The world hasn't been very nice to you, has it?
(For shame, world, for shame.)
It's easy to see as you pour your soul onto the page
that you cannot claim happiness with complete honesty.
And yet...
still you seem to touch a part of me
reserved for my hope in hopeless cases
(namely, myself)
that allows me to believe
that if you,
who seems to have been going strong
for so long,
can continue on...
then why shouldn't I?
You write plainly about pain,
and openly about endings,
but yet...
there is still some element,
some undercurrent,
that speaks of peace in the end,
and a kernel of grace
that can be grasped even in the dark,
at the bottom of a well without the rope to save oneself.
That not only despite your hardships,
but even because of them you can
keep putting one foot in front of the other,
ignoring the broken glass that litters the tar-stained road
representing the adversity you have had to hurdle up to this point
that seems to be the crux of your art,
only serves to provide in me a means to fan a flame
that I thought to have almost gone out.
It saddens me that your pain
is the means to my renewed determination,
but I can't help being gratefully, desperately hopeful.
Because if you can keep living
with the weight on your shoulders
procured over the length of your life
shouldn't I
who has lived half as long
with half as much strife
still be able to struggle on
with my own modest poetry?

In summary,
your words have touched me deeply, Mister Jason James,
and you will never know the depths of my gratitude.
Hope is a hard-won commodity,
and you have succeeded in planting a sprig of it
in my hopeless poet's soul.

h.f.m.

Hey, me, congrats! You made it to 25!
I'm glad.

Remember when you were young and full of angsty anxiety?
Yeah, great times!
I'm still living it now, though.
I'm not looking back at it, like (lucky) you.

It'll probably be funnier in retrospect,
cause right now it sure isn't.
I'm sure your chuckling to yourself,
wondering at your own dramatics.
(Had you ever been that self-centered?
Thinking what you had was really that bad?)

You may not recall,
but you used to need to write up a
mental list of why you needed to
wake up in the morning, just to
get out of bed.
And when you did get out of that bed, finally,
your limbs felt so heavy with exhaustion
that you wondered if gravity would
pull you through the earth's crust
and cradle you in its core.
You'd have been grateful for the peace.

But you've left that all behind, yeah?
You're an adult, in your prime.
You've probably got a job by now, finished university.
You might be dating, heck, even married!
Planning on having kids?

Is life running along like a well-oiled machine?
Everything going along according to plan,
tick-ticking off the boxes on your check-list.
The world's your oyster!
(Yeah, we never knew what they meant, either)

Have any advice for little ol' me,
to get through this chaotic (insignificant) mess?
Not that you'd be able to give it to me.

You're so far ahead as to almost be unattainable.
But hey, you're me, right?
If I color between the lines, on the straight and narrow, breathe,
I'll catch up to you eventually, right?

I 'm allowed to want nice things?

I can be happy?

So, Me of January 2026
25 years, eh?
Can we make it that far?

Hoping and praying,
Me of May 2018

p.s.
I'm counting on you. Meet you there.

h.f.m.

Do people's raw emotions make you sweat?
Does what someone truly feels set you on edge?
Look into the void in a poet's eyes and tell me you are unafraid.

Fight or flight, you know you're gonna fly,
because how can you possibly hope to fight with soul?
Bare your own? That's laughable.
You'd never let yourself become that vulnerable.

Poets are anarchists above all,
according to Sir Herbert Edward Read.
I am of a mind to agree with him.

Can't take the brutal honesty of the depressed?
Can't understand what someone is thinking when they take a razor to their own skin?
Can't help but fidget when someone tells you about how they were ***** at the tender age of thirteen?
Can't take stories about mental illness, abuse, addiction, identity, abandonment, hate, rage, rebellion, brokenness?

Who knew words could instill such animalistic terror?
I'm calling you out. Face the music, and you might just survive.

