alone again
Collection 7
Absurd
Food For Vultures
Decent
An End To Starless Nights
better scars
The Sky
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Absurd
There is no Truth,
Just truths.
The sky, blue.
Death, imminent.
Our bodies, tethered to the cores of celestial bodies.
We splatter those truths onto canvas and rearrange them.
We make meaning out of dust and create purpose out of our pain.
Each of us, an Artist.
We connect those truths like dots.
We color within their lines and flay their edges to create opportunity.
For beauty? No, for hope.
Onto that canvas we project a hazy image,
Spawned from the mangled carcass of our truths.
And while that image is not Truth, it is ours.
It is the only thing that is ours.
It is beautiful and it is ugly, it is supplementary and it is contradictory.
It is an apparition.
And it may not be rational to live this way,
But it isn't reason that we fear at all.
It is the absurd.
Food For Vultures
I need new tires on my car.
Their treads are worn flat and their sides are cracking.
I get paid in a week. I can afford to replace them then.
Life is expensive. New city. New job. New apartment. And now this?
I’m at my desk and I’m fiddling with my keys.
I’ve finished my work and now I’m contemplating.
When will I start getting medical school interview offers? Will they even come? How long will I have to wait to get a series of heartbreaking emails? Another week? Another three months?
I get up and leave work early to beat the traffic.
I see my car in the garage and inspect the tires. They could blow at any second.
Oh well.
I get in and head toward the highway. Cars everywhere. Bumper to bumper.
I put on a podcast.
The president is getting impeached, the world is literally drowning, and the country is in a bottomless pit of debt.
Yikes. That’s tough.
I shuffle some music instead.
My car ride is smooth through the slow traffic.
Each tired tire is doing just enough to keep up.
One giving out is all it would take and then the whole world would have to stop for me to fix it.
I don’t want those eyes on me.
Everyone is moving at five miles per hour for as far as I can see, so I pull out my phone.
Status update.
My last love is with a new man. I’ve only ever seen her look at me like that.
I stop. Open the door. Vomit.
Food for vultures.
I ignore the looks of neighboring cars and slam on the gas until I’m back at five miles per hour.
After an hour I pull into my driveway.
I get out of my car and inspect all four tires.
You did just enough to get through today, I tell them.
Just give me one more week, I ask, then I promise I’ll get ya fixed.
Decent
She told me to respect her wishes,
Never speak to her again.
Felt like we lost it in a flash,
The abruptness of story's end.
Felt like the end dragged on forever,
We knew it'd happen for months,
Then that self-fulfilling prophecy
Manifested at once.
Then that conversation turned,
You said anything to reduce me.
I'm a disingenuous liar, no
Redeeming qualities to boost me.
I'm a weak and ugly person
Who's too emotionally fragile.
I wasted all your time and
Nothing about us mattered.
I wasted your emotions
To fill a personal void.
The truth is I thought of you
As my own personal toy.
The truth is none of that is true,
But I understand your frustration.
We're both the victims of our circumstance,
A poisonous situation.
Your response was freezing cold,
On wet hair to make me sick.
Our relationship didn't mean much,
But hey, it was decent...
An End To Starless Nights
Our sunny day stumbles to starry night,
Then balances to day again.
Some nights though lack lust or light,
I, always loathing then.
This starless night may mark descent,
Your landscape not the same.
I see the moon a waning crescent,
I will take the blame.
I creep back into darkness,
The whole from which I came.
I'm broken into pieces,
In shame all night it rains.
The sun will rise again, I pray,
O'er a skyline more scenic.
A view so flawless, it must stay,
A night with stars like Venus.
better scars.
Some things in life take their sweet Time.
Love does not come and go--it lingers.
Love show up early and sticks around
To mingle. Taking its time and owning the place.
True Love heals like a cut--slowly.
It tempts you to peel of the scab, and
You will. Over and over again, reopening the wound.
Blood pours out with each regrettable mistake.
Brainstorm new strategies to avoid picking at it again, but
You will. Until one day that urge will finally pass.
Good cuts will leave you better scars.
Even when Love is gone it sticks
With you forever. But it sets you free, too.
Love just takes Time.
The Sky
I am the sky.
Each morning the sun opens up and says, Hello!
The clouds hold hands and skip through a sea of blue.
We are the birds, together.
Singing high up in the trees.
Even my rainiest days
Are followed with rainbows.
Overcast, but hopeful.
Stripes of sunlight sliver their way through the barricade and so can I.
But I am also the sky.
Each evening the sun tip-toes behind the hills.
The world is painted over with a thick black stroke.
I am the moon, alone.
Surrounded by distant stars.
Even my warmest nights
Are consumed by darkness.
A full moon stays swallowed
By the void blackness of a frigid night sky and so can I.
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Sun rise, sun fall, same day, same duty.
Be grateful when the world is vivid, valiant, and venerable.
Vibrant vivacity is inconsistent.
Be strong when the world is dark, daunting, and decapitated.
Debilitating deafness is inconsistent, too.
Suffocating atmosphere surrounds us.
Crippling compassion kills open eyes.
Oceans are full of sharks and close-eyed plankton.
Swimming, swimming, swimming.
A high tide tragedy no one can stop alone.
A high tide tragedy, the Crippled cannot look or look away.
Swimming, swimming, swimming.
Stay swimming wide-eyed, despite the heartache, the misery, the confusion, and the loss of faith.
Foolish plankton will see no threat.
Swimming, swimming, swimming.
You cannot help what won't be helped,
But you cannot leave what will know dire need.
You are the final frontier of faith and hope.
So swim.
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Thick Skin and Thin Skull cannot coexist in full capacity.
Resiliency and mindfulness, cat and mouse, natural born nemeses.
Some Thin as air, some Thick through as Earth's crust.
Some Thin-Thick, but never truly Thick-Thin.
Thoughtfulness and security see sustenance by success and thinking.
The mind makes no Mecca and knows no nirvana.
Only the falseness of an end pursuit can comfort and settle the perfect mind, making it imperfect.
The perfect mind paves path and pushes despite its poisonous prodding of imperfection,
Despite hellacious heartaches and howling in the night.
The perfect mind cannot rest, chasing what cannot coexist.