In between   (a poem)
.
my mind struggles against its own illusion
nightmare tumbles out into still morning
light is heavy,
a fog of echoes...
and I am caught
.
day dreams the sunlight
dreams light the day
and I am caught in between
mourning echoes...
like a stillborn ghost
who can't take a breath in the present

….
  
I live on a tropical island and just want to go surfing with my husband, but the nausea in the early morning as I try to eat  breakfast and drive with him to the beach is so uncomfortable.  Day after day it makes even surfing a chore, and I consider not going anymore.  Background anxiety and unreasonable irritation interferes with our marriage, frustrates him enough to want me out.  

For me, a trip to the grocery store or meeting a group of people awakens the same dreadful fear as rockclimbing a cliff. Perspective has been lost in the extremes.  I try to gain some control over this hindering nuisance, seeking situations that bring the same surges of adrenaline so I can learn to master it.  If I can just push past the avoidance that would keep me inside doing nothing, if I can just ignore the feeling I want to throw up, if I can just get out there, I am rewarded with life’s potential beauty eventually.  Many days I do enjoy the thrill of mountain biking or connection with nature when surfing, but there are too many days of internal struggle that reduce what should be enjoyable to a relentless chore of wrestling inner demons.

The VA offers a few sessions of marriage counseling, and the doctor begins to explain PTSD.  ***, I’ve learned to cope with an unreliable brain, but now there’s this?  From what I understand (and that’s just me, an amateur philosopher) Sometimes the brain is so traumatized, that the memory is literally sealed off, encapsulated, protecting it from changing.  If later something happens that is similar, the brain triggers avoidance responses as a take-no-chances survival mechanism.  Literally the brain is protecting one’s self from one’s self.  This all-or-nothing strategy works fending off potential dinosaur attacks, but in our complex society, these automatic avoidance behaviors complicate functioning and well being.  Life becomes an attitude of constant reaction instead of motivated intention.

The website for the National center for PTSD says.  “After a trauma or life-threatening event, it is common to have reactions such as upsetting memories of the event, increased jumpiness, or trouble sleeping. If these reactions do not go away or if they get worse, you may have Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.”  

“Common reactions to trauma are:
• Fear or anxiety: In moments of danger, our bodies prepare to fight our enemy, flee the situation, or freeze in the hope that the danger will move past us. But those feelings of alertness may stay even after the danger has passed. You may:feel tense or afraid, be agitated and jumpy, feel on alert.  
• Sadness or depression: Sadness after a trauma may come from a sense of loss---of a loved one, of trust in the world, faith, or a previous way of life. You may:have crying spells, lose interest in things you used to enjoy, want to be alone all the time, feel tired, empty, and numb.  
• Guilt and shame: You may feel guilty that you did not do more to prevent the trauma. You may feel ashamed because during the trauma you acted in ways that you would not otherwise have done. You may:feel responsible for what happened, feel guilty because others were injured or killed and you survived.  
• Anger and irritability: Anger may result from feeling you have been unfairly treated. Anger can make you feel irritated and cause you to be easily set off. You may:lash out at your partner or spouse, have less patience with your children, overreact to small misunderstandings.  
• Behavior changes: You may act in unhealthy ways. You may:drink, use drugs, or smoke too much, drive aggressively, neglect your health, avoid certain people or situations.”   It lists four main symptoms: reliving the event, avoiding situations that remind of the event, feeling numb, and feeling keyed up (also called hyperarousal)”

Four words strung together: Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.  They’ve become a tired cliché, exhausted from the endless threat of random cruelty camouflaged in banality, weary of the weight shouldering back the wall that separates death and gore from the living.  Living was a reflex beyond willpower and devoid of choice. Control was self-deception.  The mind was so preoccupied with A: survival, B: sanity, in that order.  Rest was a cruel illusion.  The tank was drained, no room for emotions ditched.  Empathy took too much effort, fear was greedy.  Hopefully they can be remembered and found on the other side, if there is one.  Sleep deprived cells were left hyper-alert from the imminent, shot up and addicted to adrenaline.  Living was Fate and Chance, and meant leaving that time and place sealed in forgetfulness.  

Now PTSD is a worn out acronym, a cold shadow of what it feels like.  I try to think of something more personal that can describe the way it randomly visits me, now resigned to its familiar unwelcome influence.  It steals through my brain, flying ahead of me with its own agenda of protecting sabotage.  Its like the Guardian Trickster of Native American legend.  Its an archetype but real enough to make mistakes: Chulyen, the black raven.

A decade after the ER, contentment is found in a garden of slow tranquility as a butterfly interrupts a sunbeam.  My heart fills with bittersweet as I’ve finally found something I love and want to keep.  Just then Chulyen’s grasping black claws clamp my heart with painful arrhythmia and it fills to burst, tripping in panic trying to recover its pace.  The sudden pain drops me to my knees, in the dirt between fragrant lavender and cherry tomatoes.  Pain stops breath and time and makes me remember the ER, when my heart rebelled its ordained purpose for a week.  I had tried to throw my bitter life back in God’s face but He didn’t take it.  Now that I have peace and a life that I treasure, He’s taking it now.  The price for my mistake is due.  It was all just borrowed time and I’m still so young, my children just babies.  God with a flick of cruelty reminds me not to put faith in the tangible, especially when its treasured.  The sharp claws finally relent and I can breathe, looking up with a gasp and the Raven takes flight overhead leaving a shadow.  Bright noon warmth, unusually heavy and foreboding, seems to say ‘there will come a time when you will not welcome the sun.’   Doctors run an EKG and diagnose ‘stress’.

