between the lines

Sometimes when I say that I am fine
Do you read between the lines?
Can you see beyond my smiles
The tears I fight and hold
from welling in my bleary eyes?


And sometimes when I fall
I look around the rough
And I find reasons to smoothly sail on
With a pleasant chuckle that I share
That masks the sounds of crooked melody
Strummed by the broken pieces of chord strings in my gut

For there is a loneliness
I feel in their hugs
With a purpose that thrusts
When they tug



For if you listened hard enough
You just might hear where
and how they want to be loved;

in the gentle sounds within their echoes;
the innocent growl in their aggression
that beckons for just a little affection;
Too weary of our neglect and rejection.

But Sometimes I say that I am fine
When I’m only really trying to hold on to
What could have been mine.

And if you read between the lines
You would see with me
The many blessings they long for
That already rest as thine.

The night I went to sleep.

Despite the blistering cold that plagued the night
I swam in an ocean of my own sweat
Forcefully wading to shore
against drenching strong waves

The night was long;
my dreams were lofty
High on mountain peaks
that appeared hard to climb

I ran but fell;
my legs grew weak.

There was a city of gold
my eyes could behold
Far up the hills
I could reach if I be bold

I wailed at the mighty torrential wind
reaching forth to pull me out and away
The moon changed into sun,
and the sun became the moon
The clouds in the sky were shaded in gray.

That night I went to sleep a boy
and woke up a man
A new man, chief of a clan
with a scar to the face
That was faded in a tan

But the morning was fresh
and the leaves green
The city of gold my eyes beheld,
It’s treasures foretold
my hands have gleaned.