don't miss me

because i won't be gone.
granted, i won't be here
but i'm always around.

its finally time that i understand
just what i want for a couple days
a couple weeks, months, years.
however long it takes.

and it will probably be the hardest secret
i have ever had to keep.
a couple of people already know,
but only the ones that I know will keep
their mouths shut.

so don't tune in to this channel too often.
maybe if you're looking for the very seldom read
or some sort of nostalgia. this will become
something of a ghost town.

i miss the weather

that was a only slowing changing day by day.
i miss those times when my mind only wandered
and never thought of the future

but i think if i were there again
i would miss this the most
the actually feeling
its not something to be remembered
it can't be remembered wholly
only experienced in the moment
to be alive and suffering.

the more i write

the more i find
that the truth hides behind the truth we create
and all i'm sure of is that i'm not sure of anything, really.

some people

are meant to lead us, carry us, follow us to the end
and others are meant to get you from one place to another
to that next step in finding yourself.

so here's my new years resolution

over 4 months late.
but right on time.

i look back at not just the last year but the last 21 years and think about the happiness I could've had and didn't. so my resolution is to just live happier. to be happier. to invest time in the things i love doing and the people i know. and to worry less about what the future holds.

while you just had that thought

someone else was somewhere else thinking something else.
and somewhere else someone else wasn't thinking at all.
and some others were sleeping, eating.
they were alive
but were they all living?

the things we worry about

some of them aren't so important.
but you don't know that coming into it.
so look back at the ones that changed your life
and the ones that barely left a trace.

don't forget about a single exhale of relief,
tear of sorrow, leap of joy. and all the feelings
in between.

what's meant to happen will happen
absorb the shock and flow on.

I've always been a competitor

for the soul reason.

and we have demons fight our other demons

so that during the time that we are forgotten in the mess
we can do our laundry.

The same things we use as excuses

as a crutch, to show that we are inconvenienced
are the same things that when people ponder about
the things inconvenience, we pass it off as nothing more
than bug that we can shoo away easily.

I fell asleep for a couple of hours

and the whole world burned down.
how cliche that things keep changing.

there is something greater

than the visible truth.
it is always lying underneath the surface
of what you see, what you read
what people tell you
and it is the emotions that drive the actions
but it is the thoughts that make the actions impure
short sighted, instead of all encompassing.
messages are lost, people are lost.

My beliefs

I do not mean this in a disrespectful way. But I have looked at the evidence, and inside of me, I do not believe that the bible was factual. And that's just what I believe. I'm not trying to make anyone else believe that the bible isn't real. If you believe the bible is real, then that's great. As long as you have thought it through for yourself, in any form of procedure, and you have decided that the bible is truth, than I am proud of you for having a path.

I do believe the bible has a great message. Above all I would still say that the life of jesus is the greatest love story ever told. It is the most pure form of romance. To say that you are willing to die for the ones you love shows that you believe every man and woman forms a greater unity of one being, and that when given the choice between self and others, you are willing to humble yourself and understand that as long as someone lives on, it doesn't have to be you.

Anyway those are my interpretations, not that I expect anyone to read this, but if you do please don't leave me a comment because i'm not having a discussion about this.

all the people i know

and all the people i've only met
they are that way for a reason.
i know them each a different way
for a reason. because i am not you
and you are not me, and our perspectives
are skewed by the fragments we know
ignorant to the entirety.

its meant to be this way so that your fragments
and slices fit the puzzle, the final cog to turn the gears.

i've finally solved how

i move past things so fast
and hold on to so little
its in the writing
i catalogue everything
all the things i found important
are written somewhere
i have most of them
but not all of them
and i usually don't make copies
because i am trying to get my point across.

my mind brimmed with truth today

so full of light
that my eyes could not contain it.
i didn't even have to
open my eyes to be able to see.

something like invincibility
filled my insides. my skin
a membrane on the verge of
exploding.

to wake up and for once just be

maybe i'm just what i said i wasn't

maybe i'm just a fraud
and this was all a facade
to be nearer than i ever would have been otherwise.

i have all these memories

about people i've never met.
moments that have yet to begin
play out in reels of film
on eyelid canvases.

maybe it shouldn't be our final goodbyes that are so full of sorrow
but our first hellos.

today's the day

we finally rise to the occasion.

you were honest with me

you showed me that i needed to be honest with myself.
and though i don't know the future
i know me a little bit better now
because of you.

