I want

to do something fun.

To ride down a winding waterslide

Whistling around the bends and curves

Racing through intermingled rushes of water and air.

I want

To smash my face into a splash of chlorine at that glorious end

Colliding with a rippling pool

In a magnificent spray and spatter of crystal drops.

I want

To be lazy.

I want

That waterslide of my dreams, without the car drive

Without the admission ticket, the long lines -

Forget the waiting!

I want

That waterslide in my house, in my room,

So I can roll out of bed

And slip away to victory at the end of the road.

No ignition keys,

No entrance fares, and most of all

Absolutely no waiting.

I want that waterslide

to wind down and around

out my bedroom window

through the kitchen door

so I can be on time for a scrumptious bacon-and-eggs breakfast

handed to me on a silver plate.

I want that waterslide to be fast, lightning fast!

And not just one -

several chambers and winding tubes!

So I can slip, and slide, slide away

Faster than that hard sport "walking"

Or that harder sport "running"

To wherever I want.

I want

to cover the world in waterslides

So I'll never hike,

Never huff,

Never puff.

I'll make every entrance a smash entrance.

A splash entrance.

And when the world is wired with waterslides

I want

To ride down each and every one

Until I grow sick, deathly sick

Of taking the fastest and easiest road.

Dark light

Gloomy flashes

Quiet screeching

Drowsy insomnia

Painless headache

Frozen movement

Sensible insanity

Short centuries

Long seconds

A real dream

Sometimes

The dam nearly overflows

Its waves swell to skyscrapers

Soaring among the stars

Challenging Heaven itself

Always

Pummeled by those icy claws

They fall, and fall, and fall, and fall

At the dam's great edge they plummet to silence

'Till the pool is still

Touching, but not reaching

Flowing, but not flooding

Swiftly

The smallest ripples fade as Time

Freezes all thoughts left behind

In lifeless glass their glories pass

Unwritten

Unspoken

Unfinished at last

I should like to find out

What is in a snow globe

Is the same glittering water I see? 

Or is it something else entirely? 

The world turns like a middle school softball game

What once was "good" is now a "foul"

What once was "foul" is now "good" 

The line shifts and vanishes like opal butterfly wings

And no one speaks a word of them

A silent secret that everyone knows

A silent cage that each person stands in

Is there any way to freedom, I wonder?

Or are my eyes and thoughts the iron bars

That trap me and bind me? 

Is freedom the world's gift to me

Or my gift I must give myself? 

That sinking feeling

Gnawing at your insides

Shrouding every bright spot

Only pieces left behind

"I should have, but I didn't"

"I could have, but I waited" 

"I shouldn't, but I did"

"I didn't, but I wanted to" 

A hollow shell of "if only":

Can it be filled once again?

Time blunders forward,

Its stitches set in stone

Waiting for no one

It gives and takes its breath;

Of fear and hatred and envy

None so relentless as Regret