Do you feel the ice crawling under your skin, the shivers down your spin? That, my friend, is called Truth.
You are one step closer to understanding.

h.f.m.

i.
there is a boy who visits my dreams sometimes, colt-like and all of seven years old. his eyes, pale blue as shadowed snow-fall, are unsettlingly, peacefully unfocused and half-lidded, peering through long lashes of ink that brush his baby cheeks with each slow blink. pale pink and gold flowers, five-petaled and sweet, are woven through his dark, ever-dripping hair like pin-point stars of gentle flame. his edges are blurred, softened, and he silently guides me through the pitfalls and the white-water’s undertow in my sleeping mind.

ii.
the human is a thousand half-truths framed as gospel. an example: the dead all smile, grinning at the setting sun as the wind whistles through their ribs in a mimicry of breath. the dead smile and smile, and are alive as our memories of them, as alive as they are in our dreams. (and oh, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?)

iii.
do you want truth from me? look who you’re asking. were you expecting me to tell you anything you don’t already know? i am just as real as you, just as human as you, just as much of a fallacy. sometime, somewhere, an old, lonely god dreamed us up for company. dreamed us up and watched us grow and learn and stumble and fail and pick ourselves back up with band-aid wrapped hands and scratched knees and feral grins as we start climbing the same hill will fell down with renewed determination. we want to know what’s on the other side, can only imagine it, and so we try again. (our angel cousins watch with a thousand eyes and shield us with a thousand wings and a thousand rings of fire from the infinity we are not yet enlightened enough to understand).

iv.
he has never been alive, this snow-soft not-ghost, this ink-stained child, this dreamed-up boy of mine. never breathed, never spoken, never slept. (do dreams sleep?) but he is as real as anyone i have ever imagined, or remembered, or thought of. the world is in the mind, we all know this. and the mind, truly, is and can only ever be, a place of dreams.

h.f.m.

Am I a dream-thing?
(Common Characteristics of Dreams:
INTENSE EMOTIONS
FreqUently diSorgANized and IllogiCal
Difficult... to... remember...
Content Is Accepted Without Question)

Is my life a dream-thing?
(Common Themes in Dreams:
------Being chased
P a r a l y s i s
Someone dead, alive
Someone alive, dead

Falling

Falling

Falling)

Is reality, really, a dream-thing?
(Common Misconceptions About Dream-Things:
Perceived as True [what is this 'Truth?']
Remembered as Absolute [your mind really rewrites, and rewrites]
Is tangible [by our own laws, we know nothing actually touches]
Is ALIVE ['breathing' does not equate 'life'])

If the above are dream-things, than in whose dream are they?

h.f.m.

i.
i look at you and how you look away out the window as if hoping for some change in the scenery outside of this land-bound valley town. the heat of the sun pounds us into the ground like nails, where our limbs refashion themselves into tree roots searching towards deep desert springs. wine runs like blood from the hilltop vineyards, seeping into the ground with the expectation that bacchus’s approval flows behind in the form of celebratory madness. outsiders travel minutes, hours, days to claim these dark rivers running towards the gemstone lake that is the central attraction (though the haunted legends of beasts and spirits and gods are twisted into cheap gimmicks to attract the gullible and the unrepentant as well).

ii.
your distaste is a palpable thing, tucked behind your pleasant smile like a second-rate bicycle behind a sign warning against trespassers. you say, the sun may be burning, like these old forests we swore up and down to protect, but we’re all cold and distant as those stars above that are smothered by smog in the night sky. i watch you and how you watch the city around you sew their suits out of dollar bills and paint their skin red with the vineyards’ glory that spills from their lips. i see you and how you see the world, and we both watch this city drown itself in desert sands.

iii.
the wine creeps up the grass stalks and laps at our ankles, singing in silent temptation of a more classy form of intoxication and pleasant (if temporary) forgetting. i tell you as much and you tell me that you would rather swim out to meet the serpent of the lake before you submit to this city’s games, would rather start walking and keep walking, barefoot across the tarmac until it turns to gravel and then to dirt at the city limits, and out into the forests and fields of the land that has nourished and raised us (with only our spite and fire in return). you call people a disease, concentrated like ****-filled sores of plague in cities and towns, and bitterly acknowledge your part in the problem. i ask what you think the solution is and in return you  ask if i think the revolution will be silent or if it will take the whole of humanity down with it into the burning pitfalls of history and time.