You aren't the first

and you won't be the last.
It is my destiny
to screw things up, royally.

So wear a smile
because compared to the rest
of eternity,
i'm just a blip on the radar
if i'm a blip at all.

it was good while it lasted

and i'm sorry for what i said.
you were sober, i wasn't
and i just let it fly.

i doubt that you actually read this
but if you do:
you were great
and for a while
you helped me understand.

and i have nothing but gracious thanks
i wish i hadn't run my mouth
because if i hadn't
we'd still be out there
instead of going our separate ways.

there isn't much else to say these days
of course i'm sorry
i just wanted you to to be happy
so i went along with it.
but eventually i'd had enough
and what happens happens.

i hope that wherever you go,
i wasn't much of an impact
and that you move with fluidity
as though i never was.

This is where we see the beauty of life

even though we are steeped in tragedy.
you will mourn and grieve,
and in your own time
you will come to
realize that though she was meant for you
it is destined to be in some other place.

Though you both wanted to stay together, here
it was the choice of the fates of who stays in the end.

But remember this above all else: she was yours
through and through, and its not "until the end",
because there is no end for things like this.

I think the most important thing you can ever
understand and appreciate was that

For a while she was yours, and you were hers
and that's all one can ever really hope for.

Rain comes

first with that gorgeous smell.
and then with the flood.

but i learned how to swim
and enjoy this paradise
as much as the ducks do.

I think I figured it out

I'm basically the comedic relief
when things around here get too much
when all the "real" players experience
reality.

They quick switch the camera to me
and follow me around, rather than
show their young, charismatic star
at the breaking point.

it's vague until it'sobvious

so i'll just keep my eyes open
and my mouth closed
waiting to watch truth unfold.

enlightment

is one seed at a time
breaking open in the earth
amongst thousands of others.

becoming an open vessel
retrieving the sustenance from the
world around it.

a growing mind.

I don't think it really matters

if i have a soul or not.

because if i do it is clearly able to influence my decisions and moral characteristics.

and if i don't its still apparent that i have some form of a conscious mind and morale fibers that help me to determine what is right and wrong.

so as long as i try to find happiness while keeping other in mind, I am o.k. with whatever ending it comes to. All we are is all we have so we need to make it a time to remember when we felt alive inside.

The question is not whether or not I will die

But will I perceive the next world
the way i perceive this one?

You've been given this intelligence

Use it to understand yourself, above all things.

Though I wore my cloak

fate still struck me.
a reminder to take this
seriously.

to embody energy
to be a catalyst
a lightning rod
a contributor
to the flow
of life
through this world
is all that I pray to be.

Today

it poured.
inside and out.
how long had the words you wrote
been waiting for me to find them?
i found myself happier than
i have been in a long time.

never had a window made me this happy
so happy that the rain rolled
all across my face
laying back into the couch
my truest smile in weeks.

The lions and the ides

must've known.
because they held their lashing tongues
with more moderation this season.

but there is still time
for those off their guard
to be caught so.

It's time

to stop holding back.
The potential repercussions
are too much for me to stand

Haven't I done enough
to screw everything up?

I will pretend to say
that I don't really care
but still i step lightly
just like i used to.

the light never leaves

without returning.
its only retreating
just when it has to
when we obliterate
ourselves with the
zones and phases
of our lives.

but when the time is near
the light heads for the door
escape pods ready, evacuate now.

the light in your world

it as crisp as you remember it?
do the colors pop,
the edges clash?

or is it one of those
gray winter days?
the ones where the
light just fades
everything blurring
at the seams of space
a dull palate laid before you.

