Bare

As if today wasn't everything I have,
memory trails encoded in neural webs,
flashes of light across synapses
illuminate moments,
feelings, places, times
I'd sooner forget.

Dare I squander another hour,
another minute of this
flash-in-the-pan existence
before  my energy is again strewn
across the expanse,
the void,
to drift nowhere,
out of time?

Dare I be afraid of speaking truth,
of emotions, of consequences,
to standing naked against the wind,
to shivers and goosebumps on skin,
dare I hide behind a gripping façade of shame?

No, no.
I have cowered in the shadows,
I have run from the now.
I know fear
and all of its companions;
I've tasted the blandness
of living suppression.

I have learned all I can
from the dark.

Suppression

Neither pride nor shame can keep us,
not for long,
not from life,
from emotions that speak our truth,
that we hide behind hands,
looking away as if we could avoid
getting wet in an ocean,
clinging to flotsam,
planks of wood, anything
to keep us from being immersed,
from feeling too much,
like worms that fear the dirt,
bats that fear nightfall,
as we walk around
trying to suppress sneezes
in dusty, pollen-filled air.