The bird perches on my shoulder two more decades later, always seeing death just over there.  So I sit on the porch just a little longer and check my list again, delaying the unavoidable racing heart and rush of tension when I fix the motorcycle helmet strap under my chin.  I know all those stupid drivers have my life in their cell-phone distracted hands and hope my husband knows how much I love him, and my daughters too.  

Chulyen wakes me at 3:00 am when autumn’s wind aggravates the trees.  His rustle of black feathers outside unsettles summer’s calm night.  He brings an end-of-the-world portent that hints this peace is just temporary, borrowed.  Tribulation will return.

Ravens are attracted to bright shiny things.  Chulyen steals off with treasures like intention, and contentment.  I don’t realize they are missing until occasionally I find myself truly living in the moment.  I guess that is another reason why I crave adventure, for those instants and epiphanies that snap me out of that long term modis operandi of reacting, instead of being.  The daily list of ‘I must, or I should’ can for a brief while become ‘I want’  and I am free.

My companion the black bird perches relaxed in the desert on the gatepost of a memory.  A bullet-scarred paint-faded sign dangles by one corner from rusty barbed wire:
    No Trespassing    
    That Means You
I have a haunted idea what's behind the fence.  Chulyen implies the memory with a simple mistaken sound:
a Harley in the distance is for a second the agitating echo of a helicopter...
or those were the very same words they said when...
or I hear a few jangling clinks of forks in our warm kitchen...
hinting a cold cafeteria at 5:00 am smelling of fake eggs and industrial maple flavored corn syrup,
and everything else that happened that day...
My cells recollect, brace with the addictive rush of adrenaline.  But the raven denies access to the memory, distracting with discomfort.  I trip and I fall hard into the gritty dirt of irritation at the person who unknowingly reminded me.  Anxiety floods in along with fatigue of the helplessness of it all, back then and still now.  I can't go further.  Chulyen’s tricking deception says Leave This Memory, you never wanted to come back.
But I already knew from just recognizing the bird patiently sitting there a sentinal,
recalling every other time he tricked me with nausea and depression.
I tried to tell myself again that behind that gate,
the past has dried up from neglect.
Disintegrated into dust,
Blown away,
doesn't
exist.
…


After everything else, how to work through this?  The VA gave me a manual, a crudely printed set of worksheets with a government-looking blue cover page:  Cognitive Processing Therapy.
“In normal recovery from PTSD symptioms, intrusion, thoughts, and emotions decrease over time and no longer trigger each other.  However, in those who don’t recover, the vivid images, negative thoughts, and strong emotions lead to escape and avoidance.  Avoidance prevents the processing of the trauma that is needed for recovery and works only temporarily.  The ultimate goal is acceptance.  
There may be “stuck points”, conflicting beliefs or strong negative beliefs that create additional unpleasant emotions and unhealthy behavior.  For example, a prior belief may have been “ I am able to protect myself in dangerous situations.”  But after being harmed during military service, a conflicting belief surfaces, “I was harmed during service, and I am to blame.”  If one is ‘stuck’ here, it may take some time until one is able to get feelings out about the trauma, because one is processing a number of rationales.  “I deserved it because…” , or “I misinterpreted what happened, I acted inappropriately, I must be crazy…”  The goal is to change the prior belief to one that does not hinder acceptance.  For example, “I may not be able to protect myself in all situations.”

(chapter continues with recovery methods)

Let's hold out hope for the crippled.
Hope for the crippled?
No thanks, this crip doesn't need your hope.
This crip needs you to stop.
Stop labeling me.
Stop feeling sorry for me.
Stop pitying me and my 'poor life'
Just ******* stop!
No, really, I'm okay. I don't need you.
I don't need you or your miracles.
Don't tell me God works miracles
And to hold out hope
Because maybe one day I'll walk
Or maybe I'll get to see from both eyes
Because God works miracles
But you're too busy fixing what isn't broken that you forget
If I was truly made in his image this crip doesn't need healed.
This crip doesn't need your prayers or miracles.
This crip doesn't need your God or your salvation.
This crip doesn't need your hope.

Poor soul, she's diminished by her disability.
Diminished by my disability?
The only thing I'm diminished by
Is your inability to understand
That before anything else I am human.
I make mistakes and have flaws.
I feel, probably more than most,
And sometimes those feelings get in the way.
I empathize but I am done sympathizing.

You say my wheelchair is a blessing in disguise.
Why can't it just be a blessing?
A blessing that comes with lots of lessons.
Some that I learn the hard way and some that come easy.
But this wheelchair doesn't need a reason
To teach me (or you) a lesson.
Sure, it frustrates me when a wheel breaks or I fall on a broken sidewalk
But it teaches me humility and patience.
And there's no reason to disguise that this wheelchair is a blessing.

So, please take your hope and pity
Your guilt and salvation elsewhere
Because they're defeating the purpose. They're detracting from the point.

I am not diminished by my disability.
I am not to be quieted or pitied
I am not your reason to feel guilty
I am not a burden
I am human.

He frustrates me, more than you could ever imagine.
Twisting my mind until I become dizzy and disorientated from the confusion.
The web he weaves of contradictions and uncertainties cuts into my soul, with sharp words. Sharp enough to **** someone, or bring them into insanity.
Constant on and off thoughts of "does he want me?" cloud my brain like a song; but I keep going back for more, as he is addictive.

