Yet the survival

of each human female or

male is to never

 

fail to combine strengths in hope

to cope with the scope of flaws.

 

We all, you, me and 

every human must each reach

a proficient skill

 

as a strong charioteer

to rein in dispassionate

 

logic with human

empathy or nullify

the impassioned cry

 

of fantasized harm with true,

factual, thus provable,

 

data, and as for

Tina’s dilemma, she can’t

fight her subpoena

to choose to pull the reins toward

the left, the right or hold tight

 

to fight the tension

of the powerful disputes

to refute your course.

 

[Joseph Ward]

 

So, Marlene, the serenely

sublime, keen eyed presenter

 

of her unfettered

friendship would have me believe

that science’s quest

 

is the same for religion.

My honored guest, that’s your best?

 

[Marlene]

 

Quite so, except that

science seeks to discover

then explains while

 

religion explains then seeks

to control other’s actions,

 

but each speaks to tell

how well they know creation’s

flow from the prime source

 

of reality’s course through

infinity raised to the

 

sixth power that will

shower intelligent life

with likewise choices

 

to resolve and evolve or 

degrade to lower levels

 

in which animal,

brutish behaviors pervade.

You, Tina and I

must decide where to put each

foot as we walk through our

 

lives as we apply

past lessons learned to discern

the next move to make.

 

Joseph, you forsake what she

takes as beneficial but

 

much of what you’ve learned

you’ve earned from many mistakes

you’ve had to shake off.

 

You can only show concern

and simply share what you’ve learned.

 

She is here to learn,

just like you or I, to turn

toward much better friends

 

upon whom she can depend

to extend calm nurturing

 

over demanding

or commanding rather than

favoring would be

 

foes savoring the conflict

over edicts impose from

 

fraudulent brutes who

augment flaws with cruelty.

It’s always her choice

 

to act, to reflect, to see,

to check in with others to

 

bother to embrace

shelter from coming fierce storms.

She can’t live your life

 

just as I cannot live yours.

[Joseph Ward]

 

So this tour of your kind words

 

was to afford me

a similar treatise I’d

offer to Tina?

 

[Marlene]

 

Belief is a choice. Faith is

the motif for all humans

 

seeking relief from

the lack of omniscience in

the dilemma of

 

having to chose always each

and every step on the way

 

to stay on firm ground 

or fall prey to treacherous,

precarious sway

 

to venture down paths that stray

which betray a dark motive.

 

Words I give to you

I try in earnest to live

So, I do for you

 

what you offer to Tina

and thus you, too, must suffer

 

the belief you choose

with the faith you’ll gain relief

from the grief you seek

 

to alleviate from a

fate you are best to escape.

 

I am not here to

persuade, brow beat or degrade.

I share ’cause I care.

[Joseph Ward]

 

So, you would have me believe  . . .

 

[Marlene]

 

Not correct ! You project your

 

present condition 

upon my motivation

conjured up in your

 

errored imagination.

You do what you will and take

 

the consequences

of your mistakes as mine will

forsake my comfort

 

to confront what I purport

is the best action to take

 

to make things better.

No matter how much you try 

you can’t defy Truth.

 

No matter how much you crave

the ability to save

 

her from the fatal

fall through the pitch black abyss,

you just barely missed,

 

you must resist imposing

a dictatorship that strips

 

away inherent

free will that narcissists seek

always to instill.

 

It is time to get a clue.

Choose to tell what you accrue

 

from the views we threw 

together to pursue new

insights of your plight

 

to make things right for Tina.

Drop the aura of savior

Don the attire

of a commoner seeking

to anchor meaning

 

from your inability

to quickly resolve anguish.

 

[Joseph Ward]

 

Your principle that

this is a role reversal

is hurtful to me

 

to see that I’m in need of

actionable assistance

 

reminiscent of

Tina’s resistance to my

offered perceptions.

 

[Marlene]

 

Broken bones must be set by

hands other than your own to

 

let you expand your

defense against the pain that

rains down upon you

 

swiftly but briefly while

your skeletal support is

 

reinforced with some

sort of a cast that will last

until the body

 

manufactures a fusion

removing the fracture with

 

extremely strong bone.

Deep lacerations needing

internal as well

 

as external stitching needs

persons keen-eyed and steady.

Are you ready to 

reveal what you feel is the 

real deal to be healed?

 

[Joseph Ward]

 

I must say, Marlene, you’ve kept

my self certainty at bay

 

when you implied well

that I should delve into my

shelved past injuries

 

akin to those that arose

in Tina’s childhood that then

 

exposed my disdain

toward the affects imposed by

childhood predators.

 

My emotional sores from

similar events are strained

 

by her pain that stains

my perceptions that mars my

needed clarity.

 

[Marlene]

 

We each are here to learn and 

thereby earn our progress

 

to better assess

the mess we encounter or

create in the wake

 

of evolution’s movement

through our reality.

[Joseph Ward]

 

It seems to me that

you emphatically push

dynamic combat

 

of ignorance and the joy

to employ nurturing with

 

exuberance as

an assistance for making

kind communities.

 

I surmise that you comprised

a good strategy to free

 

me from my stubborn

determination for self

protection against

 

more emotional anguish.

 

[Marlene]

 

Not unlike Tina’s worry.

 

[Joseph Ward]

 

Well, yes and I guess

the mess I’ve had to address

as a survivor

 

of child sexual abuse

makes me less obtuse about

 

the predatory

refuse of decaying souls

forced into the role

 

of carnal subservience.

 

[Marlene]

 

An experience that twists

 

emotional growth

that persists in poor judgements

that resist clear sight

of what’s the right course to take

cognitively due to the

 

strong propensity

to fight, always, from the hate

that’s hard to escape.

 

Joseph Ward]

 

Your mathematical trip

to equip my consciousness

 

with free will to choose

which step to take and then when

to defend progress

 

toward a better life amid

infinity to the sixth

 

power of places

for wandering feet to grace

 

[Marlene]

 

leads you to embrace

 

the correct base but without

the exact facts that

 

describe the high ground

of profound understanding

expanding your view.

 

The universe’s vastness

is infinity to the

 

sixth power but the

status at the present is

the circle’s center.

 

We pause here to consider

whether to stay the course or

 

move to the right or 

the left, even if slightly,

or to completely

reverse direction after

your due consideration.

 

The position you

take will refute or assist

your destination’s

 

route with a small dot plotted

as the spot of your next move

 

down a path toward your

apparent goal hidden in

uncertainty’s mist

 

of dense fog that resists clear

vision for your decision

 

to choose and to move

efficiently given that

there’s actually

 

three hundred sixty hopeful

angles from which you must choose.