from the time we breach the birth canal, nature & nurture work with & against event & circumstance to render an image of what love ought to be

an effigy of the transitory

at first chance the fledgling artist emerges and proceeds to imprint that image on every surface that manages to hold the eye without regard to
how the canvas will receive the media

but when what we expect
falls shorter than
we could have ever wildly imagined

misplaced blame will cuss our currency, and set out to slay deities and fates alike

the colors run, the linen buckles,
the structure weakens, the easel bends
the bristles dry, the fumes solidify and cement and the wood warps and weathers
and once rust finds the metal that supports the instrument you may as well throw it out
lest it stain your masterpiece

vilify your claim to fame
mar your good name

so if you find yourself lookin’ round
like “yo’ love don’t look like mine”

you’d do best to take up photography

on the day before we close our eyes

we’ll beg forgiveness for our sins 

and settle up with soothes and lies

with heavy heart, make brief good byes

alike with enemies and friends

on the day before we close our eyes

for we who know, for what we die 

should gather up our wounds to mend 

and settle up with soothes and lies

we’ll spend these moments cutting ties

or mending those with loosened ends 

on the day before we close our eyes

kudos to we who know and vie 

to mourn our loss, and so, intend 

to settle up with soothes and lies

so at long last we’ll raise our cry

and treasure what we must defend

on the day before we close our eyes 

and settle up with soothes and lies

right in the thick of the best years of a girl’s life

when what she wants and what she needs come close enough to what she has
to breathe joy into every waking moment

in the thick of it, madness sets in

sets in so heavily so surreptitiously
that it creates a chasm

an unidentifiable emptiness a deep blackness void of sense that she cannot express or name or even locate
let alone avoid

creates a chasm that starts a skip in the record

things she knows she knew keep getting lost in the dark dropped without a sound into this betrayal of her own mind’s making each step has equal opportunity
to land in clarity or confusion

learn and forget and learn and learn and then…

what she immediately recognizes
as a warning cannot be heeded

instead it catalyzes a long latent mixture of curiosity and arrogance and push…

in her mind it looks like adventure on her face it looks like bravery
on the page it looks like lunacy

and she knows she knows better but the blackness lends better to the whim and disguises it as challenge
and madness does not bend to challenge

instead it evolves and manifests creates a thirst, silo and a prison
for submission, wrath and compassion

when we apply 8th grade math
12th grade science and grad school philosophy these factors produce only one outcome tenacious and unbridled honesty
barring not a single hold

and with that the joy returns

out of the black despite the black
to spite the black

and whether its denial or acceptance
it’s done

and the madness subsides

emotional husbandry cultivating joy with pain with truth…

truth that sheds just enough light
on the chasm

to see the devil’s shame