There isn't always more than one way

to skin a cat.
certain lines
only form
certain shapes.

but if the next year
is anything like the last
all i can imagine is just how
lucky i would be
to be that happy,
that sad
that full of life.

Maybe if you hadn't been the first

you might have ended up the last.
and maybe if I had been first
it would be you
moving on to something new.

All the thoughts that you've forgotten

all the people along the way
all the memories that did fade
they store all of them in a bottle
and sell it in the summer
for little kids to create
from the soapy consistency
that was your life.
and all the pieces were together
now they all float their separate ways
and they pop on blades of grass
or at children's fingertips
something that you didn't remember
now something that you'll always miss.

All that I am

is a lugee hocked over the edge of the upstairs porch.
falling 30 feet to the cold winter ground seemed like a lifetime,
a slow-motion replay of all the things I had ever been.

the coming of spring brings a shimmering glint from the sun
watching as it falls knocked around by the current of the early March winds.
So loud in fact did the winds speak, that its splatter against the bulkhead
wasn't heard and the visuals camouflaged
against the sky blue painted doors below.

Just one rain drop

that's all i can really ask for.
all that I could ever hope to be.

A couple of bubblewraps

breaking each others vessels.
Your turn. Ok, now me.
exchanging cuts,
creating scars
was all a part of the plan.
Until it got to be too much
and the pokes and prods
made me thin
the lightest breeze
carrying me away
before we even knew
that we were already gone.

Square pegs and round holes

aren't meant for each other, not forever anyway.
But maybe a round hole just needs a square peg
to fill the void for a little while. Even though the wind
will bring cold to the open edges and arcs. Better than being hollow.
Just until the square figures out that there is somewhere else
that it will fit better, and the circle finding
a more permanent fixture.

The only question is how long will the hollowness last
in between the time it was almost and
the time it will be complete.

This

isn't meant to be a modern version of the romances we romanticize.
Instead, it is our chance to be remembered as one of those them.
And I would much rather create history, than impersonate it.

I got a postcard from Oregon

a picture of the Pacific Ocean smiling
and crashing happily against the coast.
I flipped it over to find you had written
me in your most casually perfect penmanship.

Dear you,

Wish you were here to see
me happy without you.

Always,
me

When I said "you are perfect"

i didn't mean that you are perfect.
but that you are perfect for me.
and that is a much better fate
than the burden of perfection.

the residual feeling

of a pair of heavy sunglasses
that are somehow missing
from above your forehead
as though they are still resting
atop your as your modern crown.

the same is how this feels to me
the feeling of absence
and the absence of feeling,
anything at all.

where ecstasy would fall
there is a numbness
preventing
my humble jubilation.

closing the door behind me

some sensation stopped me at the top of the stairs:
the desire to hear your voice.

i had not really heard you speak in some time.
I could barely remember how you sounded.

i sat down 9 stairs up from your floor
just around the turn and out of sight.

and i channelled my focus to find your frequency
hoping for your vocabulary to guide me down the trail
of your undulations and your articulations

But the downstairs tennants were much too loud;
a welcoming party of ecstatic voices being.
reunited with the voices of their fellow countrymen.

Their foreign syllables mixed with the others from your apartment
and the softness that permeates your voice was mixed evenly into the other
boisterous sounds.

I moved down the stairs as quietly as possible
and seeing your door ajar
i listened from my new post

but only my roomates were audible,
their masculine sounds fighting the foreign ones out in our open stairwell.

As the foreigners disappeared behind their doors
The front door clicked open
swinging heavily and loudly.
Feet pounding the lowerstaircase
caused me to make my way across the hall
and down passed your rommate ascending.

I stopped once I had heard the door close behind her
one final attempt to hear if you were speaking.
But the foreigners were regaling each other in the mudroom
exchanging sentiments and bottles of wine.

