Hesitation

I hesitate to write
I hestiate to feel
To see, to blink, to breathe
and yet
I can stop none of these things
time marches inexorably,
incrementally onward
silent and blank
I try to keep all those things
still in nothingness
struggling for Zen
but walls & floodgates
barriers
fences
hold only so much
before they fail
give way
too much too many to hold me in
I don't know if I'm weaker than I used to be
or if these things are simply richer & more robust
more complex
more important
struggling themselves for life, for themselves

I hesitate
to write, to feel
to see, blink, breathe
to speak
to trust, to love... no, not that,
but to believe.
And so the pen spills first
inky river etching riverbanks
you never knew were there
drawing waters deep still
silent, cool & comforting
and shallow, rocky
troubled

I hesitate
to feel, to blink
to see... breathe... to write
And yet hold it as I may
with that inevitable breath
comes the 'must' to write
poor as they may be
a million words
capturing only the tiniest sliver
of torrid complexity
Missing huge chunks of important us
in the struggle to gleam
a single nuance
to express even a single tiny thing
that can reach in & touch inside
that can slay dragons
that can grow green & growing
glowing golden things

Do you not want to see?
Close your eyes then, love.
Life takes us quickly past
Blink but a moment or three
and the things you don't want to see
will be gone
... or at least gone past
and you can perhaps forget
things you almost never knew