Still dancing, bodies intertwined or moving toward one another at the beginning of the night
Idolized, from the moment they walked in, sending and receiving glances, never with idle eyes
Listening to their breathing before the first and their heart beating afterwards
Holding them up, putting them on a pedestal with emotion, connection, and touch
Once, leaving each wanting and needing more and neither leaving because once wasn’t enough
Under the comfort and weight of the other, in the moment no longer yearning for any other
Embraced, found, at home, at peace, in the grasp of fingertips and grips of mouths on lips
Thoughts tangled in euphoric unison, minds meeting in tasteful fashion
The look and feel and knowledge of acceptance
Encapsulated in the simultaneous openness and closeness of vulnerability and contact of skin
Sheets wrapped around you and me, creating a backdrop against the night
It’s Just Not Your Day
Sometimes it’s just not your day
You don’t know what it is, what is going on, or why it is happening
You just know it’s not your day
You may have noted this immediately, or it may have taken you some time to know this
It’s just not your day
And sometimes it may even be a week, it may even be a month, or a year
Or it may be mixed in with other days throughout the week
And it may extend like this for months throughout the year
It may even change from moment to moment multiple times within a day
For seemingly no good reason
Or be a single, sudden, abrupt changeover
And the day is gone
For. Seemingly. No. Good. Reason.
Stop
Think
What are you trying to say?
Writing Your Own Ending
For all of my shortcomings, I no longer care about making myself a better person
For all of the world’s inequalities, I no longer strive to make it a better place
For all of the emotional pain a person can endure, I do not actively wish it be inflicted upon others, but I no longer actively hope it does not
I have arrived to this point, like how I wish I’d have arrived to the end
Instead
Replace the inst with d
Living passively seems like it would be living peacefully
I hope to remove all hope from my life
Only then can I live without strife
Another time to get up just to go down
Each time the despair grows
I wish it was overwhelming for me to the point I could make that decision
To where it’d be a no brainer
To have no brain
I wish it was overwhelming for everyone
Every time I fool myself to get my hopes up again just to go down
I’m left more numb than before
Paralyzed, where do I go from here?
Empty, what do I do?
With the void inside, the call of the void gets louder
Every time
How is it not overwhelming for everyone?
I’m envious, jealous, and at this point passively hateful
I’m envious, jealous, and not ashamed of this
At least it’s not as bad as being aggressively hateful
Let it grow and envelop the world until despair overshadows hope
Let it grow until it overwhelms
The two options are to keep your head up or to wallow in misery
The third option is to cycle between the two
The fourth is to rhyme with the first syllable
If I’m living in hell, how can hell be worse
If I’m filled with void, how can the void be different
In the meantime, I’m going to wallow in misery
Until I decide, be swallowed by self-pity
What does giving up even look like otherwise
Unless it’s the ultimate form of giving up
Can I passively make that decision
Passively make it happen
Please, higher deity, passively make it happen
For me
Release
Release from my hope
Release me from my hope
Worse and Worse, Each Time
There is no permanence in life
Therefore, it follows there is no permanent joy in life
After all, if there was permanent joy, would you ever be able to tell the difference?
Conversely, there is no permanent despair in life, either
But then how come it always feels like there is
When you’re in the middle of it
The only permanence is the end
Turn the page but don’t finish the book
There’s a burning for you I can’t seem to shake
Maybe because I don’t want to
I want to keep feeling it
I want to keep experiencing it
The desire, the pain, the heat
Desire and pain
Defeat
By not having you
Is better than the alternative of not feeling this for you
Not as good as the other alternative, it’s true
But it doesn’t seem I can have you
Years now, two years, well, maybe three
Is not enough time for me
To have this burning
This yearning
For you
There’s a burning for you
I don’t want to shake
Words Unwritten and Thoughts Unheard
What do you do when all the words have escaped from your head, through your mouth or at the touch of your fingertips?
What do you say when there’s nothing more to be said, to my ears by the grace of the world’s evolving, encompassing lips?
I always angle myself towards a person or people in small-talk social settings when no talk is happening; it’s a self-defense mechanism. Keep them in your line of sight. It used to be subconscious until I became conscious of it: born, aware, cognizant. A realization representing the other analysis we undertake, discover, and sometimes overshare about ourselves.