iv.
you couldn’t care less if the world burns around you. your eyes, still staring out the window, tell a tale of a soul already so far from this world as to be beyond human comprehension. turning to me for the first time today, immediate in a way you haven’t been since i first met you in that empty grade-school classroom during those years of our innocence, you ask me what i would do if you woke me in the night to say goodbye. i told you that there was only ever one option, when it comes to leaving this dead-end town of lowercase gods and nomadic wanderers. when you leave (and i know it’s a ‘when,’ not an ‘if’) i will not hesitate to pack my own bags. the streets of this city pulse with power and legends and riches like the blood of some great creature sleeping under the mountain, but i will willingly leave that mystery buried when you reach the end of your rope and decide impermanence it better than staying.

v.
when you leave, i will follow you, watching as you blaze a trail ahead of me, to the end of the world (the end of our respective lives), and ever onward, beyond even the end of time. i will always choose you.

sometimes the end of suffering is just choosing not to live in the place of the pain

h.f.m.

I dreamed about dying last night.
I was in a plane over icy tundra,
hurtling towards the ground,
but it wasn't the crash that killed me.

I dreamed about dying last night.
The wreckage was quickly surrounded,
wild animals pawing through the ruins,
but it wasn't the teeth and claws that killed me.

I dreamed about dying last night.
I wandered the snow wastes,
lost and frostbitten,
but it wasn't the cold that killed me.

I dreamed about dying last night.
I wasn't done in by the trauma or hungry animals or cold.
I was finally killed by myself.
I gave in and fell asleep.

I woke with a start,
in my bed,
afraid and forgetting.

I dreamed about dying last night.
Still not sure if it meant anything.

h.f.m.

I'm dying, my friends,
but it's okay.
I'm only dying slowly.

I don't have a diagnosed illness, like you'd think,
unless you can count 'life,'
but I think some would call that thought 'blasphemous.'

I can feel the approach of the end,
stalking me on soft feet. A mere breath,
coaxing me towards the deepest sleep.

I've made my bed, so no worries, I'll lie in it.
I've fluffed the down pillows and starched the sheets,
I won't have to be afraid of dreams this time around.

I have a sense it won't be old age that does me in,
but I mightn't die young, either,
not that it really matters.

I'll take my time in this world,
but once the sand's at the bottom of the glass,
I won't look back.

Do I flirt with death? Oh yes.
I've brushed hands with him a few times.
I don't think he minds that much.

I'm dying, my friends, but it's okay.

I'm only dying slowly.

h.f.m.

Tracing the concrete-cracks in the overgrown lot
You'd think it is a perfect metaphor
A strong foundation, forgotten and worn
Left to the weeds and the tender-violent care of time
A body turned inside-out and unravaled
A slow, gentle unbecoming
The ever-eventual death of a world

h.f.m.

i.
i'm always just
a remnant
of what i used to be
hollow hands holding
grains of sand that
slither out between
these cold fingers

ii.
they say we're made up of
stardust
stars that burned bright
and burned out
'till their only
remnants were
echos of light

iii.
i've changed
and changed
and changed
many times
in the years of my life
whittled away
bit by bit
like a wood carving
'till i'm the perfected form
and the remaining
shavings on the floor

iv.
spring to summer
summer to fall
these roots turn cold
and these fruits
of my year's labor
fall to the ground
to feed the worms
and i am a brittle
stick-like thing
waiting for the sun
to dispel this dismal fog
that clouds the
remnants of this mind

v.
eternally temporary
that's how it is, is it?
i won't be here
but these atoms of mine
cosmic space-specks
will remain
i will leave behind
my legacy
if not my
memory

h.f.m.

