‘To be Like the Others Is to Be Good and Just’ and ‘Happenstance’, by Dale Leonheart
To Be like the Others is to Be Good and Just
It’s bothersome, how I can’t think
And live at the same time.
They tell me I am not perfectly well yet,
Which is hard to hear when you are keen on perfection.
I expect to dance soon,
And sing. I do not want to be spurned,
Much less by my own ambition.
I must try to relax, to do this slowly.
But when I pray it is with my eyes open.
The days pass through the window and
I can’t tell each sunset apart. Is this how
The Living do it, with their fingers crossed?
And again I am searching for a home and confusing it for a dream.
Happenstance
How again we find ourselves in
An unhallowed hall.
What are we doing here when here
Could be anywhere the moonlight falls just so.
It’s worshipful
The way I ask for rain
And talk about God when what I mean is
I just need some grace.
And isn’t it an unfathomable thing, this love.
Though like summer, fall, spring –
We will miss it when it ends.
Dale is an actor-writer-poet-loafer residing in California. Previous work can be found in Sybil Journal as well as in waste baskets across the country.