The door opened easily and the snow had quieted the night
stepping outside into a silence that brings everything
but the sound of your voice.

everyone's got their hypothesis

about what's really going on.
and they treat it like a science
trying to show that their presumptions
are the right ones.

trying to make you see what they see.
and i wish they would stop.
because i am not an experiment
to be observed.
to be quantified.

so don't come here to diagnose the situation.
i am not just some problem to be solved.

i hadn't been here without you before

and so of course a dance party breaks out.
at a loss for what to do or where to go.

i couldn't believe what i was hearing

when you're favorite song came over the speakers.

i texted you to tell you you were missing the best part.

funny, so was i.

the tension peeled from my shoulders

the moment i saw you. and you saw me.
eye contact.

it was awkward, for certain.
but it was the first step i had taken in weeks
that felt positive.
better still, i realized then
everything will be alright.
because you and i are still fighting
the same fight.

It used to be that you were here

in my head
just like all the other days
and this way when i couldn't hold you
we still talked and smiled

but now its just us standing there
staring at the ground.
and i have not slept in days.

all i do is watch this scene over and over in my head.
hoping that the two main characters will share quiet words
even if they are just good bye.

you were an oragami swan

I was a paper airplane.
You floated towards the east, not seeing me
advancing from the south.

I couldn't slow down.
the softest clash
of paper wings on paper wings.
a delightful catastrophe.

we spiraled down for a while
and when the debris settled

neither of us knew where to fly to.

we're it so easy

were it so easy, nothing would be remembered

were it so easy, we would never have change in our lives

we would never be anything different

anything extraodinary

we would never be what we could be

incomplete

like a missing piece.
a part of the puzzle lost
voluntarily given up to the couch cushions
just waiting there, while i go outside
moving on to something else.

and this isn't the first deed left undone.
all those tiny little missing pieces
haunt me everywhere
my unfinished business as my only footwear
shackles and weights and heavy iron boots.

it's about time

we stopping putting our dreams on hold.

we've all been the blade

we've all been the body.

a couple of hours

that i forgot about you for.
but the moment it slowed to the end,
there you were again.
center stage like you've always been.

every time your soul and mine

go our separate ways,
we are born again into this life.

and we live these separate times
alone and desperately in search
of one another

sometimes they don't make it back together
and sometimes they do.

where will this age take me?
and where are you standing right now?

All of a Sudden

they just went crazy
it was like they were afraid of the air
and they were so desperate to get away from
the atmosphere that they dove
into the ocean, sinking deep to safety
they threw themselves against windows
a brave escape. and in the explosion
their feathers fell slowly at first
white blurs
but now more clearly soft shapes
landing at your feet.

Hey,

I guess I got your voicemail
I just wanted to call and ask you a question

Could you take a chance on me?
Because I've been thinking
and all my hear wants to do is be

I know this is sudden
but I can't wait any longer
I gotta know now
where this could go.

I hope you've thought of
how we could end up
because i think of you constantly
so if you're interested gimme a call back
748

How strange

to know that they are gone, but to still feel them
in your heart.

knowing that their soul has moved on. all but a sliver
passes on, but that remaining spec is forever bonded to yours.

the attachment resonates, sensing that it is what has been left behind
and it sends a shiver through your spirit.
a feeling that you'll never forget.
one that will bring disquiet about what the afterlife holds.
a sensation that will trigger all the great memories
that you shared together
and finally a peaceful joy will spread through you
knowing that nothing can take away that piece of themself
they gave you when they left.

