Barbra Schroeder

Like a candle faintly burning on the sill of a hallow house in the darkness of winter, your violent, but less frequent bursts of passion slowly begin to fade into the dim cavern of your vacant soul; the sharp emptiness smothers your light, and the blackness begins to boil.

And while slipping away from this life louder than most come, you encompass a vague tradition.  With a desperate heart you flounder in life’s beauty, and you disrespect her art.  You simplify her imperfection, and depreciate the negatives to those intricacies you invariably kneel to. The shrapnel that flies recklessly from your lips lodge themselves too deep for your alter ego to recover, or repair.

You’ve lost, in your loneliness, in the frightening emptiness of the mirror; you’ve lost in your head the freedom to forgive, and the memory of acceptance.  She knows the still waters you seek in your guilt soaked solitude, she knows the calming shores you long to tread, so she welcomes you into the presence of beauty, and you shudder at the subtle brilliance of her might. 

When you want to run, to hide
And conceal yourself inside, a crowd
So the world bounds you
Remember what it really takes
To encompass such solitude
The acute awareness of yourself
And the comfort of your being
When you want to dive into someone else
To be what they are, free
Just think of the props you can give to yourself
If you can just stay here, steady
Think of the worlds you’ve foreseen
Without someone else’s daydream
Think of a time when you are alone
When you permit your heart to sing
Embrace the moments you spend unaided
And think hard about what they mean
Think twice, and you will see
To be inside that head of yours
It’s not so bad to be
Remember what to do
Take responsibility for you
Admit your mistakes, and
Like a kaleidoscope, remember 
Just one little twist is all that it takes
Embrace the amplitude, by
Which the world excepts its fate,
Find respect for its decision
And gracefully modulate.

I lead you down a path
That was dark,
And wet with fear
Dripping with hindrance

You lost your way
I disoriented you
You trusted me,
And I lead you astray

So patient, and so clear
You looked into yourself
To understand in a different way
But, I exasperated you to your core

The loss we share
Will not be forgotten
My soul has been stretched
And, your heart, your poor heart

But we are wired this way
And, we fused ourselves
With our own hands,
And our own tools

And here I am now
Listening to drops of irony
Fall into puddles of my behavior
Now pools of hindsight

Yes, I am here
In this darkness
Alone in this life
Without your light

By Jenny Pirkle

I was born about noon in the shade of magnolias
Wearing the rose-colored glasses of trust
Everything to lose, but still I flew higher
When I took that one fatal glance at the earth

You were born on a night without trees or spectacles
Aspiring to mediocrity and lacking in love
So I knelt on the ground with my knees in the dirt
And now I’m the same height as you

I know in my heart that you’re all that I have
(I’ve lost my faith in sweet-smelling trees)
My rose-colored glasses have turned a dark gray
And my noon in the shade disappeared

It’s hard to believe that it’s worth it to lose
But I happen to know from experience
The wings of naiveté hold so few pounds
And land is more stable than sky

I twisted in knots inside myself,
And swung back and forth about you.
This is me, everything is, this is life.
We both know what we are responsible for.
I will hold myself accountable for me and,
You hold yourself accountable for you.
We crutched each other, and splintered our hearts
But it’s ok, really it’s ok.
This is how it was supposed to happen,
This was the breaking point that had to be.
We so desperately needed it,
For different reasons, and both the same.
We were turned inside out yes,
But that’s where the beauty lies.
The dark colors about us
Are part of some bigger thing.
We are magnified in its intensity
But look at it from above
You will see it makes sense.
You will see the looming experiences,
Without the darkness there is no contrast.
The landscape of our lives would be so bleak
We should be blessed to have seen ourselves without skin.
A painful thought, a painful love
But that’s the price we pay,
For being alive and sharing ourselves.

Memories continually flicker like lingering flashes from a camera, and are as present as the still whispers of a stranger’s eye.

They envelop my broken heart, and mend scars that break, and bleed warm reminders of previous intent.

The dust settles silently in a place of relief and gratitude.

The colors I have seen through the lens of your soul are astounding, and the manifestation of your perspective continuously lures and enlightens me with a great depth of field.

You have great capacity to turn walls to waterfalls that flow rapidly through an atmospheric constant of desire and imperfect beauty, and your sincere attempts will continue to shake the reality that evades me.

11.6.2007