He frustrates me, more than you could ever imagine; but my God those eyes, hypnotic, bright.  That smirk, as if he knows he has me wrapped around his finger.
And I am, he feels like home, in the most beautiful of ways.
Warm skinned and cold-hearted, without even a word he keeps me. I am held captive by that gaze, my God those eyes!

*He frustrates me.

The greatest challenge my nature presents:
Love is harder to find
Hate is easier to find
Within myself and others

Is rejection different for me?
Everybody seems to know the pain of being unwanted
And idle threats and empty words are no stranger to rejection
But when you say you'll **** me if you ever see me again
The intention is clear
The existence of my attraction
Is grotesque beyond redemption
I thought I loved you...

When appreciation comes my way
It's superficiality amuses me
Because I know all that needs to happen
Is breaking down the wall to my mind
Or unlocking the door to my heart
And those appreciators will transform into detractors
Especially if the hideous leviathan approaches their vessel

Not finding women gross frustrates me
Because I have no reference point
For why people hate me so much
Which provides a reference point
For why I hate myself so much

It's difficult not to be dominated by this damnation
But there's no way people could understand
The daily subtle nuances
Why should they?
I don't constantly consider their lives either
Even if someone tried to comprehend my life
I'm not sure it's possible
I've been here the whole time and I'm still massively perplexed

I display my emotions
Disgust
I shroud my emotions
Indifference
I **** my emotions
Hatred
Is there no escape?
Even with sanctuaries along the way
Life feels like
Everybody swims in the ocean
While I'm resigned to my lonely oasis
Is it possible to feel more alone than completely alone?
Like a cockroach consigned to living under the refrigerator
It gets so cold and dark down here
I forage for crumbs only at night
Mortally afraid of human contact
For I know that the boot follows the light
And why not?
In a world where our priorities obstruct our compassion
How much consideration should a real human show
to a lowly maggot like me
When they have to worry about paying the exterminator?

They say there are 1,025,109.8 words in the English language
yet none are capable of describing you

None of them are capable of showing your side of pure anger
and the side of caring for the things you like simultaneously

None of them are capable of showing how special you can make me feel
and then make me feel worthless seconds after

None of them are capable of saying how much I hate you
and none are capable of showing how much I love you

And that truly frustrates me

We’ve passed resilience.

It’s not a question of getting with it,
I’ve pushed it to the limit and now it almost feels repetitive,
this sedative motion of
Day to day,
Pay to paid,
Lay to laid,
I made up the rules to a game,
and find it played exactly like how I said it should be…

And now that you see this new light,
you also see it right to put boundaries
that might have been better well placed.
Has the student risen to put master in his place?
Are words truly used in my own face?
Your wasting empty breath,
since love, I wrote the test,
and it frustrates me to come out last.
…But I’ll write this for myself,
and cross my fingers and hope for the best.

You went east and I went west.
And lest there be no miscommunication
let me be put your equations at rest…
I was moved by temptation,
locked and loaded and triggered with anticipation,
I’ve been waiting to have a taste of this elation,
to experience a fraction of the exhilaration
that could possibly course through these veins,

But I guess I wait in vain if I ever thought my name was about me.

Just a reflection of what you’d like to see.
And integrity finds itself dragged through the mud,
and affection finds itself waiting for no hug,
like a virus lacking the bug to go and do the ***** work,
and worth depleted to no value.

Like a ****** with a $1 rolled up bill
but no will to take the line…
I find myself in suspension.
With just an occasional call to attention,
calling for attendance,
(Should I lift my hand up like this?
Would I get extra credit if I blew you a kiss?
Should I cover up or lift my skirt,
should I shut up or continue to flirt?)

- I can’t seem to understand what works anymore.

I can’t seem to understand where to go
when you’ve asked me to leave,
yet lock the door and swallow the key,
and get on your knees,
claiming understanding please…
I wore my heart on my sleeve,
but you just picked so much at the seams
that it seems I’m unraveling away...

Just a little more every day…

Did no one teach you that’s not ok?
That people shouldn’t be played with?

And now I find myself on the search for revenge,
with humanity posing as my victim,
affected with a venomous vision
of alteration of the soul.

If for a moment you thought you were whole,
we’d like to say: Who told you?

Can’t be whole if humanity didn’t mold you.
Didn’t scold you for what it didn’t like,
or tell you what time to be home at night,
and to say your prayers right,

Because He ‘might’ be listening.

So I've just spent a lot of my time
Sitting idly at a screen
Watching something that made me feel
A lot

And knowing myself
I would assume
I talked myself into watching
Something terribly
     Gruesome
                  Or sad

But today I watched something that gave me more hope than I could handle
It overwhelmed me

Suddenly the world seems a whole lot prettier
The delicate flowers, blossoming in soft whimful colors, sailing or swaying in a smooth wind almost bring me to tears
Anything and everything that even slightly radiates bliss
I've held on to so tight
Everyone is charming and I can see deeper than I have
Every little creature being so simple yet so complex no longer frustrates me
But rather increases an infatuation and love for earth
Every smile is worth the world
And love is evermore important

And as I read the sorrowful words I related too just yesterday
I have to look away
For fear of opening up healing wounds

I am changing
Even if just for now
In a way I dont usually change ,just for now,

I'm happy with myself
And all because of some silly show
    
                  Who would've figured?

The Watch
The watch kept right on ticking, as if nothing had changed. It was like a sixth person at the little round marble table. The stone was cold on my arms. The funeral director pushed it across the table. "This was the only thing on him." My aunt took it graciously, set it by the folder full of everything ever recorded about Donald P. Baca, and from that moment on, it drew the eyes of everyone there, irresistible as a corpse, and as gruesome. tick tick tick as if nothing had happened. I found myself thinking that if he were my brother, I would keep that watch ticking forever, change its batteries, a type of insignificant immortality.

