Confessions of a Lost Soul or The Birth of a Conciliatory Phoenix

In my flowery flowing skirt
I’ve been digging in life’s dirt
Ne’er do I fret, “Where do I begin”

I dig in…

I lost my life, my way, my chapel.
all I have left? Metaphysical shrapnel.

I lost decades of memories that really matter
because looking back feels endlessly sadder.

Riddled with trying not to see
the obsequious acts I performed as a leigh.

The reality is sarcastically worse –
it stalks from the back of a Roadmaster hearse,

With punitive curtains casually drawn.
I was only ever a restless pawn.
I wasn’t a queen, I wasn’t a rook,
I never moved straight for the turns that I took.

And now here I am. The hour is late.
The world is a mess, and so is my plate

Why?
I tower. I grumble. I sigh.
It was my first question, and the last when I die.
Does life have to be so painful a twist?
I itch the century old scar on my wrist.

I tried!!
I woke up at 3
for the measly pay they handed to me.
I worked all day, with a generous smile.
while I gathered my grit each day for a while.
I was told I’m too happy, with sunflower hair.
That if I just seemed more broken, it might show that I care.

I tried!!
I reached, cliff hanging, with goldilocks hands
But the hands that returned all had their own plans.
The hands that I found grabbed and dragged
The hands I found left me bound and gagged
The hands I reached for,
well, what do you do
When the hands that reach back care nothing for you??

(but their hands were all tattooed with red flags,
and why carry around so many large bags?)

I’ve made so many mistakes, I lost count years ago.
The most cheerful I reach is an approximate Poe.

I’m what’s left of a dream and the poison it spills.
I’m a fish that can’t swim and never had gills.

But I’m no victim! That’s my heaven sent right!
it’s too ugly a costume for a fit that’s so tight.
(you can’t be a hero without a good plight)

I came here, I fell in love with each creature.
the animals are earth’s most valuable feature.
They are the vulnerable.
Not me.
I won’t say it.
so you can fuck off before I ever convey it.

I chose a smooth path, the crook of a mortal
But I jumped with raw hubris into the wrong portal
All the dimensions that I yearned so to seek,
like the farthest star on the wildest peak,
Where the wind is blue
and you cannot speak…

Yet, what, I ask, does my mirror now say?

if it reflects silence, then try the next day.
Try until the inside is out.
Try until you’ve banished all doubt.
Try until the world falls away.
Until your heart pounds with all you can say.

Now, it’s time to rise up to my ardor’s degree,
My new skill set is flame in a world made of a sea.

Think smart with your soul, discerning and brave.
Remember the millions of lives you could save.
Trees, bugs, birds, each blade of small grass
all the buzzing and chirping and coos that you pass

He left me in sorrow, pleading for life.
The forgotten beggar of the dead man’s mad wife.
He lay in his grave he watched everyone dig.
He forgot what to do when life got too big.
As he left his strange child.
He trained her that day.
for his last treasured smile was all he could say.

He trained her until her toes curled in defiance
in a mythical arch to her soul’s non-compliance.
Until the last ray of the sun shone through
Until the last note of the song rang true
When the last bee buzzed
And the last rain poured,
until the last of the last of the last I adored.
Until there is nothing.
No earth. No sound,
No ‘all of our stories’ and nothing we found,

It was all blown away. just shadow and smoke.

…but is there some light in the words we once spoke?