Four lines through the seasons
Listing time as a reason
I haven’t finished this story
But you don’t know
I always revisit recent situations and conversations as part of an involuntary personal postmortem, but this isn’t unique to me – but this little knowledge doesn’t stop the anxiety. It’s cliché, but maybe I should stop being so hard on myself? Maybe I can start by not prefacing that statement with, “It’s so cliché.”
Four lines through the seasons
Listing time as a reason
I haven’t finished this story
But don’t you know
I always go in and out of eavesdropping other people’s conversations, wondering if they want me to hear – no, if they want me to listen – if they’re acting out a play for which I have a front row seat and free tickets. I clue in when there’s an externality that tells me to listen, and I zone out when I inevitably become selfish and self-involved once again. When overhearing though, I think, I wonder, and I question… maybe we should stop being so hard on each other?
Four lines through the seasons
Listing time as a reason
I haven’t finished this story
But don’t you know
Everyone fucking hates poetry
Relativity
It’s relative
The things I want
The things I need
The things I deserve
The world shared by you and me
It’s relative
The time passing us
The rhymes passing by
The space between memories
The moments shared between you and I
I’ve learnt how to accept the past
But what good is that
When I can’t accept the present
And I live in the future
It’s relative
The things we watch
The things we see
The things we’ve heard
The Earth shared by you and me
It’s relative
The heartbreaks and love
The laughter and cries
The pain, pleasure, and joy
The overlap shared between you and I
I’ve learnt how to accept the past
But what good is that
When I can’t accept the present
And I live in the future
Youth has passed
Not worried I’ve missed out on moments
But worried I’m missing out on moments
I’ve experienced more than I can describe
A persisting inescapable feeling from which I can’t hide
Compared to some others, all others, no others
It’s all relative
I’ve learnt how to accept the past
But what good is that
When I can’t accept the present
And I live in the future
Losing key memories
By not experiencing these
Keys to a life I’ve always dreamed
Blessed in some ways
Fortunate in others
But always searching, wanting, yearning
To realize dreams of which I’m not sure from where they came
If they were my own, derived from television, or via derivation are mine all the same
Some hope for what I have
I have a lot, and sure, I don’t take it for granted
Some hope for what I have
I’m running out of time for these wishes to be granted
And Other Synonyms
“What would you do if you got everything you ever wanted?”
“Well, it’d be helpful if I knew what ‘Everything’ is.”
“Maybe that’s one of the things you want: to know what you want.”
“There’s not much I know about myself – less than I know of the world. All I do know is I can stare at my reflection in the window, pressed against the river, be grateful for what I have, be hateful for [apathetic toward] what I don’t, be thankful for the gift of life and curse it all the same. But that’s looking back; that’s not looking forward.
“What do I want? To not feel this lifer’s block, in this rut, stuck. That’s what I want.”
“And are you doing anything about it?”
“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
“Yes, yes… let’s see. Have you given any thought to what you need?”
“What, like Maslow’s Hierarchy?”
“No, no… much more spiritual… on a personal level.”
“Isn’t, isn’t that one of the needs?”
Silence ensues, he awkwardly looks at himself in the mirror, unsure of himself.
“What am I paying you for?”
“You’re not paying me anything. You’re pretending to be lying down on the couch, and you’re pretending I’m sitting up on a chair with a pen in hand, but all of this is taking place in the few square inches surrounding your face.”
“Oh, I see. So back to the point then, I guess?”
“Either that or back to the pint.”
A short laugh and smirk ensue, impressed at his quip, happy with himself, but lonely no one was there to hear it.
“Then again, probably a good thing no one is around to hear me talking to myself,” he interjected.
“So, so, back to the point then.”
“Ending another sentence with a preposition?”
“Okay then, let’s propose this:
“You’re the result of a universe creating, expanding, and lifeforms emerging, evolving, for billions and millions of years. Thousands of years ago, your needs began to be met. Hundreds of years ago, your quality of life started to increase exponentially. But you’re still not happy. You’re not being fed – mentally, emotionally. You don’t know what you want to eat, but you’re hungry. You don’t know what you want.”
“I’m unfulfilled, discontent, and restless.”
“You’re unfulfilled, discontent, and restless.”
“But if the rest of my needs, fortunately for me, are being met, does that mean I’m just chilling? Is there something wrong with just chilling and not looking for food?”
