Who you were in smaller clothes

Where did it come from,
this great big alarm?
This inside crucifying,
doing my personality this harm?

It bore from things outside of my control,
and now it gnaws at me like a hungry troll.
I never asked it to be a crutch, or a need for the pill,
so why does it taunt me so, from the window sill?

It makes me forget, about the magic I see,
it depletes the oxygen from the fire in me.
By forcing me to focus on so much else,
replacing my personality with grey ghoul of ghost.

The flickers of my greatness sit behind steel gates,
kept away from me by that same spate of hate –
that links me to my past and debilitates my now,
refusing me by I to allow myself to grow.

They say it is only I who holds myself back,
they might be right and I’ll try to learn from all that.
But I confess that I may still have my doubts,
they live long in the darkness and depths of the cuts.


They don’t just breeze away like clouds in the wind,
it takes a lot more than that, to truly and fully mend.
It can take notepads and music and books to find the fire,
and even more of all this, to no longer walk the wire.


But I hope I find the key to those horrible big gates,
because I’m bored of this constricting, anger and hate.
it lets up at times feeding us glimmers of hope,
but then it simply giggles at me, and then tightens the rope.


It makes me want to ask…


Do you really think that we have time?
While we plot this map to a fanciful sublime?
A place where Tink walks ink footprints on a map,
where we never grow old, or we ever agree to that? 


Where your head actually clears and you can smell the air,
when you forgive the baggage and let go of despair?
When you remember who you were in smaller clothes,
without forgetting where it is that you still want to go?


When you think about playgrounds and music forever,
those are the same thoughts that you always promised to treasure.
But getting caught up in today is the hefty price,
a bigger risk always than just throwing the dice.


So maybe just go back to the pure and the simple,
to innocent moments and that juvenile dimple.
to a time you know you exhibited honest love,
when you felt that satisfying warmth on your heart like a glove.


That place that you know, you know still exists,
on your palm, for your life and in your heart’s history books.
It never goes away or really forgets about you, 
it’s only you who needs to know, what you want to do…




Dylan Balkind ©

Not In

There’s a bird on a fence and a streetlight nearby, there’s a home to one side and some people inside. They’re outside of being inside the problems they don’t know about... but know about.

They’re blue, yellow, red and green. They watch life through a TV set with no screen.

Mirror.

Five talk, four listen and one sings the song from inside.

It’s Universal.

Do you hear it?

“And what I wouldn’t give… for a soulmate… someone else to catch this drift…”

See your life in the projection of another’s… somewhere, up there.

Mirror.

Round the corner, on a street you may not know, there’s a bird on a fence and a streetlight nearby. There’s a home to one side and some people inside. They’re outside of being inside of problems… they do know about.

Try telling news that your life told before you did -

and see that people are so seldom surprised.

Inveigle Beautiful Thing because it is… it’s beautiful.



© Dylan Balkind 2001

Écouter / Myself

Tomorrow I get up and go at it again,
wanting it and summoning the courage to let the new in.

Running again but not on the path of least resistance,
nor succumbing to failure along the path of least persistence.

I remember you like it was yesterday, coming in from the cold,
you drove it home and personified ‘fortune favouring the bold.’
Watching you do it is an easy-to-grasp sense of bliss,
never willing to lose, even sixty seconds of happiness.

Scared inside but brave while looking out,
we’re stronger when friends help us ditch our debilitating doubt.
Tomorrow I get up, try, and go at it again,
believing, wanting, and summoning the courage to let the light in.

What makes you stay and love endlessly?
Knowing you knowing me, tirelessly and so touchingly.
Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow,
no matter how simple or staggeringly high brow.

Walk like the sun is your spotlight, and let the light shine in,*
more powerful than the will to win, is having the will to begin.**
I know some things are fairy dust and other things are just a myth,
but I know that grasping and living happiness, is also having someone to do it with.

Ambition is something you want to hold on to for longer than long,
And something you pine for, drunkenly when it is gone.
But having friends to kick it with and remind you how,
Is the greatest display of fireworks I’ve seen until now.

My belief in me and my hunger has returned,
so tomorrow I go at it again, even though I might get burned.
Believing and summoning the courage to let a new light in,
because more powerful than the will to win, is having the will to begin.

© Dylan Balkind 2008

* Merran Williamson

** Unknown Author