Coming to Terms

I think that some of us 

Are born a little sad
A grey fog 

deep in the soul 

That never truly lifts

overthinking

alcohol has a way of revealing

all the things you never wanted to show

again and again

i expect it to mask

what I’m really feeling

it will be fun

I will forget that I even cared

but shit.

sometimes in the oblivion of it

I lay it all out

nothing concealed

all of my most tarnished thoughts

splayed out

like shitty silverware at a yard sale.

 

blue

Each word that I write tends to push me a little deeper below the surface. The words evolve into sentences and I can feel my body sink into deeper shades of blue. Thoughtful writing feels a lot like diving. Before making the plunge I have so many thoughts and ideas swirling and competing in my mind. So many distracting sounds and noises, all moving at warp speed. But then they all silence. I focus in on an idea and watch my toes push off from the stand. Arms stretched out before me, I leap into the blue.

All the distractions go away. I have found my idea and I am wholeheartedly committed to what I will write about. At this point, I can only go deeper. The thoughts unfurl like the webs of a spider, one sentence builds onto another, and then appears a paragraph. The outside world ceases to exist as I succumb to deeper shades of blue.

Whole hours will pass before I realize how far down I have traveled. I will glance at my watch and two hours will have escaped. I do not know how it happens. Pages of my scrawled handwriting smile up at me. I realize that I have to come up for air. How long was I in the blue? Feet flat on the pool floor; I push off and look up to the white surface. My mission is completed. I can return back to the bustling earth above. I can put down my yellow pencil and move from the sun lit desk that I was bound to. I can breathe. Oxygen races into my lungs and the spell is broken.

People never seem to even realize I was gone; but I don’t mind. I had them the coffee stained pages and invite them to simply read. I know they will understand.

I did it

Today I found my balls

My voice 

And I left

And it hurt

And it stung 

And I wished I had stayed 

Simply to escape the pain

But I am still breathing

Blinking 

Moving. 

And it can only get better

Librarian’s Troubles

I picked you

like a shiny new book on a shelf

so excited to spread your pages

and know your secrets.

And the story was grand,

colors that leapt from the crisp pages.

I stayed up until 2am to finish chapter 9

I was certain that I could predict the end.

It would be happy this time.

But

As usual,

I was wrong.

The last pages were torn out.

I do not know the way the story ends.

Just that it is simply over.

war relics

There must be a word for it. You know. When you continue to nurture and whisper warm nothings to that thing that you know is ruining you. Waiting to unfurl a million miles an hour and wave in a million different directions. Like the tattered flag you stole from that douche bag Elliot’s treehouse in fourth grade. Free and crazy in the wind, countless feet from your reach. An impossible-to-capture relic from a battle that you knew the whole time you would lose

Vase Incarnate

and once again
like you’re swore
up
and down
that you never would

You left me.

Carefully lifted me into warm light
like an old vase
from the orient
told me i was worth millions
then dropped me

onto a cold marble floor.

I can’t survive two falls
I will have to become something new
a mosaic
maybe sand
but I will never be the vessel I was

This pain has changed me
a cruel refinery
pruning that cut too close to the roots.

But I will never disappear.
I will wash you from every corner of my mind
purge
bleach even the tiniest cracks
you’re not seeping back in

self portrait

my life a series
of tiny fractured triumphs
bound by good intent

[no more]

fuck you.
jerking me left
right
like a dog on a leash
fuck you

you don’t get to decide
when we talk
if i respond
answer your calls
you don’t love me
you just don’t want to be alone
coward
fuck you

i was hurt
now I’m simply angry
flashing red
no more pain
fuck you

so don’t call me
crying
saying you made a mistake
this
ship
has
sailed.

contact

you know-
some things you can read
be told
hear
a thousand times
but their realities will often miss
skew too far to the left
whizz past your head
that is how it was
until the idea of ‘finiteness’
hit me.
i don’t have promised time
maybe my predestined number of heart beats
runs out before the end of this poe