There's this girl

I used to know her.
I still do.
I've got her phone number,
and she'll occasionally drop by the house
to see if anyone's home. just to say hi.
the examples we carry to prove to ourselves
that we haven't forgotten one another.

i can't lie.
it's been different without you around.
and i see you now
and i'm glad things have been
the way they have.

i remember i used to be pretty good at making you smile,
but those were nothing compared to the brilliant one you wear now.

he went out on top

Had finally dug himself out of the hole
got his life on the right track
had finally received redemption.
was now ready to provide his fate and be
what he was supposed to be so long ago.

he knew that he was at the top of this game.
but fate knew that this was as high as he would ever go.

and it needed to take back his borrowed energy
so that it could continue on and allow others to borrow its time
who would provide more than this man did.

what he did provide was taken back with thanks.
time and fate will miss him. more than we ever could.

I knew it

Right then and there.
All I could see was eyes.
True and Blue.

Everything around them was a mess
eyelids half open
wrinkled at the corners
barely conscience.

I saw us as 80 years old
with our hair all a mess.
Waking up next to you.
And not somebody else.

And later on too
when you were all around
not in a good mood.
I could not help but be by
your side probably more of an annoyance
than anything else, but still with the good intention
of bringing your smile back.

When you're willing to work this hard
you know what you are.

Yea, there's a definite.
I'll always be in love.

Everything to Gray

If I stare hard enough, there is only the vibrant color of your face
and eyes played out against a gray background. The edges of your blonde head
are touched by a light smoke, as the surroundings turn pale and dark,
losing their color to becoming different shades of black and white.
the lively hue of your skin, and your shimmering blue eyes
protested against the collapsing contrast, holding steady
refusing to be overtaken.

My worst dreams were the ones where the the color runs away
from you and you become just like everything else.
The ones where you stop fighting and as you walk away
you become enveloped
by white and black
your purple dress fading to a midnight hue.
warm ocean eyes to cold charcoal.

To be unfinished business.

To say good bye, and to never say hello again
is my greatest fear. A final moment together
Where we didn't get to say what we really wanted.
"Wait, I love you, don't go!"
No. we swallow these words
and others emerge painfully,
wringing our souls on their way out.

I hope you are always reluctant to see me go.
Because I am always reluctant to leave.

scrapes

They show, they tell.
They heal, but are split open again.
And the edges of fresh skin
ebb and flow, the gap closing
now growing, a recurring feat of
blood loss. Small enough for everyone who sees it
to say "ouch" or "yikes" or "eeeh"
but not so bad that they use an
"o my gods" or a "jesus!"

And they heal a funny way.
Like they are patchwork under our skin.
Never really the same as what was there before.
the skin forming a certain mark
Never really forgotten.
the incident occuring may not being remembered
but the visible growth still evident to this day.

Anchors

Our faith in the storm,
to prevent us from being ymoved
when the chaos comes.

Don't you know that the rock
which doesn't move
slowly weathers away? Turning to nothing.

Let me free to roll with the waters, so that I may
live on. Because I have been held in this place far too long,
slowly dissipating into the wind's
salty arms.

"I'll die til I'm dead"

young children chanted an oath to each a sacred promise that when broken would shatter the hearts of those who were involved. at least that's how it used to go.
the adults overlook the truth of the matter, children's ideas more full of universal truth
than anything they thought had at their "mature" age.

but the pact is spoken together. and though they speak at one another, they speak
only to themselves. to the world inside of them.
promising that they will give back the energy they have borrowed in order to live this life.

bodies enervated by the soul. insidesilluminating,
light spilling out from behind your eyes.

and the clock begins. the light grows dimmer.
the proximity of soul to body has begun to grow
and the sharp vibrant radiance in the beginning
has started to dull and round of at the edges.
fires burning low as red goes to black
dying a little more every moment
until there's no more dying
left to do.

A Light!

That's the one. Past trends say otherwise.
But perhaps it doesn't follow the pattern.
It is the immaculate outlier. Golden, glorious.
I will strive for that one. On my last chance.

Goodbye

It's hard to say.

You can tell

when they're skeptical.
when apologies are empty words.
they are cautiously forgiving.

there is no softness in the face.
blue eyes accentuate the cold stare.
maybe they want to believe
but they were let down
too many times before.

