I tried to quit smoking last week. And my best friend died for eighteen hours. Such a deep loss has only been felt by rose hips, in the early winter, after the petals have fallen to the ground, like snow, like jumpers from high-rise buildings, like a maiden, after that last, fatal step off the plank, with swords at her back, and the horizon calling to her, the song of the Sirens drifting up from the ocean floor. Dropping, like petals, caught in a harsh winter breeze. The left-overs, the carcases of the flowers that were and are no more, watch with eyes of sorrow and hearts of lead, as each friend, companion, lover, even casual aquaintance plummets, to land on the already frozen soil of a dead, snowless, Colorado winter.
I died with my friend. My roots were tangled, and with each second that passed, a million axes took bites out of them, feasting on my identity. The axes were only gold-plated, it would seem, and not pure, unadulterated precious metal. Engraved in the paper-thin facade was a name, a face, and a hope, all of which were merely a poor excuse for an excersise in willpower. The cold, iron blade shone through the thin, gently curved lines of lip and ear and eye made of nebula. With each breath that passed between loosely parted lips, I felt myself fade, giving my everthing to the world (hope, name, face) that had, only moments before, murdered my closest companion.
My eyes grew steadily hard, increased stone-content. By 6:30, I had been staring into the eyes of my mistress, Medusa, for at least two hours, my head filled with love songs and daydreams, clutching straws and holding out for the one perfect moment that would shed a brief light on my life, which is, in all reality, the afformentioned pirate ship, but void of lamps, candles, or any other means of illumination.
Questions flowed to the surface of my disjointed mind in a stream, a river, an oceanic current of molten rock and sloppy second guesses.
(Will one hurt? Half? Just one puff? Why? Why? Why?)
And as I turned to stone, I finally found the courage to answer one of the questions that my brain shot itself with, injected into its own blood stream. The question was the sole bullet in a revolving, high-stakes betting game, the answer, the fourth trigger pull, with only two chances left anyway.
(Because... I don't know why...)
So stand up, go to the place you have thought about two-million times, and, yes, smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette.
As my friend rose from the dead, pushing aside the boulder blocking the entrance to its tomb, which everyone knew was just a temporary tenement, and we were reunited, we spoke of fascists. Well, I spoke of fascists, it listened. I spoke of the kind of fascists that exist in grayscale television commercials, spewing ingnorant words about the untimely deaths of beloved family members, who give me dirty looks in public, and have forced me into alleyways, across streets, out of sight, out of mind, to the back of the bus, as if non-smokers live forever, as if everyone can accomplish said impossible feat, if not for the evil plant, the evil spiritual plant that poses a threat to the well-ordered religious structures, pyres built for martyrs and long-dead saviors.
I have only begged for eternity once, and I was very young, with years of rocks and hard places ahead, only pink clouds behind, and eyes incapable of foresight. This boy ate apples, and drew on his arms with black pen every Sunday. Go into the church clean, bathed, come out with temorary full-sleeve tattoos. This boy was made of wonder, myth, and blind acceptance. No longer.
I have now gazed into an eternity made of open graves, lost loves, and harsh, barbed-wire truths, punctuated with sharp, jabbing exclamation points of brief pleasure that only seem to make the reality of eternity worse. I am a masochist, and even I don't want that. A body can only function for so long without sleep before the motor wears out, the radiator breaks, the gasket leaks, and the marbles flee from the growing insanity of their owner. We all need to rest eventually, and in my secret mind - the one that grimaces with sick pleasure and only shows its teeth in the lines of a poem, slightly blurred by metaphor - I long for that sleep. I am tired, but the day is only half done. But each sun sets, and we can not deny it that truth, that sensation of finality that settles upon senile eyes like a cataract, that snuggles against warm, pink lungs in all its black, tar-like splendor.
Truth, like so many other things in this solar system, only takes shape when under the eye of a microscope, with a passive viewer sewn to the end of it, with the sole intention of passing judgement before shouting "NEXT," and repeating the process untill they either run out of things to judge (blame, think, guilt-trip) or die.
So, smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette. Puff, puff, puff it and let us hope they never get to either of us, old friend.

Oh look – look at that!
It’s cloudy and the skies are leaking!

Has it always been like this?

I’m trying to remember something beautiful…

But these memories
                             keep getting
                                                 washed            
  
                                                                   aw­ay


I don’t notice how drenched I am those times when I think about your eyes – I’m focusing – squinting to see something between the raindrops. I do that because I’m trying to remember why those eyes held my gaze in the first place.

Am I to always be a duck quacking for breadcrumbs?
Scarfing them down – quickly as if to free up space for the more to come.

I know there have to be more. Because I of all people deserve more. I do. I swear I do. I tell myself more is coming when I start choking on the wetness.

