The human mind is not tethered here, where life is happening. It is free to drift. To the past, our future. To other possible realities where things might have panned out differently.

We are the first stage of life on Earth
to be burdened
by the contemplation of time 

Its endless passing,
or the weight of it
lying ahead, just up the road.

It’s only natural
when we find ourselves
plagued by this
 
The past so sweet or horrid that it tempts us
to wade within its echo,
consumed in the pain or joy we may find there

The future insufferably unknowable
despite our mind’s best attempts to plot every conceivable outcome,
it remains,
looming and perpetual beyond a curtain we are never permitted to draw  
until we have already arrived to live it
 
until we are Here,
watching the opportunities
we hadn’t known we’d had
slide out of our grip, like air.
Innumerable pathways folding
until there remains only
one

It’s important to remind ourselves
that the past
is no longer happening.

That the future, though uncertain,
grows from all we seed Here
in these present moments.
So plant your heart
deep, in the soil

We must remember that regardless of all that transpires
there is only ever Now, and despite all that lies ahead of
us, even when we get there, it will still be Here.

Here

in the present,
is all we ever are 

Be kind. Be compassionate when it’s not easy. You are strong willed, a leader. Lend people that strength. Elevate them in ways they’d never have imagined they could be.

Do not remind them of the things that make them weak

Each word we exchange,
another breaststroke from the shore.
And there’s no turning back, I’m afraid
I’m too far out, heart draped in night,
the water far too deep

And you are
the moon that hangs
low and bright and whispering
above the sea

You are the stars that flicker
miles overhead,
flecks of diamonds
webbed across my sky

Do you see me?
Down here among the waves
indiscernible
from the ocean, ink
dappled in ripples of your light

And I swear I won’t drown here
I tell myself,
I won’t get lost in you

I’ll build a boat
from all the driftwood I can find,
I’ll weave a sail
from all the hope you’ve given me,
to catch the dopamine in my veins
like wind
and propel out of this

I tell myself
I’ll leave this beautiful, terrifying place

but my lips
are liars

Be wary of the feeling we sometimes get
that’s not really a feeling at all

the absence of feeling

do not let yourself become numb, because it’s easy.
Because when we aren’t here for it
time passes far too quickly

Slap the red back into your cheeks
Shake it off like you would your leg when it’s fallen asleep

Because there’s someone out there, holding their breath
biting their nails and losing sleep,
waiting
for you to come back from wherever you’ve been

I want nothing more than to shed you like a skin
To emerge, sticky and wet
and dry my wings
in the white light
of the moon

Let the wounds that gape inside you
face the air

Let them be the fertile soil
in which something green, and living
takes root

With rain rich blossoms
and sun soaked vines that work, slowly,
to seal them