BIRDSONG
like a half-formed thought
like a
half-heard word
at the edge
of awareness
like a voice that called your
name but no one was
there
a mocking ghost of sound

BREATHING
In.
Out.
It's fine, then—
the air is too thin
can't breathe
heart trips
can't see
you're dying, then—
You're fine.
In.
Out.

MY ROOM
i feel like a stranger
sitting on my own bed
an intruder
an unwelcome guest
my gaze alights uneasily
and flickers away
why am i here?
i do not belong

SUNSHINE
Warmth hitting your back
Heating your skin
But there is ice in your chest
Untouched by dawn

THE COLOR BLUE
the sky is clear
unlike
your foggy mind
the sky is empty
unlike
your cluttered thoughts
the sky is blue, blue, blue
the color of this thing growing in your chest

MY EYES
unfocused
will not focus
blurred edges
vision, dark
vision, wandering
vision, gone
uncooperative
i will not cry
i can't

CLASS
the teacher's voice buzzing, buzzing
over your head
why can't you concentrate?
you look at the writing on the board
it is in a language you have forgotten how to read
time is a loop, this minute this minute this—

MY HEAD
stuffed with cotton
stuffed with useless facts
'thought' is wading through
a rotting marsh
as my mind
falls apart

MIRRORS
You look through
a window and see
a stranger
but the glass is backed
with silver.
The stranger, then
is really you.

MY HANDS
trace the blue veins
under skin of the wrist
the back of the hand
like a map to a strange place
knuckles as mountain ridges
palm-lines as valleys
a land that i am not sure that i can traverse
i know the stars better than the back of my hand
my hands, limp and empty

THE CITY
normally roaring with life
it feels muted
distant
this isn't your home
this isn't your home

EMPATHY
you feel numb
you don't feel at all
you feel angry
you feel wrong

WORDS
your only weapon
your last defense
stolen out from under you
like a
rug
these syllables turn to
ash on your tongue
before they can pass you lips
you cannot speak

SUNSET
the day
is over?
the day
had begun?

MY GUT
hollow
hungry
no, not hungry
but something close

maybe it's not any of these that are wrong
maybe it's just me

h.f.m.

BIRDSONG
like a half-formed thought
like a
half-heard word
at the edge
of awareness
like a voice that called your
name but no one was
there
a mocking ghost of sound

h.f.m.

MY HANDS
trace the blue veins
under skin of the wrist
the back of the hand
like a map to a strange place
knuckles as mountain ridges
palm-lines as valleys
a land that i am not sure that i can traverse
i know the stars better than the back of my hands
my hands, limp and empty

h.f.m.

THE CITY
normally roaring with life
it feels muted
distant
this isn't your home
this isn't your home

h.f.m.

EMPATHY
you feel numb
you don't feel at all
you feel angry
you feel wrong

h.f.m.

WORDS
your only weapon
your last defense
stolen out from under you
like a
rug
these syllables turn to
ashes on your tongue
before they can pass your lips
you cannot speak

h.f.m.

SUNSET
the day
is over?
the day
had begun?

h.f.m.

MY GUT
hollow
hungry
no, not hungry
but something close

h.f.m.

BREATHING
In.
Out.
It's fine, then—
the air is too thin
can't breathe
heart trips
can't see
you're dying, then—
You're fine.
In.
Out.

h.f.m.

MY ROOM
i feel like a stranger
sitting on my own bed
an intruder
an unwelcome guest
my gaze alights uneasily
and flickers away
why am I here?
i do not belong

h.f.m.

SUNSHINE
Warmth hitting your back
Heating your skin
But there is ice in your chest
Untouched by dawn

h.f.m.

THE COLOR BLUE
the sky is clear
unlike
your foggy mind
the sky is empty
unlike
your cluttered thoughts
the sky is blue, blue, blue
the color of this thing growing in your chest

h.f.m.

MY EYES
unfocused
will not focus
blurred edges
vision, dark
vision, wandering
vision, gone
uncooperative
i will not cry
i can't

h.f.m.

