Well I will do all four!
says the man with success,
I will take her
and make her
and shake her
and dance.

You’re missing the point,
as he waggles his finger,
you see the–

but the music of love just then began playing,
so who cares what he and the man were just saying?

Everyone emerges at some point.

Some time, and it was not entirely clear when, she entered the world. She decided, we’re sure, that she had fully understood herself and it was time to embark upon something new. The next great adventure was not death, but others. Well, we know what they say.

She came out rubbing her eyes, fresh from the womb of her soul. She blinked in the brightness of so many people, who all had that same well deep inside them. The first thing she noticed was how they were different. As she began to move through the world she discovered that what was true and known in herself was not true and known in others. Others did not even know themselves!

There were too many for her. It took her years to learn how her own gears shifted, to inspect it and oil it and know that she was a machine like any other, just that her rules were different and not as quantifiable as the lab coats would like her to believe. That she could hypothesize and experiment and conclude and predict just as well as the lab coats, even if she worked with a conscience instead of neurons. But all these peoples, mysteries unto themselves, had not taken that time and walked around surprised at their own movements. She could not uncover them all.

It embodied itself as fear. Mad, hair-gripping fear. Enigmas! she shouted. All of you! Enigmas! Her mind wanted to unwind them, fix them, take them as Rubix cubes and simply apply a muscle-memorized formula to leave them ordered and clear. Still humanity remained the scribble it has always been, and every undulation sent shivers down her spine. For what is more fearsome than that which you cannot predict?

She lived in fear of those who loved her turning their backs, unable to understand themselves why they left. She could not take their uncertainty, their momentary passing, their surging emotions. She could not live with their mindlessness. She could not survive their ineptitude.

We did not know what to do. No one did. And, like humans, our concern slowly dropped away, one raindrop at a time, until we watered the earth and sprouted new concerns and forgot, eventually, (we all do,) that we had even been concerned in the first place. She too disappeared. Perhaps she retreated back into herself, found more to play with just by being in the world briefly. Perhaps she thought to mimic us: leave after a temporary period and do not wonder why. She left, and we left, and then no one was there.

How will you spot me when I’m strung up?
How will you know me when I’m dressed up?
Will you know my shining face?
Know my name? Know my place?
Know my secrets deep inside?
Know that I can change my lies?
Will you know me when I’m sad?
When I’m mad? When I’ve been bad?
When I come to you and say -I’m glad-?
Will you know that’s just a fad?

How can you recognize this face,
in all the masks I claim to wear,
when I don’t even know my place?
When I don’t know who’s really there?

If we are to go together,
you must know it’s fluff, not feathers.
I cannot fly away with you.
I cannot make my skies anew.
I may not even be able to learn,
or know at which point we should turn.
Maybe, I know this will send you away,
I do not know quite where I am.
Maybe I cannot quite say my name today.
Maybe my name changes every day.

However, I can walk away with you,
and ask you if you know me yet.
And talk and learn my nature’s cue,
and ask myself, Have we met?

We did not find love at first sight
We did not seek love at first light
We did not fear to not catch bait
That one might not reciprocate.
We did not cry out with relief
We did not see our shared belief
We did not, softly, slowly, kiss
And bask in our true love’s first bliss.
We did not hug ’til we could not
We did not vow ’til death we rot
We did not see if we could keep
The secrets down and dark and deep.
We did not glimpse those distant lands
We did not watch with holding hands
We did not walk away together
To brace the storming far-off weather.

These are the things we did not do
As when I asked if maybe you
Could love me you said yes.
But when I asked if maybe you
Would love me you said no.

Still, this is what went down back then.
Or rather, didn’t.

Death is just a plant that we forgot
To water when we went on holidays
And instead of dying grew all over
Town and scared the neighbors.

Death is just a table that we scarred
With the candles of our dead ancestors who
Asked us to give a light but it turns out
They didn’t really like us anyway.

Death is just a path that we saw
And ignored because everyone we ever
Knew had taken it and I mean, come
On–boring.

Death is just a fine that we refused
To pay and no one ever seemed to insist
Upon it so we didn’t, ever, until one
Day we had to.

Death is just a name that we hated
To say but kept turning up even though
We didn’t want it, so in the end we had to
Say what it was not.

You’re too old to know from whence
I came into this bright new world.
And you’re to old to know that since
I have grown, learned, and unfurled.

I see that your days were long
And recognize your past a haze
And know that I do nothing wrong
In having us become in phase, but:

I fear, she said, I give you no other
Than a pact that speaks of us as lovers.

And learning of the saddest hue
And washing to the bays away
And I am watching over you

So I may say this shall pass too
While you take the coldest way
The way which is writing in blue

And you may take my given cue
Take the deep dark blue away
And I taking the ink from you

Turn the day off that deep dark hue
Take the bays and drain the day
Tell you not to write in blue

But blue is dark and deep for you
And I would steal the day away:
I don’t want to take from you
Even if you’re feeling blue.