One day,
I'll just let it roll
all the way down.
While I stay up here,
never to complete
the futile cycle again.
But come, look closer;
Come now, don't be afraid.
Learn the truth
Look deep inside me
Past the dry eyes, slightly bloodshot
Green eyes that laugh with life.
There.
There it is.
Can you taste it?
Can you touch my madness?
It is quiet, so quiet. Tune your senses
to that place only animals hear:
sound, terror, vibration
deaths threshold
near human
A place of The Other.
Moleculed with the Universe
All of it - heaven and hell.
I am the Other
and this,
this one who is before you
so normal and invisible
Is Its dwelling place.
Stitched tight, seams even,
Perfect posture, quiet hands.
I am here before you, full of secrets.
Screaming.
Joy Ikelman
29 November 1994
Gotta love this thing called mania--
the thing we hate to love
By Lisa Warren
Debilitating, defeating
Deepening gloom.
Trudging wearily through
The grocery store,
Unable to make a simple choice,
Or to count out correct change.
Surveying an unbelievably messy house,
Piles of laundry,
Work undone, and not being
Able to lift a finger.
Doubting that God cares,
Doubting in my prayers,
Doubting He's even there.
Sitting, staring wild-eyed into space,
Desperately wanting out of the human race.
By Dorothy
my perception alters itself by the day
some weeks only minute changes
then others a whirlwind of difference
sinking deep and rising high
feeling the extremes offered by pain and joy
it is this that has been labeled
it is this they say can't? be permitted
and this they perscribe away
in my hand placing a Warm Fuzzy salt
Their answer; cased in soft pink
follow by lots of water-they say
and - don't? worry at the slight discomfort-
checking me off their list
letting the secretary take my money
out through the door to the car
just a passenger these days
gazing out my window at the houses
forgotten colors a soft itch in my mind
so quickly it all slips away
until I laugh at the thought of flying
refusing to believe I once could
content(?)with a smaller palette
fewer colors; smaller dreams
this treated reality is safer
this is what they tell me.
By Jeremy
We all have a mask that we
can put on to try to hide our fears,
The mask can take the
place of oh so many tears,
The mask can hide the feelings
you have hidden deep inside,
And when you hide your feelings its like you have died.
The mask can be good ata the
times when things are looking bleak,
But then you really need to
learn to open up and speak.
We wear a mask to make
people think we really are okay,
Even when we feel inside
we need to run away.
The mask can hide anything
we allow it to, and if your not
careful the mask has helped but
also hurt to hide the way I feel.
Time to take the mask
away and discover what is real,
Someday I hope to lose
the mask and never use it again,
But until that day it will
have to stay so I can hide within.
Judy (c) 1998
I love riding my bicycle
Through the forest at night,
Steering by memory and daring,
Nearly devoid of sight.
If you should think me crazy,
You are quite possibly right,
but there are gloriously magical things
In a forest without light.
Dreaming as I pedal along
A well worn logging trail
I move with the soothing silence
Of a boat running under sail.
Untroubled by mundane vision,
I can easily tell
What beauty and wonder surround me
By my senses of hearing and smell.
Without a reality that's enforced
By the sights I would see,
The wonderful world flowing past
Is just as I've thought it should be.
Down the trail my good dog pads along
Playfully bumping my knee,
And I love the sprawling excitement
Of my spirit unleashed and free.
The drifting stench of a hog farm
Coming from far away
Is instead the foul breath of a dragon nearby,
One my dog and I might need to slay.
The burst of a whitetail leaping the path,
A ghost of barely seen gray,
Is what it is with no need for change.
There's magic in deer anyway.
"He's crazy as hell,"
The somber will decide
Upon hearing about the
Night forest ride.
"He'll ride off a cliff
In a very steep glide.
What a strange, senseless way
For him to have died."
If this trip through the forest
Should become my death ride.
I'll pick myself up,
And I'll dust off my pride.
I'll have lived more than most
Before I just died
Since there was very damn little
I hadn't tried.
Donald Reid,
10-10-93
By Jeremy
