A Small Skirmish

You taught me efficiency and they label me with "procrastinate."  You taught me to use my resources and they tell me I'm a mooch, a pest, and a leech.  You encouraged me to, "Go anywhere!" and "Be Anything!" and they reach for their strings to tie me down.  This world can't hold me down.  This world can't tell me who to be or who I am, although I endlessly ask them for clarification.

You advised me never to be afraid to ask questions and they break out the muzzle.  "Don't keep us here longer than we need to be," they complain.  The peculiar thing is that they were never here to begin.  Their minds have been fixated on former selves, covetous longings, and romantic desires, but not here.  They try to shut me up so that they can escape to where they imagine their dreams are waiting for them, but then complain that nothing ever comes to fruition, at least not the way that they had imagined.

Maybe it's not my place to speak these words.  Maybe this is just pointing fingers, but what if it's not?  What if it's more than that?  What if there is meaning to the madness?  Don't you want to know if there is something buried below the superficial stickers that the world tries to stick on you?  Wouldn't you want to discover what is hibernating deep inside?  Or are you so afraid of the unknown that you would rather plaster further layers of predictable pain on your person?

Stanzas to fill the In-Between

This movie's boring, mundane even.  Maybe a month ago it still held onto some novelty, but no more.  I want to start a new one; can we stop and begin again?

I thought life was living, but somehow it's all the in-between times, like this.  Surely there is light somewhere beneath this crack in the surface.  And here.

I'm a torn and fraying noose ever since you cut me loose.  I'm brain without a skull, unprotected and dull.  A sponge that can't release the pain, the trauma, and the rain.  No, not without you cradling my splinters in your handmade mittens.

There are faint whispers here, but nothing comes to life in a vacuum. Am I sweating or is that your steady pulse shaking the table?

Please don't go there, don't leave me unless you're gone for good.  You know I can't cut the strings myself. My patience is so thick that I can't breathe beneath it.  You understand don't you?