there was...

there was a moment or two
in his mind that still seemed
real in a world that too often
seemed surreal and swift
to knock a person down.
relentless life. living
outside the time-
line is dangerous
work, standing in
line waiting to time
travel perhaps with
a bag or a towel or
a pint of beer. small
smile. she would know
the reference maybe.

there was,
occasionally
some small thin
string that bound
him to reality, kept
him just on the edge,
his feet dangling over,
peering into the depths
and yelling down there
to hear the echo, the
way his voice fell into
the darkness to appear
on the other side in some
parallell universe where...

there was love
and then there
was real love
and then the
love was no-
where to be
seen then
where do
you think
he went?

there was this place,
this moment in time
attached to a spot in
space that he liked to
create in his mind. it
all seemed so real
sometimes, though.
so much so that he
would spend too much
time in that place and the
cave entrance is lost and ...

there was silence.
there was wandering.
there was wondering.
where was this going?

there was this feeling he had.
now, after, many moons after,
he could reconstruct that feeling
in his mind and examine it and
twirl it this way and that to see
how the light played off the sides
of it - this feeling of being at peace
and happy - a little above just content -
fit and able to take on the whole world
if needed and ...

there was a certain segment of the
population who thought it was needed.

there was this way he only saw the good
in others and the bad in himself.

there was this play he wrote one day that
explained as much in three short acts.

there was laughter in the hallway between classes.

there was pointing.

there was a tender moment or two he can almost believe
          were real.

there always was a sense that it wasn't real and
there is where he neared the edge of himself.

the largest blackhole in the galaxy wasn't in some
faraway place at all. it was in his mind and it was
slowly eating away at his physical self.

there was a hole.
there was a whole
bunch of reasons -
ones he gave to
himself and ones
they'd given to him.

there was a difference.

there was time to consider.

there was...

there was a fear
his body would fail.

there was a song,
of course. there was
a band, of course, there
was a jumbling of the real
and the unreal. of course
there was. of course
there was. he told
himself that over
and over, never
knowing, never
leaving, never
seeing, never
ever being just
a normal human
being.

there was an allure to him like
all things dangerous and mysterious
and misunderstood. there was a pull, an
attraction, but also a repulsion that occured
if anyone strayed too close to his face.

there was reality and he
battled it and the dream
won and he floats in the
darkness of space as his
face feels the nothingness
rush past him as he flies and
forgets about time. just lying
there was impossible to de-
scribe. he couldn't erase the
markings on the walls of the
rooms in his mind so he tried
to close doors and move further
into the house to construct some
semblance of an imaginary life to
remind the others why the earth is
so precious.

there once was a time.
there once was a place.
there was the way his
eyes lit up his face, like
shining green stars re-
flecting over the face of
the moon or mars or some
planet circling some other
distant star.

there was a promise to never
run very far.

there was a map.

there was a race.

there was his face.

there was a maze.

there was a labyrinth of sorts
to sort out and escape from ...

...there was said to be im-
possible with one lying and
one telling the truth and to be
honest he still doesn't get it but
as he peers down there into the
bottom of his soul he sees his
reflection peering back. not the
face everyone sees or his frail
body getting frailer as time piles
hard into it and has an effect but
the murky image of his soul - who
he really is.

there was a time he naively thought
everyone saw him for who he really
was that somehow his mind to real
world translation equipment hadn't
been jarbled in that fall as a child...

there was often laughter.
there was an affinity for emotions.

there was an infinite reserve, an infinite devotion.

there was an end to the poem,
to all the poems and all the
people, but he couldn't
ever really see it as
in his mind the
poem continued
even after he stopped
transcribing it for others
to ridicule or paste in their
mind for some future time...

there was.

there really was.