Lived to Tell the Tale

as we run from the city
of who we used to be
the past lies desecrated
instantly turned to ruins

the storm moves closer and closer
until the twister is upon you
pulling you from your feet
and into its mayhem

the tornado tosses us-how uncontrollably we rise and fall,
bodies moving like marionettes without a god.
not landing as the same people who were taking off.

chaos threw us higher than our tallest fears. it became
our tallest fear, to not be the ones in control. how sad
the realizations are, that we'd rather be in the eye of the storm,
numb lifeless and idle, than in where everything is electric, alive
and in motion.

the calm twilight

fills my heart with disquiet
laying you to rest I embark, my full night's struggle ahead,

the river absorbs the black canvas above,
my kayak slicing through the velvet darkness
paddles scooping the water, indents casually refill
begging me to cut the self replenishing stone;
praying to feel the emptiness again, watching healed wounds open and remembering;
cycles of pain paired with the time frames of numbness and ignorance.
the quiet flow of liquid onyx beneath me rises
I am deaf to the tsunami as silent waters
drown out my cries, cold water rushing over my nose,
stifling my breath, my ears boxed;
my vision enveloped by the depths-blind and thrashing in the lightless waters

thousands of air bubbles rise around me, prodding me to inhale,
the hopes of capturing these minute sirens resounding

calypso's hand raises me above the surface for a moment of sustenance-too soon
poseidon's hand crashes over me
i fade deep, the crystal moonlight a poor tether

hours lead to a blackened shore, washed up amongst the iron sands. the hallucination of stability.
the attempt to catch me off guard once more;
my deep breaths mask the rising tide, and it stands: an aqueous skyscraper ,leans; races to the ground, thousands of shards of obsidian falling violently,
calculated,
cold slices catching me across the face, the chest;
coagulating tides slither around me, bounding my ankles, holding me captive, my feet sinking into the landscape;
immobile;
unable to fix my gaze elsewhere, the dark, oily sea a constant reminder
eclipsing sapphire eyes forevermore.

Pushing Pause

When I see you
everything stops and time inhales
Leaving just enough of a moment
to show the shimmer of sapphire
in your eyes.

And in the instant you come
swimming into view
light refracting
underwater, pristine and clear
the silence encompassing us
the world forgetting we exist

and we soar
a thousand miles
to somewhere remote
cool and quiet
the sun relaxing behind clouds-
a daydream.
but just for a moment

before time exhales
and we reluctantly
reawaken
to life.

every time you close your eyes

your dreams are close at hand.
they are hiding in the darkness somewhere.
ready yourself, light a match to lead the way.
no. let them find you, wait here in the silence.
relax and watch the panoramic play out on the back of your eyelids.
before you realize it they have crept their way to the front of your mind.
smile and breath and feel them console you.

but in an instant they retreat, as your pupils contract to the light of the world
that is waiting at the gates of your lashes,
pounding miserably, yelling in tongues,
interrupting your recollections of your greatest thoughts.
preventing your desperate escapes.

what your rib cage holds

how cold this heart is, red granite left
outside over night.
how the shards fly as it explodes.
how beautifully, artfully it shatters
a symmetric eruption leaving us in awe.

hard hearts, they break.
they shatter like window panes.
they are jagged to the touch.
and they slice open everyone
who tries to mend them.

but soft hearts are the worst. they bend
and stretch. they become weak in areas
that have been pulled too thin.
until they are stretched so far that they must contract to protect themselves
then they tear like the muscle they are. they parts becoming irreconcilable.

their ripped edges do not create smooth faces like the hard ones. But instead
lifeless tentactles dangle with nothing left to hold on to. unconnected to each other,
stringy remnants that were pulled from the arms of their brethren.
lonely, with the life running out of them.
praying that someone will mend their ruptured heart.

soft hearts decay. hard hearts erode.
regardless, they are both worn out more thoroughly
than their original appearances would ever
let on.

