Bishop Avenue

I am haunted by graceful actions
Carefree, spontaneous kindnesses
Form a fruitful fungus on my memory
A padding of hard-tack, a cushion of disbelief
An aching to reciprocate coupled
with an inability to fathom returned courtesies
I am haunted by the flickering lights
Near benches outside of my building
Whittling hours away - the sole inclination
to socialize and inhale toxic substances
Discussions of consequence are wholly absent
There's only now- and an abundance at that
I am haunted by the adoration present
In every intimate detail of creation
Each nook and cranny, each mote of dust
A cloud of gnats ignorant to my cognizance
Manifested hive-minds: a life through consensus
I am haunted by the inflation of ignorance
That's synergistic with my heightened awareness
Though with days spent bowed in stern contemplation
I begin to seek the root - the very trace of it
Whether I hunt chimeras or am the catalyst
It could be all my anxieties are figmentary
I am haunted by the illusion of order
the subtle switch in perspective
that nuanced flip, that whiff of a difference
Knowing the arbitrariness of my past tyrants
You have given me the liberty to roam in perpetuity
But I cradle to the tomb, I beg for the final womb
I am haunted by my dependency
On dopamine, on crucibles, on glory
A single edict of praise from a peer
Or an elder - this I find elating
But any hint that will-to-laud has faded
nourishes my wishful impulses, leaves me in bitterness
I am haunted by the circles I trace
In the grains of sand - the paths of my spirit
Infinite loops, tracks without end
And all for the satisfaction of adolescent vestiges
Again I bend the knee in shame, brow in knots
Hail to the haunting: reminders that I've a soul to quake