Words of Acadiana

  The hologram of our love   Dances before me  Like the shadow of a candle on the wall Fragile in the wind  One strong gust   Could snuff it out  You’re a ghost in my hall  The regret I sit with on sleepless nights  Alone  Chilled to the bone  You roared into my life  Then left me with bland goodbyes  Used to dream that you’d come back to me So I left a lamp on  Flickering in the night for only you  Tonight I switch it off  Draw the blinds  In peace I release  Any hopes I had for us  The tears I shed  Evaporated like lust  Gone forever  The light’s faded to black  No coming back 

She watches through the window of this old adobe Strangers pass by  She wonders about their lives  Their exclamations Their secrets  The desert is blowing outside  Dust particles look like glitter in the Texas   sun  She dreams of places yet unnamed  Somewhere to leave her mark  A wild Western streak  Her dreams levitate  Swirl and dance with the desert air  Like a curtain in the breeze  Gently falling  Then rising with a billowing ease  Like clouds  They ascend to the heavens  Whispering to her ancestors  Her desire for change is immense  She prays with ghost beads  Breathes in sage smoke  There is a holiness to becoming unhinged   

She dreams of the desert  Of its dangerous beauty  The unknown  He dreams of the desert  He knows the safety it holds for him  His long time only friend  She calls to them both  For very specific reasons  Seasons  Of their lives are different  But the desire is the same  The desert is a mermaid  With a sweet siren song  What you make of her  Becomes your fate Once you’ve answered her call   

  In the middle of sleepless nights   Haunting thoughts  Difficult memories  Attics and basements in my mind  The floors that we pace  And the demons we face  Tell the stories of where we’ve been  Ghosts from the past  Meet apparitions of future selves yet to be realized  On a spiritual plain  Rife with peace and wars fought  Mental health fogs  Insomnia inspired musings  Fear leads to desperation  It all culminates in the witching hour  Blue black nights  Fading into lavender sunrises  Tales as old as time  I balance my life on scales  That sway violently from side to side  Was I enough  Or often too much  To rectify what I might have become  Here are the things that keep me up  At night  As midnights feel like afternoons  The desert haunts my days 

  Skeletons of tumbleweeds dance in my dreams   I fantasize about far away places  Blown by the winds of fate  Scattered  Sometimes shattered  Left to my own devices to rebuild  Just as time is a construct  I’m struck  By the idea that so is happiness  It’s such a temporary feeling  Fleeting  Healing  From my past takes a lifetime  As a desert wind blows  I secure the hat on my head  I brave the conditions  Unable to stay still  One foot placed in front of the other  Until I’m halfway somewhere else  Anywhere but here  Never going back  Never settling  Searching for the words to say On a 2 lane Texas highway  Marfa as my muse  My gravity  always tucked in my back pocket  A head full of wish  I tumble on 

  While it’s sunny outside   I’ve got storms swirling inside  While having coffee with you at a sidewalk cafe  People pass by with no eye contact  We have an interesting conversation  You have no idea what I’m containing inside  I’ve gotten good enough at blank fake smiles  That even my cheeks are rosy  Inside of my body my nervous system is erratic   Anxiety threatens to remove flesh from bone  And maybe that would be easier  Some release An escape from the burgeoning madness  But as the hour passes we wrap up our visit  Hug and say farewell  My body still intact  You go walking in one direction  On the sunny side of the street  And I go off in the other  Immersed in my mental grey 

  Anxiety is like a flash flood. You’re standing in the most glorious sunshine, unaware of the rain falling high up in the mountains. Far away. You’re going about your day. Trying to stay in your gratitude for the beauty around you. And then..BAM!! Out of seemingly nowhere a rushing torrent sweeps you off of the safety you were standing in. It swells around you. Threatening. Ominous. It rips your peace away like tree roots. Until everything around you becomes a swirling mass of debris. No sight of your safe place. When it dissipates you’re left in the mud. With the muck. In the remains of who you were before it came. You’re left to contemplate the cleanup and the rebuild. What practice can you implement that will keep the flash floods away? Can you form a dam with prayer? Breathing? Yoga? Meditation? Incense? What foundation can you set that will keep you from being swept away again? Each cycle of this is a lesson. With each cycle a new you is born. A version who sifts through the rubb