foreclosure

My heart is caught between the crosshairs of desire and nonchalance. Everywhere I go I see birds chirping, rainbows splashed across the sky, enamored smiles and giggles, and I hear orchestras proclaiming the love around me. But I'm just an observer in this realm, all I am is a spectator, an invader, someone who doesn't make sense here.
I bleed truth, compassion and forgiveness and still clean up after myself. I consider myself one of those "damn good" catches, but it just hasn't caught on yet.
It alludes me whether or not it's a good thing, or a mood thing or a lewd thing, but I just can't figure it out. I'm caught between "yes" and "no" and nowhere else to go. My heart isn't rash; I can't make decisions in a flash. I take time to consider my options and I just haven't had time yet, I'm sorry, come again later and your answer might be ready by then.
I'm admittedly hot and cold simultaneously, I'm annoyed and overjoyed all at the same time and it's confusing. I understand that I make no sense but it's how I've become accustomed to living. Ambiguity and responsibility are my scapegoats from sin and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
All I need are things I'll never get, things I fence off into a district I prohibit myself from visiting, an anamoly I don't even allow myself to throw spare change at. And it's this self-inflicted torture that keeps my wounds fresh, the fingers that pry off the scabs and the consequent bandages until regret is a hole in my flesh. But like a schizophrenic I can't hold myself back, I can't contain my madness. All I can do is take my heart by its fragile hands and show it the rusted "for sale" sign on this internal garden of sadness..

from Dante Alighieri's "Inferno"

I thought this was an absolutely beautiful translation, although its content may be more relevant as spring approaches. Either way, enjoy:

"In the turning season of the youthful year,

when the sun is warming his rays beneath Aquarius

and the days and nights already begin to near

their perfect balance; the hoar-frost copies then

the image of his white sister on the ground,

but the first sun wipes away the work of his pen."

Wickless candles

Fall leaves me barren
like dry petals dangling
from dehydrated roots


Wax drips off me
and down me
and into every pore


With all that I am,
I want to want.


Courage doesn't find me
and thus I am left
Empty with longing

Fragments

2,010
Desperate trembles
Choked-up embraces
Goals fulfilled
Prayers unanswered

Transitioning
to adulthood
to responsibility
 to lust
to love
to life
and back again

Learning to let go
attempting to
let my soul
be

Be it blind with ambition,
paralyzed by loss
or inundated by inexperience.

Perhaps it's not what has been gained
but what has remained

Of which is much
that has stayed precisely
the same.

Fragments of a broken dream
unfulfilled
slipping through
the cracks of helpless fingers

escaping containment
flying toward constellations
I will never reach

At year's end, much is left unreported
What's a headline
if there's no story?

With a new moon shifting
I remain
stagnant
in what I am and try to be

No matter.
I'll just splinter
into different strands of the
same tangent

And hope for the best