The facts

fate isn't fair. It's even. To maintain there must be balance. And so not everyone gets the same chances. The "luck" that ultimately supersedes our skills and personalities is the first and final determiner of what challenges come into your life and just how grave they are. Will you get hit with something you can handle or something you can't? This luck is spread evenly across the entirety of time.

there are lucky ones to balance the unlucky ones
and the ones in the middle to wait their turn for a chance to become an extreme, complaining that they are forgotten by fate. knowing full well that no one is forgotten.

regardless of how tightly we hold on to things, some will still
slip through our hands. because they were meant to change us
by not giving us what we want, we are forced to cope with the matter in any way we can. and by constantly trying to take what we have, to rip it away from us, it causes us to fight for what we have, to cherish it while it is still ours.

think of the olympics. Think of the people winning medals, who are fulfilling some of their greatest desires. Think about the billions of other people who have that same dream, but will never accomplish it. It's not always their own fault they never got what they wanted. It just wasn't in their fates.

and they will be in pain from it until they become numb to it. And it will bother them until it doesn't. Until they move on. Until they are at peace with their life. But do not mistake this, they have been at war. how long is uncertain, but they must have hurt sometime. And I know it hurts to watch people hurt. But to tell them to deny the hurt is to tell them to deny a crucial experience of life. that it just wasn't in their destiny shows that something else was their calling, and whether or not they accepted it was up to themselves.

the constant flow of energy from the surroundings into the self and vice versa is remarkable. Some is lost in one direction but gained in others; the shiftings of what matters and what doesn't. the choice to achieve one goal over another. We too must realize when fate is done allowing us to use its energy. When it becomes time for that energy to belong to someone else. The energy is never ours. the energy is borrowed. and there comes a time to give it back. in silence, and reverence, humbled by the simple fact that we had the opportunity to borrow against fate.

fate is fate. Fate is not unfair. and even though we think its "unfair", we still play by its rules because its the only chance we have living a human life. we take it like an ungrateful teenager who is allowed to go out on the weekends but has a curfew. call it ugly and unnecessary because it makes us feel anything except in control. But if you open your eyes, you would see how beautiful it is, because if we can understand all the possibilities and can be okay with them we can say, "there is someone who has a better life because of me". No matter how much we try and fight it to be what we want, it will be what it will be.

A Tree Struck By Lightning

May still live through the endeavor. Staying alive through the ordeal proved its will to survive. That given a situation to give up or fight, it chose fight.

Just so you know.

"I gave it up for you. In spite of myself.
I changed myself not because I was ashamed of that part of me. But because I was ashamed of the fact that you were ashamed of me for having that part of me. And the only logical thing to do without hurting you was to change that part of me. But it hurts doing so."

I hope you understand why I walk
a little slower these days.
Its because the poison is slowly spreading,
the poison that comes alive when it is awakened by the sound
of our denying ourselves for the sakes of others.

How the evil of the mind try to hide the spirit. But the spirit speaks
and the truth seeks. And I don't know how much longer I can pretend to be
something I'm not.

Scene: The Grocery Store

The place where you called me the worst grocery cart organizer there could possibly be. I decided to understand this potential new theory and have discovered that:

It is not mathematically possible.

To be the worst grocery cart organizer I would have had to have failed to possess all the qualities that are considered the epitomes of organizing things in the grocery cart.

If there were certain qualities to look for in an organizer's cart, the greatest would be the separation of fruits and vegetables in their entirety from the heavy items- cereal boxes, cans of soup, etc. The downward slant of the cart's carrying section causes weights of the food to be shifted, which causes undesired forces on the mixed in fruit and vegetables, ultimately yielding undesirable fruits and vegetables due to bruises and soft spots.

There could be an infinite amount of qualities along with the one mentioned above that would make me be considered a bad grocery cart organizer, proving that I'm pretty close to being the worst grocery cart organizer. But I do possess this one trait of keeping the fruits and vegetables (and sometimes the bread) separate. If i did not possess this quality then it would be understandable that I was the worst, assuming that I already had all the ill-desired qualities as well.

