Be Yourself Tonight

Call me shallow if you want to,
but when I hear the word 'deep'
as it is applied to relationships
I am unsure about how apt it is
for saying how we are for each other.

I have seen possessive people
'deepen' their relationships with others
where the other party does not see
how they are slowly being remade
to be the person their possessor
would like them to be. It scares me.

I like people enough
to not want to possess them,
but rather help them
to be more themselves,
as I hope they will do for me.   

Self Definition Is The Best Definition

Better to fail on your own terms
than to succeed on anyone else's.

When they leave your life
they will take your success with them.

Part of how people change themselves
is changing the terms they live by
which they have most right to choose.

Remove the right to fail
and we make all success
seems somewhat hollow.

I Like Positive Failures

The sort of mistakes where in spite of the indifference
from others that confronts us, and the boredom we sense
because of who we are, as much as in spite of ourselves,
we can re-find some much longer attention span
where we combine so-called entertainment
with a temporary self improvement.

The Triumph Of Emptiness

When whatever we try,
the bad guys are the winning side,
regardless of every effort to stop them,
then we have to accept it; life seems bad.

But life gets much worse when we deny
our true selves, the better beat our enemies.

Then whoever wins, victory seems most  hollow.