Sharisa Joy Kochmeister       [ Poem 1 | Poem 2 ]

Fragments

In the midst of mute and solo lived a strength I never knew,
Till I realized my lost voice echoed deep inside of you.
Like a lost child in a canyon screaming desperately for aid -
I was hungry, thirsty, lonely, frozen, empty and afraid.

In my early baby hopefulness, my voice sang sweet and clear,
But my lifesong only rang out for one very special year;
Then my real world shattered and the fragments fell within,
Till I couldn't find the places where my mind or I begin.

And my mind became a puzzle and its pieces didn't fit.
While I tried to find the world, I could make no sense of it.
In a convoluted tunnel, with an endless case of bends,
I kept searching for an opening but couldn't find the ends.

In my prison of dark silence I kept searching for some light,
But I rarely glimpsed a sunbeam in my world of endless night.
My bleak solitaire confinement had a life all of its own,
And its only real solace dwelt in keeping me alone.

As the world revolved around me, I lived deep within my mind,
While the people looked into my eyes believing I was blind;
And their voices filtered through the crazy hazy in my head,
And it made the people wonder whether I was deaf or dead

Till my empty silence cloaked me in an air of acrid doom,
And my life became a never-ending living breathing tomb
Until one gray day a single ray of sunshine pierced my night,
And my tomb began to fragment into glowing shards of light.

Free at last and me at last, I am prisoner no more;
And I never will return to the me I was before;
And my mind is fully open and my soul is fully free,
And I’ll fully be the person I was always meant to be.

by Sharisa Joy Kochmeister 1996

Breaking Patterns

If my life is made of patterns
That can scarcely be controlled,
What’s the point of trying new things
Or the point of being bold?
There’s no need for taking chances
Or exploring what is new
If I only am allowed to do
The things I’m meant to do.

In the silence that envelops
And the emptiness that rules
I can still recall the screaming
Of the crazy, holy fools
And the pounding of my heartbeat
Like the beating of the rain
On the thin tin roof-like cover
That protects my fragile brain.

While I struggled to develop
In a place no one could see,
I held tightly to the image
Of the person I could be;
And the person I could be
Was someone I knew I knew
Would be able to discover
Many patterns as I grew.

As I grew in not-so-straight lines
In a pattern never-seen,
There were people growing with me
In my spaces in-between
Mental image and reality
That live inside my brain
And prevent all of the craziness
From blanketing the sane.

Re-inventing, reconfiguring
My pattern every day.
Reconstructing and re-modeling
In every single way;
And I’m not controlled by patterns,
And my life is all my own.
I am flexible and changeable,
My life’s not carved-in-stone.

© Sharisa Joy Kochmeister 1996