So maybe my percentage of good organizing skills is low, but there is still the chance that someone out there doesn't separate their fruits and vegetables.

All I know is, he ain't me. He's mister 0% and i'm mister .00000000000ooooooo1%. So you can call me terrible, that's a title i've earned. I take that happily in stride. Because I am. You can call me subpar, because i'm down in the trenches with all the other guys who are underperforming in their grocery cart organization. Telling me to try harder would be perfect the perfect bit of advise.

But when you call me something I'm not, it stays under my skin, crawling for days. I am not actually "the worst". but it stays with me as if it is trying to tempt me to be that. Like a scarlet letter for everyone to see, read and know about. To let everyone have someone that they can point to and say, "well at least i'm not the worst guy, he doesn't even separate his fruits and vegetables". That is not a name that fits, but a title you awarded me. It is a crux.

Shock and Awe Campaign

All my words are nimble, agile, stealthy. Invading your shores.
They bring diplomacy, good tidings; they bring war.

And you're always caught off guard
when something new presents itself
a mind that is still so unexplored.

I spend all my time waiting for you
to catch up and figure out what I had
already figured out a long time ago
what we speak of now

and by the time you've recovered, there is
another tidal wave falling from above you.

Stammering

i'm so unsure of myself that i don't even take the time to capitalize "i".
Thoughts of winning, granduer, achievement, they don't even cross my mind.
So what would you expect me to do, when the only thing I've got goes away.
Caught off guard, forgetting what it used to be like, to be me. Instead this someone else.

how they run

crystal clear down the sides of your face
they reinvigorate weary souls
they are the catalyst in the process of change.

you cry a thunder storm.
sounding off triumphantly
looking so perfect and natural
your tears, they smell of rain
so pure and clean, healing wounds;
absolving the forsaken.

they are lightning bolts,
tracing the contours of your face.
they strike so hot,
cauterizing my insides
searing the brand of your name
into my heart.

broken

don't think that it is incapable of what it was before. that it is any less than it was. sometimes bones may not regrow the right way once they have splintered. but they are just as likely to come back stronger than they were before. because it shattered does not mean that it won't break again. but the possibility that it will be greater than it was is enough to get up and hope for the best.

tessellate

how the pieces fit. so perfect. all the little shapes coming together. all the delicate shards swept up and put back in place. "good as new"

but the lines are there, however fine, they are there.
and they are screaming.

about the injustice they were created from.
they won't let you forget how it felt to be a shattered form of what once was.

as though forgetting was possible.

and when i see the lines in the mirror, i remember.
and when the cold water flows over it, i feel it find those niches.
the wind fights through the smallest of spaces.
time never lets you forget.

and if the appearance plagues you, just mend it.
you can sew it back together. super glue it.
whatever you need to do to try and remember what it felt like before hand.

you come to terms with it. and i'm happy if you do.

but i can't help but feel it will never be seamless again. and that makes me feel greater than i ever did before. proof of staving off adversity. demonstrating that this is still mine to keep. My chance is still out there, because I have not given up.

unthawing

its unnerving; i'm unraveling
at the idea of just waiting things out.

like coming in from the cold
and waiting for my hands to unfreeze.
the slowest torment. and i lose focus
throwing myself all over the sink.
curled up clutching my icy digits.

i clench my hands tight. and hold. and can only think of the misery.
how it stops you in your tracks, how it captures the mind and all i think about is the thaw.
your bones warming, blood flow returning.
thinking of just getting through this ordeal,
romanticizing a return to comfort

you try to rationalize it.
telling yourself that it will be all over soon.
but soon doesn't come early enough.
and the pain lingers. a continuous pushing.
and it lasts, until it doesn't.
the ache goes away for a while.
and i forget about it. and move on.
never really learning from the experience.
dooming myself to relive it over and over again.