Two lives
maybe three
if we are lucky, we get to see

There is a meadow, and a sunset
a crackling fireplace, freshly chopped wood
family to grow and love
time and space, to read and speak and write and feel

Or a different pace, another climb
one where rest can be hard to find
but there we get to be, more than most will ever see

I sit here and think
what is the syllable
what is the path beyond these crossroads
a simple coin toss will not reveal

To seek and seek
can we ever be free
of egos want, a prisoner bound to folly

Or is there a higher calling
a chance to be

At some waypoint down this misty road
we will find our end
and those that see it clearer
than you or I
they will find us waiting
contemplating
and say

There is the angst of indecision, the regret of a path not followed, and the mythos of a door closing that cannot be reopened.
How then do we decide?

Is it possible that the decision itself matters very little?
Our subconscious has already made it.
The internal circuitry that we have set in motion that led us to these crossroads will continue to paint the road ahead.

In other words, the paths ahead differ less than we realize.
It is our habits and our nature that have brought us here, and while we do get to choose who it is we want to be.

Two Lives was originally published in My Fair Lighthouse on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Reach it
Take it

You deserve it
You have made yourself deserving of it

Internalize this
Remember this

It is ok to want things and be a good person
It is in our nature

For it is our wants that build a better world
and when we stop reaching

Reach it was originally published in My Fair Lighthouse on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It is as they say.
Find your passion, and the rest will follow.
How hard it is to be alive without such a feeling.
That perfect click. That reason to shine.

Then what about us? The ones that look and look.
Always seeking, never finding.
Cudgels we are.
There to do a job. Punch in, Punch out.
Microwave dinners.
Soulless, depthless food. Soulless, depthless life.

Or is it?
So easy to believe such a track. We aren’t the star, then who the hell we are.
Seeking defines us. Little blips of glory.
But it is more than that.
Showing up matters.
Being there matters.
Time matters. It is summative. It is unforgeable.
There is iron in presence.

How easy it is to flutter, how much harder to stay and suffer.
To take the beatings, and bear the pain.
So someone else can smile and say, I found it.
I made it.
All by myself, again.

Suffer was originally published in My Fair Lighthouse on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

to want
to be wanted
are we permitted
to say this out loud

or are we destined
to hide
and find contrivances
dim pathways
to cull the sound

from inner reaches
these desires come
we push them
deep
as if it were vile scum

too much now
and the tide turns
i walk back
unfeeling
some battles won

She sat and played with her phone, waiting expectantly.
The courtesy to look him back had been lost along the way.

A cold draft entered the room, an open window or perhaps he imagined it.
He had felt cold for a while now.

What paths lay ahead of him.
None of them seemed right.

To wallow,
or would it be better to seek flight.

Wanting was originally published in The Lark on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How is it that we grow?
With sincerity

What is there to fight?
Let life in

We plan out these paths, and keep our eyes on it
noses down, step by step
frustrated when we stumble, or face a delay
forgetting who we are and why we planned it this way

Should all dreams begin with an end in sight
a place to reach, a thing to obtain
or should we seek a higher path
and pick the question that rightly asks

When We Find Our Way was originally published in Write Under the Moon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When we think our thoughts are only a spoonful deep.
What exactly is it that we mean?

The circuit paths that you see, the first feelings that you feel.
They cannot exist without the deep currents passing underneath.
When we smile and we grimace, it all begins before we think to think.

So then we try to read the mind, and assign a reason.
And we state it. But it doesn’t feel quite right.
And then we falter, hesitating and rethinking.
What did happen that quiet night?

Sometimes we get close.
What we felt, and what was said.
And for a moment we feel heard.

Clarity was originally published in Rainbow Salad on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

To have a blank manuscript in front of you.
What a moment that would be.
You could make it so neat.
A clean beginning and a clean end.
A central theme to make it all seem right.

You picture the reader taking a moment, novel held halfway.
That moment of introspection.
That moment is what you seek.

But a blank manuscript can also be messy.
A haphazard job.
It’s not that there isn’t a guiding light. But that it fades and wavers and hides at times, and rarely does it shine fully bright.

Stories are like that. The greatest ones more so.
When we only meet each other in the middle, and depart before the end.
Can there really be a clean beginning and a clean end.

How are we to know, what the writer felt.
Can we ever know, what each story meant.

All the open possibilities, with each unwritten page.
But we are asked to follow what wisdom and dictum say.
The plot is better, the logic sound. The ending clearer, the meaning more profound.

I cannot say I follow, this dictum of the wise.
For better or worse, it has little value for the soul.
How bored would it make the reader, or even worse the writer.
When the blank manuscript you held, contains only lies.

Clean beginnings was originally published in Rainbow Salad on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I sit and breathe and progress through the process that is life
true silence
quantifiable, identifiable silence
silence with the gravity of rock, and the serenity of a river stream

Now I breathe
and I feel the deepness and the richness of the void of sound

I wish to speak, but the moment is sacred
I dare not sully it

In silence, I feel my heart grow
and many things appear nearer than they are
and some farther

The trees outside my window. They are there somehow
in my silence

Moments of Silence was originally published in Write Under the Moon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Hungarian Banker

He thought again about how one resolves the conflict inherent between the pursuit of an honest life and the obligations one has accepted or has had thrust upon them.

Clarity involves seeing the obligations that are just and must be honored. But it also discards those societal burdens that are present for the sole purpose of weighing us down.

Honesty to our soul does not involve dereliction of duty.

He labored and he thought and he wrote. He did not feel tired anymore. He went from contemplating life’s purpose to living it.

A life lived with intent, so that when you rest your eyes that one final time and the darkness of the eternal night takes you, you can face your being and know that you did good.

The Hungarian Banker was originally published in My Fair Lighthouse on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“The banker was a sour man. A bushy mustache belied his young age, and he used it to its full effect.”

The Hungarian Banker

“Everything was formless. It felt he had worked hard every day and killed himself to assemble all the facets of a happy life but had forgotten to add the final ingredient.”

The Hungarian Banker

“He spent his last few days as a married man wandering around his house and lounging in the garden. A house he had never wanted, a life he had never wanted but had assumed quickly and simply as he had the right aptitude for it.”

The Hungarian Banker

“He labored and he thought and he wrote. He did not feel tired anymore. He went from contemplating life’s purpose to living it.”

The Hungarian Banker