Nothing

I used to like the Internet but now I've begun to despise it more.  It's filled me with disgust.  It's brought out our worst.  It's driven a wedge between all of us.  Culture wars cause us to choose sides.  We filter our words because we don't want others to hear are real selves.  I don't know why I'm telling you this.  I'm just sick of all the nonsense.  All the laziness that blames me for my actions but doesn't tell me how to fix it.

One night I fell asleep a slave only to awake a prisoner in a dimly lit cell.  All the walls that held me in were shadows of all my forgotten dreams.  They ebbed and flowed, like early autumn branches that hadn't yet tasted the cool of the season.  Everything I thought I was was just thin tissue paper taped to my face.  I had believed the lies that those around me had spoken to me with smiles, hugs, and cherished words.  I had fallen for the falsities that I was trying so desperately to avoid.

There were holes in my beliefs grander than the self-inflicted stab wounds on my heart.  The faces winked at me and the salt from their eyes poured deep into my soul.  I lay upside-down and all this time I had tried to be inside out for them.  I had tried to share me with them but just became less of myself to appease them.  I fell while already laying down.  I fell asleep though my eyes would never shut.  I had to take everything in like a dehydrated sponge in a sea of filth.

Don't listen to me today.  There are only a few sufficient sentences here.  The rest has filled the room with nonsense.

Discontented Complacency

It was you and
it was me.  It was
all that we could do
to just keep
from falling further,
deeper.

Then I fell
face first into
sparse unidimensional relationships.
Words again became
hidden strangers but those with
familiar voices became stale,
shallow, and more like echoes.

The place
I fell consumed me
like a vortex
in a valley of quicksand.

All the
voices in my head
run away when I step
inside while the phantoms
lull me to sleep.

Every idea evaporates
if you leave
it out in the sun
long enough.

Nothing more,
nothing less;
while
my heart dreams
                           of falling asleep
in your arms.

Some Sort of Knoll

It's difficult to accept that you may be a wolf when you look back and remember the lush green pastures of your youth.  When you've tasted the cool stream of water, how can you stand to sit under the burning sun?  When you're raised as a sheep, it takes concerted determination to begin to wander into the fold.  You find yourself feeling like a prodigal son that has chained his right leg to a post while your left leg futilely tries to force freedom.  You find your mind wandering while your and try to catch your heart before it gets carried into a the forbidden forest like a balloon afraid to pop, though simultaneously reaching for the maze of branches.

Reaching higher but only holding onto my previous notions.  The daylight is a waking sign.  Cold water and no electricity reminds me of taking this life for granted.  Luxuries like a warm blanket on a brisk night.  Not knowing who I am but redefining everything and still nothing.  Embracing all but still feeling unaccepted or as one who doesn't accept.

The colors aren't just black and white.  It's not just neon and pastels.  There is vibrancy in a dusty woodshed and superficiality in the glow of the sign that reads "Now Open".  I'll see you on the other side of this and I'm today's a day I'm climbing.  No, perhaps climbing is not the right way to describe it.  Perhaps I've reached the surface in some aspects and have come up for air and to feel the buoyancy of my body anew.

Life takes (only) years

No matter how old you are you're likely to hear some iteration of the phrase "30 is the new 20," but let's be honest, the way some of us are living it would probably be more accurate for some of us to say something like "20 is the new 40."  We live sedentary lives behind phones and screens and long for community.  We hide behind bright, glowing distractions and live like no one can tell us what to do.  The one who will live prosperous life is she who has the humility to ask for help and the courage to push through crippling fear.

I cannot say that I've lived a full life as a 27-year-old teenager.  Rather, my life could be easily compared to an antisocial individual living with paraparesis and mononucleosis at times.  I return from work and stay inside.  I hide under covers and beneath my own selfish judgments.  I long to be longed for, to be accepted, or to be sought out, but all I do is breathe in the stale air of my apartment.  I fall asleep with the lights on because the lights behind my eyes have all but gone out.

...

I've taken myself seriously a time and a half but that's behind me now.  I'm walking around my shadows, hoping to avoid the cold in the darkness.  I'm breathing today and that's enough.  Complacency is dry, comfort is uncomfortable, and rushing through life is frivolous.  I'll write the words here though my fingers have not minds of their own.  Wake up now and then maybe we'll learn to live together.  Atoms overlap and time is a cycle of cycles that seems to move unto infinity.  Still humans are finite and all we claim to know is nothing but spinning for a short period of time.

Do we make the most of it when we say carpe diem?

Instead of an ER

The perfect storm.  The rash on my forearm.  The heart on my sleeve.  The black cars in a line.  The cold air against my cheeks.  I'll distract myself from enjoying life.  I'll choose the controlled silence over the unpredictable rushing wind.  I'll run toward the cliff and then stutter for the last few moments before I jump.  I'll tell you how I feel as soon as I know how high the cliff is and how deep the water will be.  I share more than enough because I have too much to share and no one listening.  No; you are all listening, I'm just not comfortable starting.  Open me up and I think you'll wish you hadn't cut me there.  Perhaps you ought to have aimed for my vocal cords.

The dead skin scraped off of my arm didn't even leave enough for a scar.  I'm afraid of my fingers and the death I live in.  I'm trying so desperately to stop time or reverse it, but my efforts are futile.  My heart is shaking within me.  I don't want to be here.  I want to revert.  I want to stand still and see the clock move backward.  Where are you?  Where will you be?  Shall I write you?  Will you here me?  Is my more than enough too much too soon yet?  Stab me before it's me.

Dark Clouds on the Horizon

I can sleep the day away like it's lightning from a cloud.  I can dream my life away and not get an ounce of rest in return.  My days are nights and the knight has left me.  I'm in a sullen state of mind and no tears satisfy the river stream.  I have far more than enough in life and all I want is to not want more.  My desires are stuck on fast-forward while my feet won't budge from this wet cement.  I'm a stunted, shifted, stained glass dream and I have nothing to prove my existence.  I need the commonalities of others around me but I don't let my feet turn circles even.

All the words hover circles around me.  People go about their lives and I ask people to push me.  When the time comes, the push shoves, I cry out from within in despair.  "Do not touch me!  I'm fragile.  Handle with care!"

I exploit my emotions as I'm going through the motions.  I tilt my head toward corrosion and listen for explosions while it's the inside that's convulsing.  I'm nothing short of nothing.  I'm the poison inside and I'm the reason to hide.  The dreams I flee to just leave me wanting more.  The dreams I flee  are shattered fragments of myself.  I cannot fall asleep myself and wake up someone else.  I cannot live a dissipated existence and hope to find indulgence in the mundane.  I cannot meet a dress inside my bedroom window.

The words aren't flowing toward the ocean now; they're pushing me upstream.

Potential

It's the first of the year.  And isn't every day with You?  Not to put on the rosy tints, but I know You've got this.  Nor will I put on these soggy wet goggles.  I've got the letter P coming with me on this journey.  I'm an empty balloon that often thought it had already exploded but I've just had the wind knocked out of me a couple of times.

I'm making it now again.  I'm waking up and preparing to take flight.  Please don't melt my wings unless it's necessary.

To another,
     If you're going to say no, I need to hear you say it, so I can move on with my life and find a mutual yes.  I know I haven't asked you, but the question has been bubbling for months now.  We have been nearing a boil for months now.  Steady streams lead to rushing waters or dry up in empty river basins.