CLASS
the teacher's voice buzzing, buzzing
over your head
why can't you concentrate?
you look at the writing on the board
it is a language you have forgotten how to read
time is a loop, this minute this minute this—

h.f.m.

MY HEAD
stuffed with cotton
stuffed with useless facts
'thought' is wading through
a rotting marsh
as my mind
falls apart

h.f.m.

MIRRORS
you look through
a window and see
a stranger
but the glass is backed
with silver.
The stranger, then
is really you.

h.f.m.

I am no longer afraid of death
And so I am not afraid for my own sake
I don't care if I'm in pain
Or if I die
Anymore

At least as far as I am concerned
I am more afraid of hurting people
Emotionally
Mentally
Physically
That is my only fear

I don't want people to
Cry because of me
I don't want people to
Die because of me

It would be better, I think
If they were ignorant of my issues
Or merely indifferent
Instead of caring about me
Which will only cause them grief

I am not the kind of person
Who will live a long and happy life
I am not the kind of person
Who will grow old

And since I am scared of hurting people
I'm terrified of being a burden to them
Sometimes I think it would be better
If I wasn't here
Anywhere but here
Or if I didn't exist at all

I feel like a part of me is missing

h.f.m.

there are three things you know

i.
you reach into your incorporeal chest
and cradle the bird behind your ribs.
forming a gentle cage of your hands.

you bring the red-chested red-breast to your lips
and tuck the fearful creature under your tongue.

ii.
blood-crimson feathers are spilling
from between your teeth like
cherry blossoms that carpet the corridors
of your weary mind and
scar-crossed thoughts.

iii.
your fingers are wine-dark with wanting
and an unnamed, silent thing
akin to fear tears tightening paths
through your skin,
hidden by the cold
and half-formed excuses.



the official story is that you
fell.

you didn't, not in the way they thought you meant.



you'll spit out the truth one day,
choking on summer-scented feathers
and small, pink flowers that you'll
crush between thumb and forefinger
in denial of this fear.

h.f.m.

i.
it is in the nature of grief to cause pain, to burn like a candle wick from the inside out. it's fore-bearer, loss, is a gnawing hole in one's heart. passion has always been give and take, but you feel it has taken more than it has ever given.

ii.
'all is fair in love and war' they say. but what of this misery is fair? 'it's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.' a seed of love had been planted, and took root, and the roots took the soil with them when that love was ripped away, leaving only a hole. such bereavement cannot be comforted with such cheap words.

iii.
love is a many splintered thing, the edges cutting even as the euphoria sets in. you planted flowers in your chest, so that it may become a garden to harbor if they so chose to reside in your heart, hopeful flower child that you are. alas, the writing was on the wall, and they only grew thorns. they torched the roses and reveled in the flames as your heart withered. ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

iv.
now is the winter of your discontent, just staying one day ahead of yesterday. the ocean of your salty tears is deep, and you are barely keeping your head above the water. time is meaningless here, in the seas of your despair. your barren soul is the land that time forgot.

v.
now you know that crows are black everywhere, no matter the beauty of their feathers and the shining gifts they bring. your infatuated delusions were a far cry from reality, and you can only mourn your innocent naivety from when you believed in miracles.

vi.
you wash your hands, sloughing off garden-soil, flower-ash, and sea-salt stains. you pluck the glossy feather from behind your ear and watch it spiral to the ground. you remember. you remember. you remember. and the fiery memories swallow you whole.

h.f.m.

If I put these forbidden words down
Here

If I illustrate those forbidden thoughts over
There

If I convey that forbidden idea from
Then

On this page
Will it impact more than
if it was preached to the masses, or
will it be over looked
as simply a poet's boorish eccentricity?

h.f.m.

Endless years
Eons
When does it end?
Will it ever?
I have seen empires rise and fall
I have seen lovers meet and break apart
I have seen the life bleed out of so many
Too many
But never myself
I have lived so long
Under so many names
I no longer know who I am

h.f.m.

i feel
s t r e t c h e d
thin,
a thread
u n r a v e l e d
slowly.

i cannot
b r e a t h e
here.

s a v e  m e
please.

h.f.m.

