From this Stone

~ Vanessa ~ 1 Comment

I am not sure who
I am
Sometimes,
For I lose myself
In loving others
Selflessly,
Only to be the
Battered for
Their ram

My salty,
solitary tears
At times help,
Help me float
As I drift out,
Away,
always
Alone;
Lonely

I can not do it all,
Never was meant to,
I am tired
Of hurting,
And of being alone,
This way,
I fear
my heart calcifying;
And still of me
Demanded
Blood,
From this stone

Shifting Tides

~ Vanessa ~ 1 Comment

Feel the pull
Of the tide
As it moves out
And collects;
Collects its expressed waves,
Feel the sand as it recedes from beneath bare feet,
All signs inform,
“It is coming,”
this next wave;
It is what you have been preparing for,
Bracing for;
Feel the shift in the air,
see the wave
As it emerges,
Now a crest
That too
Has been waiting;
Awaiting this very moment,
To crash;
Break
Upon the sand
Upon the rocks and shells,
And upon creatures
In its path,
Awakening, refreshing,
Anointing
With memories of the distant,
Bringing the far near,
To then recede,
With the shifting
Of the tide;

Again feel the pull,
How familiar this dance!
For we are
In all ways too
Moving with,
And as the tide.

Go to Sleep

~ Vanessa ~ 1 Comment

Here,
In the dark,
Dear one,
There is peace,
And most often quiet,
But you are missing nothing,
But my audible silence
As I write this poem,
As I think these thoughts,
As I coax myself toward slumber

And alas,
Once my eyelids have grown heavy,
And my writing utensil drops,
I close up “shop,”
And I too
Go
To sleep

Game Genie

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

This spirit has always craved mystery
Of trying for the seemingly impossible;
And yet it fears failure
At the end of a long game;
It fears erasure,
Fears unsaved progress,
Lost

But that was then,
This is now
Game Genie,
Changed it all,
Shifted the odds,
Way back when,
But it was never really the game
or the game system
That was at stake;
It was the mind,
The controller of the hands
holding the game control,

It was the mind shuffling between
Levels of life,
Competition in game,
At school,
At home,
From which friends were those
Fellow players
Sifted out and held close,
For keeps.

Along the way
The cartridges get dusty,
The disks scratch,
The software glitches,
We become tired,
We get distracted
We stop playing, because
Life…

Our fingers need only work the buttons once more,
To remember the sequences,
To do it just
Right
To beat that Boss,
To escape that trap,
To remember it was never
About winning it all
On the first try,
Unless you had “backup”,
I, you, we all
Were never meant to game alone,

But we got older
And we saved our games
And some tucked them away,
Forgetting
Each other

We got older
Our relationships got complicated
And became new games,
Complete with bosses
And real became fake, and fake real

Never mind the console,
Or the title
truthfully,
We are all trying to beat it,
This epic game.
We get minor victories,
And the harsh truth being
We will all eventually get
Game Over

In radically accepting
My eventual,
final KO,
eventually,
I strive to make my own sequences;
Reset to replay my favorite games;
Reconnect with my backup;
And break the rules
That bound me to a fear of failure

If I am going to one day end
I can not
live the game
Afraid to even play.