the completed playlist

i am feeling like the emptiness
of a completed playlist…

the realization that
nothing is coming next,
the silence pervades
and instead of choosing something
else to listen to,
i just sit and pay attention
to the vacancy,
ignoring the force inside me
wanting to immediately
start something up,
to fill the void,
instead, i listen to my heart,
to my breathing,
to my weight in this world,
instead, i notice everything else
and i find contentment
in my inaction,
because, though i haven’t
physically moved,
mountains have traveled
within me

glb /// “the completed playlist”
originally published 01.14.2019

defined?

at the surface
are things that define me,
unless, of course,
you go deeper,
there might be found
Nine Inch Nails and Pixies,
Boston, Pink Floyd and Jackson Browne,
all circling Thoreau and Sparks and
King and Brown and Flynn,
the further down,
the more diverse,
I’ll not be defined by any one thing
but by the collection,
no matter how varied that
turns out to be

glb /// “defined?”
originally published 07/11/2014

i thought

i thought you left,
but when i saw you
again it was like you
had never…

now i know
you were gone
before i ever
got there

being there was
your way of being
gone from some
other way of living

we were never
fully together,
the feelings
it felt like
we shared
were figments
and ghosts

the loss i felt
was nothing
compared
to the love we
never shared

why do i feel
i should
apologize?

glb /// “i thought”
originally published 03/03/2014