Some are tethered by pride
A few are roped by fear
Others are collared by lies
But each and every noose
No matter the hand that tied the knot
Is bound to the killing ground

Marked by faith and murdered in hate
Herded like sheep then butchered like cattle
In the end almost nothing is left
Just silence and the consequences of silence

And when saviors finally turn their steps to the mass graves
The legions refuse to lose, refuse to let their captives live free
Death quickens and the doomed have not even the chance to fight
Before they succumb

"We are human!"
They're scared we won't hear them.
They scream louder.
"We are not more or less than anyone else!"
Their words are a Maginot line, a futile defense
They stare their end in the face
Why had no one come to save them?
Before it was too late?
Too late... too late... too late...

h.f.m.

Old soul
You've heard this all before
All the romantic platitudes that I might sway you with, that I might use to invoke your affection

Young body
You're sick and tired of this
Your physical form defining you and what you can think and what you can be

Immortal mind
You're already here and gone
Forever is long, but time doesn't exist, and you know you can do anything

Bird-like hands
You can't stand this
The inaction causing your fingers to flutter and alight and move on, restless and reckless

Seaside eyes
You can see it all
My heart laid bare and as tempestuous as the ocean before your feet, the waves reaching, reaching

Cosmic smile
You know the effect you have on me
Eye-teeth cutting the strings that tie me to earth, gravity is reversed, and we're among the stars

Phoenix heart
You burned the last time
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, let us rise and begin again.

h.f.m.

pale eyes, pale eyes,
what do you see?
under those curling locks,
soul swamped in misery?

soft hands, soft hands,
what do you feel?
a spirit torched with sorrow
struggling to heal?

scarred lungs, scarred lungs,
what's in your breath?
misted blood and iron dust,
a knife marked with death?

brittle heart, brittle heart,
what is your desire?
to strive for one last chance
or to finally meet the pyre?

blue lips, blue lips,
what are your last words?
do you wish to be freed
to soar among the birds?

h.f.m.

noun

1. it's funny how you miss a place that you never really felt like you lived in. a decade in a snowy mountain town can pass on to the next on a valley-lake. neither is home. you don't know what the word means.

2. you thought it was the house and town of your childhood that you longed for, but on the long weekend you went to visit and realized you hadn't any roots there from the start. no places you want to see again, except for that lake that is a mirror of all lakes. no friends you missed, at least not from this sky-community of music and charm. you realize you miss friends you've never made. there is an untouchable sorrow in that.

3. so if this homesickness does not stem from places you know, are you wishing for a home not on this plane of existence? is there somewhere else that you long to be, that you cannot hope to return to while you walk on the surface of this world? but how can you leave when bound here?

4. this world has weight, gravity pulling at your bones. the ground threatens to swallow you up, and you wonder what it is like to be buried in the bowels of the earth. if there is a gate beneath the crust to your true home, the home of your spirit, would it be found there?

h.f.m.

Life is an awesome/awful/awe-inspiring gift
Given freely, without conditions
A pulse is translated as spinning stars/singing starlings/stilling stardust
Blood of a universe under thin skin
Floating/Falling/Flying, we rise
To the constellations from whence we came
Freed from mortal shell/ringing bell/living hell
We are home

h.f.m.

i've realized i'm not such a hollow thing
after all

in my gut, where i thought there was merely a hole
there is in fact a crow, with beating wings and piercing beak
that up to a point has remained asleep

in my chest, where i thought there was just an icy stone
there is in fact a clawing monster curled under my breastbone
that is no longer docile and rips into my lungs

in my hands, where i thought there was hardly numb tingling
there is in fact a inexplicably stuttering pulse
that has recently been so faint as to be imperceptible

in my head, where i thought there were only my own thoughts
there is in fact a choir of voices murmuring a lament
that even now rises as a tempest in my mind

h.f.m.

