The Curse of the Poet

Parades of working class heroes coming up from underground. Walking as if in a trance. New York City, a week or so from Christmas, cold air and green trees line the sidewalks. But the beauty is lost and ignored.

A bell rings, a sharp blade slices a string and balloons are set free, towards the cloudy sky where snow refuses to fall. The red river is flowing and the end of the year is coming soon.

I wander through the streets just wondering what is next for me. I want to be free… Need to be free to be me. Not trying to rhyme here it’s simply how I feel.

Breathe, breathe, breathe…

Lost in my over thinking…the curse of the poet who dares to see beyond what others pretend to recognize. To define colors as only their own eyes can define them. To hear the music and read the words better than the composers or the scribblers. The curse of the poet who dares to love way too intensely and yearns for a life others would find unbearable.

I love, I want, I lust, I ache to walk along the path untrodden, yet to find my way home quickly. My soul is imprisoned by hopeless aims constructed by others who preach which path I should follow in life; to simply follow them as they follow their own path towards their own goals.

I cannot lie anymore If I do I will not live for long.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Her beauty is unequal, her love is so true. How come it’s such a task for her to say “I love you?” To cede some space for me, to open her arms and lips for me?

It’s the poets burden to walk this empty, loathsome, lonesome path yet still see beauty in the barren trees and unsown earth.

Others will never understand just what it is that I see. They can never understand the emotional surge I feel when I love…needing an outlet and a true echo to express it back to me, in physicality, in praise and in truth.

I can’t go back, I won’t go back, I cannot breathe inside there… Like a wild horse confined in a stable, I’m kicking and fighting the confines they have placed me in. Overheated with no ventilation — perspiring and dehydrating…

Breathe, breathe, breathe.