I'm Not OK

I'm not ok

It's hard to say

But, yet I know it's true

The cruel way

My world can be

The pains both old and new

I try to do

What I believe 

Are all the the proper things

Amazing still

How futile now

So many of them seem

I'm not ok

I won't pretend

To make you comfortable

Sheltering you

Is far too much

I am not indestructible

Hostility

And disrespect

Until I mirrored them

It took a fall

Just breaking down

To be myself again

I'm not ok

So please don't ask

Unless you care to hear

About the building

I must do

To close this gaping tear

I know that it

Will be alright

With time and meditation

But while I build

Don't be surprised

By me and my vexation

I'm not ok

I feel alone

So tired, lost, and stranded

Like wandering

A desert road

Forgotten and abandoned 

Forgive me now

If it seems harsh

My blatant honesty

But while I covered 

All of your wounds

No one was healing me

I'm not ok

But I am strong

I will rebound again

When I can rise

I hope to find

That we are all still friends 

I have spent a lifetime trying to be a hero.  Trying to fix other people, other things, so that I didn't have to deal with my own pain.  The last six years of my life were spent in a very toxic environment.  I endured the ridiculous, trying to do the impossible, and found myself trying not to compromise my own ethics in an environment that was very ethically deficient.  I broke down.  It had to happen; thank God it happened.  At the very least, I am addressing these emotions and these circumstances without my normal filters.  So, if you are my friend, please stand by while I adjust the vertical and the horizontal.  I'm doing some much needed repairs and soon will be fine tuning the man I need to be.

How Long is a Lifetime?

Painting by Robert Ives.
Image used without permission from ivesart.com

Swinging, playing, in the park
What seems like yesterday
I longed to hold on to your hand
But turned and walked away

Then once again when our paths crossed
Your smile knocked me off my feet
Too shy, again, the chance was lost
I journeyed lonely and incomplete

The Springtime, here and gone so quickly
The Summer, came and went
The innocence I once held richly
I fear has all been spent

At every turn, in retrospect
I'd stumble into you
Never once did I expect
That you could love me too

I said I'd wait a lifetime
For you, that touch, your kiss
But I wish now, I'd recognized
The chances that I missed

The Autumn leaves are falling
The Winter closes in
If now I falter and keep stalling
How can I ever win?

How long is a lifetime
That youth is squandered so?
How many chances will be mine
Before I finally know?

So, if I act now, somehow hurried
Break some sacred protocol
It's that I feel the seasons blurring
I soon may have no time at all

The winds of life begin to chill
I see all of the signs
I answer before my heart grows still
This is, my love, life's time






There is a time for waiting.  There is a season for temperance.  But, comes the day when inaction is just lost opportunity and sad, lonely regret.  Can missed opportunity become a most beautiful future?  Carpe Diem