Truth is bitter
Lies are sweet
Eat your words
Rinse, wash, repeat

But think sweet poisons
And bitter cures
I know my choice
What is yours?

h.f.m.

Three simple steps

Number One
Forget
Release all your fears
Relinquish all your anxieties
Empty yourself of worry and doubt

Number Two
Relax
Release all your commitments
Relinquish all your goals
Empty yourself of passion and motivation

Number Three
Let go
Release all your thoughts
Relinquish all your emotions
Empty yourself of spirit and control

Then you have become a flaming celestial body
A supernova
You have become starlight

h.f.m.

noun

1. i will always be afraid.'bold, heroic, daring...' these are words to describe another. despite this, i will never shy away from myself. i may not be brave, but i am honest.

2. have you ever found a poem that touched you, brushed your very soul, and sent shivers across your skin? inexplicably, indisputably, a dust-spark alights gently in your lungs. inhale, fire. exhale, smoke.

3. flames on my tongue like a shakespearean sonnet, embers on my lips searing like birdsong. i am too terrified to speak. for you, i would.

4. i am finally doing something right.

h.f.m.

So for the first time
I think I might be consciously aware
of my fear.

Not the feeling of fear, exactly,
but what it is (exactly) that I fear.
I think I know, in a vague sort of way
that I am afraid of endings.

I find myself avoiding my study notes for end of year finals,
not because I think I'll do badly,
(I am confident in A's and B's)
but because it signals a point of no return.

And I'm not afraid of all endings, I don't think.
Leastwise, I'm not afraid of dying.
(Death is the ultimate end, right?)

I just don't want this year to end.
I don't want to graduate,
but I don't want to drop out.
I want to stay in school and keep learning,
continuously,
my future fast approaching and never arriving.

I know I'll fail to keep in touch with friends when summer starts,
so I'll have to start from scratch like I do every year,
and I hate it. I hate it so much, but it never changes.

I know I'll slip into a drowsy, half-awake state day after school end
and this terrifies me,
because I don't know if I'll come back after.
It'd be like being trapped in limbo.

I want to be successful.
I want to grow up, maybe start a family.
At some point I want to live my future,
but can I live in this moment for now?
Can't I move on when I'm ready?

Maybe my real fear is that I'll never be ready.

h.f.m.

Just. Eat a bowl of cereal.
Sit on the kitchen floor carefully so the milk doesn't spill, scoop the flakes into your mouth by the streetlights filtering in through the window.

Or climb out onto the roof.
Slip out your window, hip braced on the edge, and use your arms to pull yourself up, crossing your legs on the shingles and breathing in the stardust swirling around your head.

Create a masterpiece.
Dip a brush in some paint, use your hands to shape clay, choreograph a dance, script a play, write a poem, draw a spring day.

Make a blanket fort.
Tuck the blankets over the couch, pad the floor with cushions, and flick on the TV, so you can watch cartoons while wrapped in warmth like when you were a child.

Stargaze in the backyard.
Tiptoe out the back door, quilt tugged tight around your shoulders, spread it out over the dewy grass and stretch out, facing the clouds and counting the stars.

Learn Morse Code.
-.-. --- -. ...- . .-. ... .     .-- .. - ....     -.-- --- ..- .-. ... . .-.. ..-.     .. -.     - .... .     -.. .- .-. -.- --..--     -.- . . .--. .. -. --.     -.-- --- ..- .-.     ... . -.-. .-. . - ...     -... . - .-- . . -.     -.-- --- ..-     .- -. -..     - .... .     ... .. .-.. ...- . .-.     -- --- --- -. .-.-.-

Have a shower.
Run the water hot so it'll burn when it hits your back, shed your clothes and step into the steam, breathing in the vapors and imagining that you stand in the heart of a geyser.

Go back to sleep...?
No, this elusive peace is distinctly one with the night, and it would be foolish indeed to throw away such a gift merely to function during the bland sunlight hours.

h.f.m.