Funeral Homes
The air of calm in funeral homes has always disturbed me. It's cloying, somehow. Too strong. Like the overwhelming scent of peony flowers if you put them in a vase- it darkens your whole house with sweetness. I think I resent knowing that my feelings are being influenced by soothing beiges and classical music. A tissue box and a little bottle of Purell sit on every surface big enough to hold them properly. I find that the anticipation of my "needs" as a griever... offends me.

Survivors
Funerals are not for the dead. They are for the survivors.

Tears
Death is not about trying not to cry. You have to hurt yourself with it to heal from it. There is no shame in funeral tears. They, like death, are inevitable and natural. (My own dry eyes, they shame me.)

Looking In
That is the problem with us writers- every private, gauche little moment of impropriety is fuel for our art, and we must record it. (Intrude upon it.)

Paperwork
1953
***: Male
Color: White
How different it was then.

Grown Up
This is the first time my aunt, whose respect I have always striven for, has even asked my opinion on something "grown up". I thought I'd want her to, but I no longer care. Maybe that means I am finally "grown up".

Absurdly
My aunt gives her email to the man across the table: her name, first and last, no spaces, and the number 1. I find myself wondering irresistibly, inappropriately, absurdly, if anybody ever sits here with a "FaIrYpRiNcEsS4963luv4eva" and has to dictate it to him like that...

Mourners
There are 5 of us here. We are all different, in grief. I am on the outside looking in, an observer, offering the perfect hug or well timed touch of the hand because I feel emotions like room temperature, but not like fever. I look in on tears, silence, on the grip like a vice: on the propriety of being personable to a man who knows your brother has just died, as if that- even death! - gives no permission to be less than polished. And one of us is absent entirely, his truancy a palpable response, just as present as my mother's strangled tears. Her shame frustrates and saddens me- I admire the sincerity of grief, especially when I cannot reach it.

You're Here With Me
The funeral director answers his cell phone. He has the same phone as you, ****, and having seen you answer it yesterday, my mind overlays the images strangely, like a double exposure photograph. It should disturb me, but it only makes me miss you- my mind seeks to erase his image and leave only yours.

Age
Everyone looks older, right now- sunken collarbones and wrinkles weighing down faces. As if they age in sympathy that my uncle is finished with that.

Fishhook
My mother struggles against tears like a worm on a fishhook, and it is agony that ****** my arms, in the air and sliding along the walls. It clashes oddly with my aunt- like a still pond- her polished charm and practiced smile don't feel forced, which only makes it all feel more wrong. I know she is struggling inside, too.

Is it ambiguity that frustrates you;
instead it was my gift to you

But why question a bird in its cage
or a caterpillar in its cocoon?

That is not the life that matters,
only the life to become; creation
is not destiny and destiny is not
the past for as the bird is released
so too are words into your mind
to fly where they may

Do not hold them fast; let them
take you where the vastness of
your imagination and dreams
may go because you will not see
the cage; it will remain empty
without memory or purpose

The sky is who you are; there is
nothing left of the past or what
someone may have felt or thought
at the time; the words have become
your own, changing, mutable, free

Like eyes knew your mind was already at home within that lonely-love of yours.
Feeling distant frustrates the lost. The deep look for that girl that has a beautiful soul inside.
17 longer feeling years, tainted, waiting, deserves a cold man to be close to. One with a true heart.
Wishing on hopeless petals as an excuse to avoid the galaxies-worth of thought you contained in that bitter brain of yours.
Cold cheeks cried out for softly captivating lips.
Twistedly committed to searching through constellations, inviting those whose hearts were like a vortex.
To the point of disorientation, when all the constellations start to blur, creating disastrous patterns.
Fear, flawed lungs, struggling to breathe.
Cruel whispers to **** your hope of ever finding love.
Like looking past the light and into a mirror, you see him and suddenly you're not so broken anymore.
You awaken.

You make me frustrated -
Frustrated that when I look at you
And think to say I love you,
The word falls short
Like the shortness of breath you cause
When your eyes connect with mine

It frustrates me that
You make me feel
What no dictionary has a proper word for.
So how then will I convey
The stutter of my heart
When you whisper my name,
Making all the world just fall away,
Till it's just you and me?

Tell me how I'm supposed to let you know
That I'm nauseous with bliss when you walk my way
And that I'm shivering and rubbing and holding myself
In a futile attempt to escape the cold
That comes when you're gone?
Tell me how I'm supposed to, in one phrase,
Light the understanding of your consciousness
Like you light my life with your presence,
Getting you to see that I don't just love you,
But that you frustrate me?

I yell at my phone,
only to think of you,
and realize that I am enticed
by what frustrates me

It isn't the right word.
But I just can't find the one that will fit
to describe me.

I thought it might be right
until I googled it...
"A shy person"
does not begin to describe me.

I'm not angry at it,
my shyness,
but it frustrates me so much every day.
I sit inside my own head
Screaming!

Screaming at myself,
Screaming out what I just want to say
But
I
Can't!

Screaming at my head to think,
think of something,
anything!
My mind is full of thoughts
but I'm stuck sitting with my best friend
in silence,
my thoughts pounding
against my skull
but not one breaks free.

I don't know the word to say
to sum that up.
Maybe there isn't one
because it is only me trapped in my thoughts
wanting to break out,
wanting to speak out.
Maybe that's why it's so frustrating.

