Upon a milky hill
beneath the mounds of snow
Frozen with the horn I took
but was too afraid to blow
Beyond the sound of muffling
around the river’s bend
Walked a true love of mine
to whom I was a friend
Come cast your voice yonder
Your shrill towards the sky
I hope for your hand in mine
I am afraid to die

It becomes silent
to where I can only hear
the ringing in my ears.

I am comfortable
to the point where
I feel no longer alive.

There's a burden on
my neck that causes
me to slouch.

And I eat and sleep
throughout the years.

And I add meaning
to the days but they
become contrived.

I try with all my
might to give life a good
fight, but all I do is
panic on my couch.
Over success.

White Interceptors illuminate, cry, and leave ribbons of red and blue,
  accelerating north on Featherbed. Streetlamps hang like midnight ornaments.

It starts to rain, turning the tar streets into slick mirrors.
  I can see my lights lead me, sweeping the asphalt.

Kent is still too dangerous to gentrify. The trashcans are spilling
  cereal boxes and empty two liters. I imagine a two-thousand year-old
mountain of trash, corroding and forming this neighborhood.

  Barefoot children walk around aluminum cakes, reaching for the rain.

Skinny cats trot across the street, green and yellow eyes,
  leaking through the dark. I name them after sicknesses.

The humming of my Camry grows louder as I squeeze by
  dripping, patting hands. I now recognize the moon.

Buildings swoosh by faster and faster. Minutes go by and I
  find myself on the outskirts; the trees sway, dodging rain.

My phone rings like a frenzied roach. Picking it up,
  'Hello.'

'Sure. Yeah, I'll be right there.
  'Nowhere.
    'I'm going nowhere.'

The phone bounces on the grey seat. A screeching.
  Coming to a stop; my chest almost touching the center
of the steering wheel. All becomes still.

  A buck with velvet antlers stands in the rain.
It runs into the dancing forest. Much like me.

Now I guess I'm back to this poetry.
I'm 4yrs older, it was you who noticed me..
I wasn't living so well
You were cutting yourself
You needed real love
I needed your help
4 months later we're here
On different sides of our room
You gonna say something soon?
I hate not talking to you..

wow my darkest hour
how long my friend

so long forever in time

tick-tock tick-tock
thy darkest night

rise, find me a doctor with a house of old
where everyone listens and aboard thy thrown

where cows lay and horse's nay
thy thrown is only 24 hours away

tick-tock tick-tock

did you hear that?

darkness rises
my dearest it's to late to come back

24 is an age of paradox. A type of 'adulthood puberty' full of change, hair in strange places or colors, and a continual battering of unprecedented demands and expectations.

Conversations evolve. Your phone calls with parents and family become more frequent and important than ever before. They also consist of bites "Your mother and I were married at 21" "How are your savings going?" "Taxes are due on Tuesday" Something involving grandchildren rears its head weekly. How you talk to friends changes as well. The college friends no longer talk about hilarious nights at the bars-your conversations center on reminiscing, planning trips to the mountains, and genuine encouragement. Scotch and Gin have replaced well drinks and Evan Williams-thanks be to God. If you are blessed to have good friends from high school and eras prior the conversations are a combination of dreaming about the far future, checking in on aging family, and an underlying theme of ******* about work.

Making new friends is ******* exhausting. You are all lonely, craving to be known deeply. Liz Lemon screams the mantra of 24, "Yes to staying in more! Yes to Netflix and night cheese! Yes to drinking a beer alone!" Even the most extravagant of extroverts start to value solitude. This is not bad. This is a sign of growth. Herein enters the necessity of balance; commit to investing in those around you and to investing in yourself.

Parents told us "You can be the president! Fly to the moon! Cure cancer!" Those time-stamped conversations are over a decade old. We settled for status on campus via greek life, leadership positions, or achieving a 4.0 GPA. Post-grad none of us are president of anything nor have we walked the lunar surface. For most, a 5 digit salary without benefits equates our level of success. Some have babies or marriage bands, some have masters degrees. The awakening of 24 is sharp. After two decades of being promised we will all achieve the best, we walk in a daze of wondering if we have failed. We have not. Yet we feel the weight of failure. There is much ahead.

At 24 we learn that the promise of the "much ahead" is not guaranteed. Death becomes terrifyingly more constant. Friends, grandparents, teachers, even ones younger than us seem to be dying at a more rapid rate. This is new and it is terrifying. It teaches the importance of community, conversations, and creating.

We may not yet, or ever, be president of the USA. But we have lived enough to know what skills we enjoy and what talents we harbor. The importance of using them rings deeper than ever before-it resonates in our bones. The joy of a well prepared dinner, a thirty-minute watercolor creation, or a blog post your three followers may or may not read in its entirety is a joy worth the effort.

At 24, we are in transition. We are beginning to admit certain unalienable truths about this world and ourselves. We are beginning to really become.

One day, 24 hours, 1440 minutes, 86400 seconds. All made up concepts so we can better understand the infiniteness we call the universe.
I digress from speaking on the subject longer as I only have 86400 seconds left to live, well at this point its more like 85372 seconds.
Think of allll the possibilities, i can go with friends and family and cry and tell them how much i love them and try to forget that I've never been bungee jumping, deep sea diving, skiing, and overall just not lived.
Although, what defines life? Well OBVIOUSLY we all know that Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines life as "the ability to grow, change, etc. that separates animals and plants from things like water or rocks".
Well if we use THIS definition then I've never lived because i don't WANT to grow or change.
Is it SOOO bad that every day I go home and lat in bed for hours idly wanting the next 85,314 seconds to pass and for my life to end
Now THIS is the point in the rant where I am to turn the whole concept on its head and say that everything will be ok. But unfortunately that would cost 25 seconds of my last 1439 minutes and 3 seconds so Id rather not waste my time with falsity and lies.
I write this with the same handwriting and brain that articulated that I don't WANT to another second here ESPECIALLY not another 86288 seconds. So i can be where no longer some concept, but I am the the reality of the universe. Were gonna die anyway.

Our love was fruitful
But so rotten
Far from an Adam and Eve's story
We both knew what were doing
When we were in the sheets
We both had it all and gave it up for nothing
Lust in the air every time we connect a stare
Hyatt knew us well.
Hyatt knew us well.

One. The warm touch of your hand meets mine and they fit together as if they were carved for this moment. Two. We step a little closer as we close this gap between our hearts and our bodies react as one. Three. Our eyes lock and gaze at each other as we see through a new pair of eyes as if we are meeting for the first time. Four. Across the way we glide together, never splitting and in perfect unison. Touch, of your hand on my waist, strong and sturdy to catch me when I fall. Step, we step apart as you turn me around and dip me low only the catch and hold me after. Lock, our souls lock together as this never ending moment keeps us living the fantasy that only few experience. Glide, we glide along for years to come and move swiftly by with much experience only learned from each other. Touch, step, lock, glide. Over and over till we become dizzy of our own movements. Touch, step, lock, glide. Touch grows soft and almost invisible. Step moves too fast to keep up and we make too many mistakes to get the rhythm back. Lock loosens and shatters as it falls. Glide sharpens as you fall away and I stumble to regain my balance. Touch disappears. Steps trips and off beat. Lock no longer there but an empty hole in it's place. Glide isn't smooth for I fall to the floor with a unmistakable blow. One. I feel for your touch but not finding one. Two. I take a step towards where your warmth used to fill the air. Three. I look for your gaze to lock with mine but don't find anything to hold on to. Four. I try to move as we once did and glide in circles but the movement is incomplete for there is nothing to fill the void. All I can do it close my eyes, go through the steps, and count to four.