lack thereof.

In the case of the latter,
(for what to expand on but our struggles),
I find myself imprisoned by
Blind Certainty,
Disguised as Life itself.

And though I have been sent away
to lands uncharted, it seems, by most—
where, surrounded by hosts
of golden daffodils,
bleeding red tulips,
and elusive ivy,
I should plant my feet, my seed,
allow these long legs to sprout endless roots;
instead, I am enveloped by a tall, pristine glass bell,
watching numbly as thorns poke from my insides,
my petals dying, my rose smelling anything but
just as sweet.

I think: I am just a kid…
I feel no mercy from what Lord above?
But then: Aren’t we all?
And who are we a slave to but Love?

How I survive the suffocation, the pressure, the loneliness,
I do not know.
Perhaps it is the raw, beautifully ugly Light
that reflects back at me
from these walls of blood-stained glass
which reignites a fire burning in my soul.

A knock at a door,
Yet another masked encounter.
Where do I go?
Will I truly be alone?
This house is empty,
but I am already gone.

Brinn W.