“Well, maybe for some time you’ll be fine. However, like your body, your mind needs food. You might not have an appetite at the moment, but your brain – your consciousness – your whatever-it-is will inevitably send signals that it wants to be fed – and not fed some over-processed, under-cooked, unnatural aisle-to-microwave boxed frozen food slop. Otherwise, your mind will invariably wither away.”
“So, where do I find the good stuff? What can I do to nourish my mind, nurture my soul, and other synonyms?”
“Well, therein lies the problem. You’re asking me, and I am you, and I don’t know.
“Perhaps you can begin by asking, ‘How?’ Not ‘Where’ and ‘What’.
“Because as you start to find little ways of ‘How’, you will find yourself chipping away at ‘Where’ and ‘What’. And if you find yourself chipping away at ‘Where’ and ‘What’, maybe you won’t wither away… after all, in the end, and other synonyms.”
678 to JFK
Text. Text. Testing. Texting.
I’m riding in an Uber on the way to the airport, wondering what comes next.
Do I continue searching for something that may not be there? Do I give up and redirect my discontent elsewhere? Or do I give in and succumb to the end that awaits us all – or, at a minimum, apply a filter over my life until I forget what’s right, only to wake up again in the morning each time.
It’s night, but at this time of year, you could mistake nighttime for most of the time. It’s cold and it’s windy, but outside of a flurry here or there, no snow has fallen hard or long enough to build upon the ground. It doesn’t matter, though: it’d melt away the next day.
Nothing is permanent, not even the slush we walk through and get annoyed by when we have to take off our shoes and clean them. Why do we bothered getting annoyed? It’s not a big deal; if it’s not a big deal, does that mean we’re apathetic and missing a piece of what makes us human?
Maybe the snow will make it through the night, overnight. When it decides to make its presence known again, but that night is not tonight.
It doesn’t matter, anyway: I’m leaving. What to? Well, I guess the technical answer is I’m going home to my family (parents and brother) and friends for the holidays, from where I live now. But really, what am I leaving to? Tonight, tomorrow, at any time, what I am leaving to? Where am I going to? And where am I coming from?
I don’t really know anymore, if I ever knew. There’s a fear that comes from realizing you’re the holder of the pen of your life. Some other people, some other circumstances might have had input on previous pages that has led you to where you are now. But have you thought about where you are now? Where you’re coming from? And where you’re going to?
I don’t know. I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know I’m leaving.
Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But someday.
I’m leaving.
I hope to know the answers then. I hope to know myself by then. Or I’ll have realized it was about the search, not the destination – or I’ll have realized the search was fruitless all along. So many options. So many possibilities. And I’m the one holding the pen.
Behavioral Cognition
She looked on with a nervous anticipation, an anxious expectation of what was to come. She’d done this before, and she could do it again.
Feet to the floor, that’s all she had to do.
Feet to the floor, without the spinning of her room and the tunnel vision of her view.
Sitting up was the first step. The first step was successful.
Now she found herself looking on at what she could see – she couldn’t make it out: something, anything, or everything.
Every thought came swirling in her head, chaining her down impossibly to her bed.
The made-up path of existential dread – she couldn’t reconcile how it was all made up in her head.
Just like the thoughts of negativity when positivity is felt; never letting herself feel joy even when the good cards are dealt.
Toes to the carpet, that’s all she has to do.
Toes on the tile, that’s nothing new.
Yet she winds up in this struggle every morning, she winds up on this path that is her own doing, her brain, her mind’s own doing.
She wants to be be free, she needs to let go, and she doesn’t know she has the power to do so. To imagine herself – and the feelings that come with – embraced by the sun and the coolness of a breeze in the warmth of the heat, an unforced smile brought forth uncontrollably, a high rushing through her body completely naturally, a sensation of happiness and joy, positivity in the stream flowing through her thoughts and the non-existence of the word negativity.
She’s sitting upright.
She puts her arms over her head to stretch.
She’s sitting upright.
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
She can do it again today. She can find meaning in the day. The day has purpose. There is a reason to get up. There is a reason to do it today, just like there was a reason to do it yesterday, and like there will hopefully be a reason to do it tomorrow.
Her legs slide from the side of the mattress, the softness of her skin passing past the satin. Feet to the floor, she’s done it again.
No longer does the room spin, and her line of sight has widened.
She might not be ready for the rest of her life, but she’s ready today, and she’s ready for it to begin.
She’s ready for today.
ready for today to begin
WRITE | POST | CREATE 