I feel alone inside myself
and I just want to get out.

Sometimes I get frustrated
by things I cannot change
by things that I cannot control
things I cannot re-arrange

I know these things I cannot change
are things I should ignore
but theres something deep inside me
that wont let me shut that door

And perhaps the thing about this
that frustrates me most of all
is that I cannot change myself
so in this trap I'll always fall

Fourteen Years.
Fourteen Years I've known you.
We are Sixteen now , always the same
Always the ever present love/hate figure
"Best Friends Forever" we'd say
You were the only friend.

I may have took you for granted
The tears.
The laughter.
The fights.
The normality.
The smiles.
I miss it all.
I miss everything, I miss you.

But we drove each other away
Without care or attention
Come back and save me please?
I need you now more than ever.
You've left me wandering aimlessly through life
I'm lost.
I cannot go under. I am not Lady Lazarus.
I need my bestfriend.

It's a shame you're a statue.
Your stillness frustrates me;
Do you possess no emotion?
Do you have a heart, a conscious?
Best friend,
Are you human?

My day off feeling goid relaxing listening to music
Doing what feels right and what makes me happy
Work always frustrates me trying to make money
Do my time hoping to move up instead staying stuck
Over feeling used and taken for granted
I say the cream rises to the top
I've always been honest and *** heat for it
I spoke the truth and got excluded forgotten
Its hard to forget now I'm on the level
Its not where I want to be
on a level of my own feels right
Where I belong it feels right
I don't care who you know
Or what your last name is
I told my coworker id be associate of the month
I see that for myself others bs and should take pride in themself

I can't let myself keep awake about you.
You have absolutely no idea.
None at all, how I lie here and just
Think
And think.
Remembering you and me in darkness,
Music all around us.
Sometimes flashes of this.
Sometimes long detailed thoughts.
Trying to remember every action,
Every word said.

It all gets twisted around.
Distorted the more my mind pushes for a visceral connection to hold onto.
To relive again those moments between you and I.

I feel vulnerable in my thoughts.
I had a notion that I kept my emotions closed up tight.
No one could decipher my state of mind.
But as I always do,
I feel transparent around you.
And it frustrates me to no end.  

Seeing signs, unwillingly, in everyday things.
Reminders of you in some little way.
Unconscious happenings, until the third time's a charm and I take notice.
Is some higher power trying to tell me something or what?
Is it useless to believe divine intervention could have a hand in my life?
Can't I think God is involved in my insignificant place in the world?
How can happenstance be blamed?

It's seems to me that I know you,
Or what I want to assume you are, given the chance to get that close.
And I can't be your distraction.
The phase that occurred between the running away and the falling back to.
I refuse to accept that role.
To be so rootless to your life.
That's not fair to me.
Not at all.
Especially when I have no idea how I came to be here.
In this complex emotional pond.
I just woke up one day and it was.
And I didn't get to prepare.  
And it's not fair.

Let me have my walls back because now I am stuck.
Thanks to you, I'm stuck somewhere across from a breakdown and beside staircase.
Maybe you're a twin mirror of me though.
You might have just been paying more attention to the details.
Been more effected than I was, faster than I realized perhaps?
Whatever the case is, it's thrown me.
And I lay here every night think, thinking.
Somehow paranoid you can feel me conjuring memories of us.
Maybe wishing you could feel it every time you come into my head.
Like a ringing in your ears.
So then I wouldn't have to be alone in all this turmoil.
Not tragic just inconvenient.

It's as if I have a fantastic vision for a painting but no brushes to stoke with.
I'm baffled.
And I don't know where to go from here.
This limbo, half self imposed.
The saddest thing though,
Is that I kind of relish those thoughts.
Because for now they make me feel not so alone.