It's the only way to keep going - you have to trick yourself

It'll be better the next time even! Yea… yea it’ll be better –you know? ...the next time?

Because I can give it back even better... I want to give it too. I still give away the little dryness I have as soon as I get it… and I don’t expect anything back… but I do need more. As much as I try to hide it - as much as I look like I’m enjoying dancing in the rain and splashing in the puddles- I'm not

I’m always wet and cold.
I hate it so much.
I cry too much and it won’t stop leaking just like the skies.

I feel it streaking down my cheeks like raindrops on windshields. I let it run down the length of body and get caught in a pool in my belly button.

And so I laugh because I hate being cold and wet and in the rain but I’m still standing here. And the puddle in my belly button slides out and joins my teardrops – which combined with the rain makes me look normal I guess…

But in reality I’m just nakedly standing there…and it's so lonely.
It’s my entire fault too – No, it is. I’m a sponge on the inside.
I soak up every bit of moisture and stay wet – while everyone else is dry.

I daydream about being dry. I look down at my reflection in the puddles at my feet and see what it would be like to be dry. Sometimes I squat down and look really closely. I’ve even gone so far as to stick my head in and open my eyes – and it feels normal.

My eyes are open and I see me … doing those special things with you – that special someone. The Nicholas Sparks’ kind of special someone. The special someone that I see myself looking back to when I’m old and wrinkly and saying, “when I was with him I didn’t even notice I was drenched...I believed I was dry”.

But then I start getting a tingling feeling in my nose when I realize “oh silly, dumb, stupid me – I know I can’t breathe underwater”. And it’s true. I can’t. But I’ll try again tomorrow. Just watch.

I could use a towel. I would love an umbrella. A hot cup of tea would soothe me nicely. But your hands… those special someone hands are who I need to receive them from. Because they are the nicest. And I deserve the nicest.

There's just one problem: I can’t reach them through the puddle…

I don't
Understand

My own
Unhappiness

It's mine
But
It shouldn't be.

My life is
Wonderful
Blessed

Full of
Wonderful
Blessed
People

And yet
Sometimes

I am
Overwhelmed
by a sense of
Despair

Unfounded
Without substance
But so very
Real.

Yet I am so
Lucky
so
Blessed.

I must be a
Terrible Person
or
Cursed.

Because if not,
I just don't
Understand.

Now I walk almost with ease through these nightly rituals
Disconnecting as much as I can from this frenzically speeding mind
Always the same.
Monotonously I wade through the murky waters of this devilish playground
Just enough energy to swim to the top now and again to gasp for air
Their seas of haunting chants is suffocating
Always deceitfully encouraging me into states of panic and despair
Always the same.

I have danced this dance many times before
Yet their persistancy makes it feel infinitely longer
My body aches from their puppet strings, holding me up before slumber
And my thoughts are disheveled from their constant trespassing.
But look here in my mind, that despite inconveniences still prospers, unstoppable.
Their manipulation, you see, although practiced in the mind, only hinders my brain and body
And is shrugged off every day as I wake from sleep,
No, no, it is not the same.

I am right, I am crazy. I just want it to stop it from ruining my life. Its just stuck with me forever, there is nothing I can do about it. I fake a smile, a laugh, a moment of true happiness.
    
         There is no true light. Clouds of denial, I don’t remember how to smile a real smile. I just share a blank stare forever. Forever hungry for a way out, but I never find it. It manages to slips through my fingers like crystal sand falling through MY own hands.

I just scowl away from everyone, the people who are my friends are fading. Why cant I stop. Why cant I stop myself and as well as time, so I can just catch up with everyone so I am not crazy anymore, and take back all of what I lost. I want my life back. I will do anything for anyone I just wanna wake up with a real smile and share a few real laughs. If maybe manage a happy ever after.

Whats the point if it anyway. I know I screw up all the time. Well at anytime.
My dearest friend is dying and somehow I feel like its my fault. Like everything is my fault. I feel like a beat down being who just gives up all the time, because not ONE thing will give a chance at what I'm good at.

          I cut at my wrist to see that I am still insane. I want help but I fail at it. Just a young woman wanting just a little sanity. I lost everyone. I want everyone back. I lost my loved one, he was everything to me. The way he laughed and smiled made me smile all the time, laugh all the time. He made me happy. He kept my insanity in its cage, when he left, it broke free.


I don’t wanna be crazy anymore.
          It is destroying every last bit of me,
    and of my lonesome heart.

I am spontaneous disaster,
you a reckless abandon,
mysterious majesty
I evade your commandment.

Your eyes sift through my soul
and take control,
of my chaotic mind.
Please slow this rampant wall of time.

Am I delusional,
or is this the usual?
You...

Never know which way to move
just a harlequin heart
trying to get in tune.