Mental Equations

By Brian Elroy McKinley

If I say that I love you

And you say that you love me

How do we know if we both said the same thing?

The world is round and turns 365.25 times per year,

And sometimes it just makes me dizzy.

The nice thing about a really bad day . . .

Is that 24 hours later it's just a memory.

Reality is being stranded on the freeway at night,

Knowing you will eventually make it home,

But not knowing how or when.

Illusion is ordering coffee from a roadside restaurant,

And expecting to feel at home

Illusion is the difference between my face and my soul.

Time is the distance between a moment in the making,

And that moment in memory.

When I sleep next to my phone

I'm connected to the whole world,

But sometimes I just don't answer.

I once was asked

How many different people am I?

I replied,

How many are the moments

Between now and memories past?

Both laughter and crying

Are universal languages.

Peace is not the lack of strife;

Rather it is the ability to hear music in a noisy world.

The nice thing about rain

Is it falls on the rich and the poor alike.

The nice thing about snow

Is it makes my yard and my neighbor's yard look the same.

You may have riches,

And I may have nothing,

But we both look at the same stars.

I once worried about many things,

But once that worry became a memory

It appeared as little more than excess baggage.

Now I travel as light as possible.

It's interesting,

Both the very full

And the very hungry

Have a hard time seeing past their bellies.

Life is the answer to eternal longing;

Hate is that answer refusing to be spoken.

Time is what separates us from angels.

Empathy is the communication of souls.

Knowledge is a commodity,

But wisdom is often an elusive dream.

Without memory

And the anticipation of the future,

Music would have no value.

Winter comes like a dream,

But is often filled with harsh realities.

But then, are not all dreams?

It's strange that we sometimes think

So highly of ourselves

That we get angry

When the weather refuses to follow our schedules.

There seems to be an epidemic of mediocrity

In our thinking these days,

And we pay the price

With our inability to recognize genius.

Did you ever wonder

If sometimes we are not asking the right questions?

Every man and woman leaves behind

A haunting of discarded people,

Everyone they used to be.

Life is music in the silence of forever.

We all seem to be afraid of haunted place,

But it is my own ghosts that scare me the most.

The trouble with new

Is that it never stays that way.

With every step I leave a ghost;

No wonder my house is always haunted.

Security belays violence,

But violence can never bring security.

Illusion is believing that society's standards are normal.

Pain shows us the depths of our soul

And the shallowness of our many worries.

Touching eases the soul.

Who do I ask

When I have a question

That questions the ability

Of anyone to answer me?