*© NDHK

I tried so hard to reach you
But I can’t seem to break through
You continue to keep
Falling
The harder I try
The faster you fall
I’m ready to
Give up on you
I don’t know what else to do
It’s like I’m screaming
And you hear me, but you aren’t listening to me
You love the lies you tell yourself
And your mind thinks they are true
Because of how much you repeat them
Aloud and in your head
How dangerous.
You feel trapped
Not knowing what to do
So many things go wrong
But what you don’t get
Is under the shapeless words and I’m sorry’s
You know the real truth
You can fix your wrongs
And make them right
It seems that so much has gone wrong
That you are giving up
But it’s the wrong time for that
You tell yourself that I don’t care about you anymore
Yet another one of those lies
Cause if that was the truth
I wouldn’t still be around
You and I are living proof
That love is real
That love exists
But we’re also proof
That nothing is perfect
You get what you earn
You get out the same amount you put in
And right now
You are experiencing the cold truth
You have
No job
No money
No pride
No self confidence
No trust
From anyone
Is that how you want to live?
Seriously think.
Pay check by pay check
Bill by bill
Excuse after excuse
Borrowing knowing you can’t return
Being lucky as hell
To have just enough
Think.
Because as of right now
Your words mean nothing
Unless there is an action to back them up
I always say
“I’ll believe it when I see it”
And a cliché that fits
Actions speak louder than words
It’s true.
I wish for you to do better
I help you all I can
But I ran out of sympathy
I’m sorry.
And I’m not sure what to do
You should stop telling me that I need to prove myself to you
Because it is most definitely the other way around
I have never done anything
That would make you not trust me
I don’t break my promises
And I don’t forget about you, ever.
And now, I am killing myself from the inside out
For now, forget that you have me
And your mother
And your grandparents
And ryan
And all you have now is you
All your luck has run out
I don’t know what I’ve been doing all this time
There’s so much I feel you’ve stolen from me
Time
Money
Feelings
Tears
Effort
And don’t get me wrong
I have expressed/given you all of that out of my love for you
But I feel drained.
I feel like even when I have nothing
You continue to pry.
And that frustrates me deeply
I don’t want to feel this way
And you can’t change for anyone but yourself
I feel scarred.
I can’t keep thinking
Wondering
Worrying
WHEN?
When will you change?
And keep a job
And get your life to where it should be
And be able to be independent?
And be free of borrowing, pills, and everything else you need
If you live the life you’ve lead
You’ll never get to what’s in store for you
You were dealt a certain hand
And you need to make decisions based on that
Not on what you think should have happened.
History repeats itself
And when I say be careful
I really mean it.
And please, when I talk about my past
Don’t get mad, and say “sweet”
Cause it means something to me
Which you need to respect
Ryan and I go way back
He’s my best guy friend
And even though it’s unfortunate he’s your little brother
How do you think he feels?
About you being his older brother
In this situation
Just think about the fact that
Things that don’t matter to you
Could mean a whole a lot to someone else
If it weren’t for ryan, I probably wouldn’t know you
Think about that maybe
Life is more then us.
My life can go beyond you.
I seem to keep telling myself
I’m done
And If so,
I won’t be around the drugs
And the lies
And the emotional obliteration
That has worn me down
We fight so much
Because I have lost all tolerance
I am no longer a pushover.
You are never going to win this war
Because you don’t understand
I’m not against you.
I’m trying to help you
And you just use me for support
You just think everyone around you
Will make up for your laziness
Poor decisions
And lack of effort to do anything
Things won’t just fall into place
You have to make things happen
On your own.
There are so many obstacles you face
But some you create
Inebriating yourself is IMMATURE.
It doesn’t make the problems go away
Or make reality disappear
And when it wears off
You are right back to where you were
And how you were feeling
Is it really worth it?
It makes you look like a coward
Dependant
And helpless
But you’re more than that
When you blow coke
And smoke ***
And whatever else you do
And you lied to me and I didn’t find out
That’s no accomplishment
Cause you can’t fool yourself
And you can’t fool god
Under exaggerating the bad things you do
Doesn’t make it right
Or better
Or more okay because you only did a little bit, a couple times, maybe.
Don’t tell me you stopped smoking cigs because it will make me happy
Tell me when you have really done it
Because it should make you happy
And proud
You can’t careen through life
Just doing enough to survive
Doesn’t cut it.
Through these months
You’ve done just enough to keep me here
I am all that you have worked for
I look at you in distressing anger
Everything you do affects me
Mentally
Physically
And emotionally
I have a notion
That you are afraid to ask for help
Besides money
I can’t see you not succeed
I’m just that kind of person
I don’t need tangible items
And gifts
And to be spoiled to know you love me
Wealth means nothing to me
Don’t try to buy me back into loving you
So baby please
Live your life to its fullest
Do everything to your full potential
And just please get your **** together
Because I don’t want to see us apart
And I know you can do it
I have full faith in you
And you always tell me
How I am the only one that matters
And only my opinion counts
I need you to put in a truthful endeavor
Your love for me emanates from your smiles
And hugs
And kisses
And I don’t want to lose it
So for our sake
And for the safety of your future
THINK.
Take these words
And think about them
Cause I may forgive you one last time
You have had too many chances
And have completely ****** them all up.
Really think about what you are doing when the time comes to make a decision
And don’t make them because of me
Make them because you feel that even though its not what you may want
It’s what you have to do
To help yourself get out of being used to no daily routine
And dependence on others
And be a new
Independent
Clean
Successful
Happy
Mentally and emotionally stable
And most important
Be you.
I love you Justin Hurley Aronica
And I will love you forever
But it’s solely up to you
Whether or not I will be able to share my love with you
I didn’t know what love was
Until I met you
And now that we have experienced this deviation
I know what true love is
And it can’t be demised.

Distended or disgusting,
too big never flat enough
our bellies dictate our worth;
bigger means money for food,
but not enough money for lipo.
Smaller means either
a) good genes
b) exercise
c) eating disorder.
Why oh why must we all be so enslaved
to our belly sizes?
It frustrates me to be frustrated with my belly
it never did anything wrong,
it's just not as flat as my 100 pound classmates
but it's still lovely.
It still digests food, and has a special little button to remember my birth.
Why must we hate these bellies so?

there is something in me
that feels deceased when I think on you
my head sinks in sadness
of what might have been

you wanted to fix me
to be my knight in armor
I was your naughty little girl
"baby, you're the sexiest I've had"
you said

mommy took care of your every need
daddy would dance to rock & roll
siblings who laughed with you
you've never been lower than the clouds

my crazy frustrates you
you'll never understand

you found out the hard way I wasn't lying when I said I don't do monogamy

I have this infatuation
for guys who can't touch me
like I believe they can't hurt me
yet they ****** my heart up
as money found on the road

when people in america (or many other countries) say
"i have nothing to be thankful for"
it upsets me because
being "poor" in america is nothing compared to being
poor in many other places
it frustrates me that people with nothing to eat but grass can find
more
to be thankful about then
someone with endless possibilities of success
stop
complaining
about
what you
don't
have and be thankful
for everything that you
**do

I feel angry
The kind of anger that builds up in your chest
The anger that frustrates you
And brings tears to your eyes

This anger
It's built up over the years
The anger from doing a wrong
Or the anger you hold back
Trying to explain yourself

