This My Life

what is it?
is it my follicles dripping rain?
is it my heart that beats against my ribs
like a man wrongly convicted,
crying for release?

i lie here in a vast nothing, watching
my smoke rise up and vanish
and i long, God how i long just now, here
in this empty nothing
-for a tide to rise in harmony
to the moons soft fiddle
for a breath i cannot find
a song i've never heard,
and a colour i've never known

but God! yet and still, i know these must exist!

so this, my life,
is it the seed dormant, shrugged into dust?
or the wish for a beanstalk to a dream?

this poison smoke rises into the vast empty
and here my caged heart cries no! there's more!
there must be more!
remember when...?
a gasp, whispered

so this my life,
is it just to long?
or just to surrender?

the pain of one is no greater than the other,
like death and birth
and in between
is just in between

but here now, in this vast nothing
i reach for the last sliver of hope,
while fearing my longing
has known one too many defeats

i feel my heart still beat against the bars
but the jailer, with his hat down low
and his boots crossed on the desk
knows even one wrongly convicted
will eventually settle in

and outside my window, the hammers fall
where the hangman waits
while smoke rises up
and nothing shrouds the land

yet, I long
this, my life
in between