I just feel angry
Angry from not being able to
Freely release
What's got me so
Angry

Stares down the worst nightmare
Frustrates your favorite reality show
Cannot be contained by a wall
Is a blend of church and state
Contains 50 years of Star Trek
Drives on the right side of the road
Rarely says “Hold on, slow down!”
Is no longer gender-specific
Sometimes prays en español
Allows girls to play football
Can be painted, sung or rhymed
Was born in the days of Hamilton
Celebrates the strong and the weak
Exists as a circle inside a triangle
Hears a whisper in the dark
Often survives the winter alone
Recycles its creation with glee
Worships a blue-eyed God or none
Wrestles its problems in private
Respects its gray-haired flag
Avoids front page truth
Imagines a rainbow during a storm
Invites a homeless woman to dinner
Permits free speech as protest
Welcomes immigrants from Syria
May be terminally happy
Calls the zoo a favorite place
Hums the sound of crickets at night
Put the words in Whitman’s mouth

© Lewis Bosworth, 2016

In misplaced demographics, an underlying figure
Gets lost in the middle of double-helixed bound’ry lines
Dissolving past parameters, confounding to the mind,
A deadlocked debate decides if pain or love is bigger
It’s like the world’s hardest riddle, answers buried deftly
That no savant or prodigy is able to surmise
And the truth does differ from what words can now describe.

I’ve learned that one can tread life’s forest with a steady course
And with the best of intentions and stark, concerted path
Turn winding bends ambiguous: mistake a birch for ash
So to end the tiring journey in tangent to its source
The nature of the Earth is neither white nor black
It’s more like the palate used when blue becomes grayish sky
But, then again, it’s not this easy to describe

Inside my head there lies a circuit, closed unto itself
So, through this loop I’ve learned to see the difference between
Progress and regression, what has been and has never been,
Is like finding from a deck why each hand differs that is dealt
But the answer matters not, for the circle spins again
It’s kind of like the ocean where the calm and break collides
But, then again, it’s not this easy to describe.

I’ve watched a daunting fog descend upon my clouded eyes
It curbs the hue of ev’rything to darker spectrum shades
So this shroud submerges light until definition fades,
Frustrates the sense of passion; luster steadily subsides
When the mind’s only window is comprised of rippled glass,
It’s like a drunkard’s double vision having not imbibed
But, then again, it’s not this easy to describe.

Each step I take grows even more uncertain than the last
If I could convey to you the shape of this confusion
If I could draw a diagram or picture of delusion
Then you and I might, together, construct and raise a mast
So with to steer life’s wayward ship back toward a purpose
At times, I’m unsure if living’s just learning to survive
So, in this pall, I reach you now, and in you I confide.

I need to write; I have ideas swirling around my mind most of the time. But if I haven’t got somewhere or something to note these ideas down, they drift off, lost.

I’d like to think I’m a good writer, but I know I’m not. Or maybe I’m too self-deprecating. It’s a cultural thing with me, which I’m not going to talk about here at this time. Some other time will feel right for that.

Having said that, words come easily to me. I can create wordscapes with my writing. I’ll write about many things, about love, loss, death, desire, hope and defeat. The images I see when I pen something are real, the patterns the words create are tangible to me.

But I’m also a lazy writer. I love the fact I can find on-line a multitude of sites offering advice for writers, rules to follow to help make you a good writer. I spend a lot of time reading these. What I need to be doing is writing, not reading about writing! You will be amused how many novels I have started to write. Some have evolved into short stories, others into free verse poems. One day I may actually write the novel that’s in me; I’m certainly not short of ideas, when I remember them! And I have folders full of novels I’ve started. Some of them end up as short stories. Lazy, see …

What is hard for me is to focus that inner discipline to write. But when I do tame the procrastinating voices, words spill out in a rush of creativity.

Is that approach wrong? I feel guilty if I haven’t written in a while but I’m good at riding the guilt. Yet if an idea comes to me and then disappears, as is often the case, it annoys me. It’s like a dream you wake from and, for a moment, can remember it vividly, then it’s gone. You grasp at those wisps of recollection but they’re always just out of reach and it frustrates me when that happens.

Then there’s those times when creativity does burst out of me. Perhaps it’s the build-up of guilt that erupts creating a pyroclastic flow of ideas hurtling towards blank page. Liken it to an artist who splatters paint randomly on a canvas; unplanned and random, the words tumbling onto the page, vying for position, for supremacy.

I have to accept that this is the way it is, that’s the way I write. Perhaps after my death, people will say, “He was quite a good writer, shame he didn’t write that novel …

In between shear white and jet-black
with a strong dollop of indigo blue,
lies the pale uncertainty of grayness
the most God-awful hue.

Grayness frustrates the senses.
Grayness stipulates malaise.

A shroud of indecision
arrests the imagination;
chained in wisps of doubt.

The definition of things
routed in a solitary
palette of insincerity.

Grayness negates options.
Grayness obscures landscapes.

Objects disappear
into walls of foggy smiles,
whispering repetitive monotones
of monotonous monologues
in incomprehensible language.

The mind is muted in a pall of haze.
Endless colorlessness of the days.
Days upon days of arctic blight.
Midwinter's endless drama.

White dust
sprinkled on the brain,
layering coats
of a suffocating
ashen pallor.
Dimming the wit,
Quelling the spirit.

Thoughts of light are captured
then lost
in craggy crevasses
of a dull blackened cranium.

Light can't touch the eye
Plaque builds in a hearts ventricle
Warmth escapes the body
and evaporates through
the magic of convection.
A vision remains;
barely an apparition
of a distant
dissipating ghost.


Belgian Café
Hudson St.
NYC
1/29/99

Music Selection:  
Roslavets, Three Etudes

Some things I cannot resist; I blame my own self worth.
I got shot in a dream once...it didn't hurt.
The apple is never as sweet
as the whispered words that slither out of your mouth.

Still moonstruck, still insane,
You throw me straight into the flame.,
and I like the burn
enough to go back for seconds.

Because even though I don't owe you anything,
I feel an obligation, like muscle memory
it falls out my open mouth, gasping
to remember the last few fragments
of the nightmare you woke me from.

So here's to biting off more than you can chew,
and having no regrets about finding yourself
cracked beneath the covers, and disarrayed
among the reflections of mistakes already made.

Maybe I needed this
reality check. I'm on my own, I know.
The temporal frustrates me, the birds
fly south for the winter, I fly...nowhere.
Permanence is a dream as fleeting as
its own contradiction.
It makes no sense, but what did I
expect from you?

Do you remember the nights
we laid across each others ankles
to see if either would break under
the weight of the other?

These fractured bones
don't mean a thing. (promise)

Here is the situation,
As unfortunate as it is,
You no longer have a significant part of my heart.
Once there used to be a time, twice a time, when thoughts
bombarded my mind and chances were they concerned you.
But now my eyes, as reluctant as they are, can see you,
You unintentional enchanter.
You accidental seducer.
You oblivious snarer of infatuated captivation.
You are the alpha of canker blossoms.
You are the epitome of everything that frustrates me.

I used to live in a house where the
Walls were your voice and your face.
A mental institution in which I was never voluntarily admitted.
A house of mirrors in which I couldn’t see myself or anybody else,
My thirst for your infatuation reflected,
Mocking smiles of every kind.

I cried blackened tears that fell to the
Ground and then flew into the sky like
Bleached ravens, like childhood dreams,
So carefully groomed by the mommies and the daddies,
Collapsing into little liquid drops dripping through the desperate holes of a strainer.

I cried because you seemed to find it
Necessary to seek interests in other girls
And never me.
I am not a bruised apple;
I am not a crushed autumn leaf;
I am not a discarded baby blanket;
And I am not unworthy.
So why in god’s oh so deemed holy name
Have you not seen me?

Or maybe you see it right on my face,
Like I’m a displayed canvas as easy to
See as red blushed from a pale, void surface,
And you are just messing with me.
Playing with me
As I am your spaniel and you can treat me as such?
Like I am a doll whose string you pull
And receive a pathetic voice pleading,
Love me love me.
Am I below your standard of interesting?
What could possibly be so wrong with or about me that repulses you?
Not you really, but more your interest in me.
At this moment I am wound tighter with exasperation
More than any moment before.
You will always be a tug of war in my life.
If only I could simply expel you,
The nuisance you are.

I lay down in my own pool of blood. I wish it came from a blade, or seventy.
No, it came from not being an impregnated teen. When we had the spring scare, I imagined you staying and raising a baby boy.

My mind plays so many tricks on me. Who knows if he really did form or if it was my imagination?
Real life frustrates me, burdened by who this world wants me to be. Well, I'm me.

Wishing for a lullaby to sing me to sleep.
Poor restless me continues to seek for sunken ships and burned down apple trees.
We rush to the hospital to foresee a new life forming, but forget to indeed leave a kiss for those who used to bandage our worst scraped knees.
I'm held down by the routine of being 16, when in reality I'm surpassing my own peers in front of me. I wave goodbye, but they just stand and stare.

Labels define me as I just try to gain understanding, isn't that just quite obscene?

The air is polluted, and we climb the tip top of the mountain until our ears pop.
So this is what it feels like? To breathe in freshness when its already been passed through our ancestors?

That's the thing with humans. We now no longer believe in the existence of simpler things. As we grow up we realise that everything has depths. We are so very surrounded by such things that we have forgotten how simple life actually is. It's sad how people get angry at minute matters but don't even care to smile at the beautiful little things around them.
We've forgotten how it's the little things that matter, how there is so much more to life than just paper.
Whether it's your answer sheet or the currency you use. It's not at all complicated to be honest.
We've just forgotten. It's all very simple actually. Leave aside everything that frustrates you and take a sip of that nice chilled glass of your favourite wine or a nice warm bath or just a little glance up at the sky from your rooftop to get you going.
Get a reality check.
Do what makes you happy.
Let your happiness be more than just momentary.
Let it be reflected from your soul.
**- Aks, Naked & Human.

The things I carry weigh just three pounds,
But there are three tons of weight
That stay with me all of the time.
When I'm walking, when I'm reading,
Even when I'm sleeping,
These things are always sitting
On my shoulders and poking my head.
 
I always carry my phone,
And my license sits in my wallet with money.
I carry the keys to my car and the key to my soul:
I always carry my iPod
Because music is the lifeline that seems
To hold some weight and give me a break
From those heavy thoughts that
Always weigh me down.

I carry the brain that produces these thoughts,
The place where they linger.
The intelligent brain that gives me good grades
But frustrates me with the uncontrollable
Switching from highs to lows.
I carry the hope for a good future
Filled with love and happiness
But the fear of failure, too.

I carry insecurities with me,
Although I'd much rather leave them behind.
I carry the absence of my father,
As well as the fear that this absence
Will affect me more than it already has.
I carry bad habits that might get worse,
And the pressure to do well and succeed
Despite these overbearing thoughts.