I live each day with one breath that I give to a higher power.
I never know of their identity, I know they are there.
Regardless of name or history, they remain a presence in my life.
As my next breaths come, I reach solitude.
A guitar at my side and an ink pen in my right hand is my notorious duo.
I scribble in messy cursive, letters to people they will never receive,
words that only I understand.
I question myself and everything around me,
and my eyes meet my reflection at least 5 times a day.
I am caught in my brain and I hope for less pills to swallow.
Sometimes smoke gets in my eyes.
I feel full, yet empty, and both in a good way.
I hope for love in any sense, not just romantic.
My past used to define me, and as of now, I let go.
There isn't much about me, only what I make of me.
Apr 2, 2018
Apr 2, 2018 at 7:27 PM UTC
It's fool's day, and I'm thinking of the first heartbeat
my body has shuddered.
Skin smoothed from an embryo and into the form of a human being;
I was ushered into this world 12 and 8 years late
to two parents who rose their white flags by the time I was 10
and two siblings who had endured their fair share of the family fortune: traumatizing memories and the gene pool of mental illness.
I used to think it was a farse; this "life" thing.
I believed I was sent here by mistake,
as my mom often told me I was the "surprise" to her.
I came home on Father's Day and 17 years later, my father disappeared.
But I'll remember how he and my mom formulated the lives of 3 human beings, now on completely separate paths,
and how beautiful life became on our own accord.
We're often taught that blood is thicker than water,
and that your family are your first role models.
They teach you about the world before you get the chance to be taught by the world itself.
So what they're saying must be significant, right?
No matter the pain that has been struck on me
since that heartbeat,
I'll forgive. It's the only way to make a second.
And as the blood trickles from my flesh,
on my dying bed, I'll reminince about my first breath, as I breathe my last.
Apr 2, 2018
Apr 2, 2018 at 7:20 PM UTC
When I'm driving out to Albany
My mind stirs.
"What would it be like,"
he chimes in contemplation,
" to spend a summer with her?"
So instead of Albany,
I'm driving down some bustling main street
of a town neither of us have heard of,
but I don't feel lost because I can feel her shoulder
brushing against mine.
She's poised, staring with glassy eyes out into an unknown town
with a grin painted stretched across her gentle face.
She's giddy now as her right hand meets the warm air outside.
When we finally park, it's some ****** just-of-luck spot
between a sunny corner and some person's rotting pick-up.
The sun, beaming wildly on us, is familiar now.
We're busily glancing about as we stroll down the sidewalks,
passing couples and families and an occasional man out for a smoke.
We enter shops galore and explore their depths of dumb pins, hats, posters, overpriced clothing and knick-knacks.
It's like those boring and cheesy indie movies where they're so conveniently laughing at the same thing and trying on hats regardless of where those hats may have been.
We're holding hands now, neither of us really knew when that happened, exactly, but it did, and no one complained.
Interlocked hands swaying back and forth, she leans her head against my shoulder and I feel warm inside.
I spot a small diner with chairs and tables positioned outside, and automatically knew we had to check it out.
After ordering, we sit there, waiting, and she goes on about this story of this one time her and her friends did this crazy thing back home, and I'm sitting there, smiling like a ******* ****** as I watch her gesture with excitement on the pressing details of the most intriguing events she's been on.
I'm just observing her, how the sun casts a golden halo around her, it's like I'm somewhere completely separate, just her and I.
Her laugh breaks me out of this trance, as I realize the waiter's standing right there waiting for me to move my **** arms so he can put my plate down. ****
So we eat, and after paying, I check our time,and it's about 1:30. I stand up, stretch my arms, and wrap one around her. We walk around a bit, then gather ourselves to head to the car. As we hop in, I feel this urge of impulsivity bubble up inside of me like a spring.
"We're going to the beach, ********* I declare without another word, and we're off. I let her play whatever song she wants, because anything sounds sweet when there's the tiny, slightly self conscious hum of her trying to keep along but not too loud, musing in the background.
We catch onto a song both of us know far too well, and again, it's like a **** ****** teenage indie movie. We're singing along with the windows down and the warm summer breeze breathing through the car. Everything around us is green with pure life, and the world feels as if everything is thriving and coexisting in harmony.
I don't feel as if I want to be anywhere else, even if sand gets stuck in my ******* shoes and I can't believe I have this killer sunburn.
I feel alive, and with her. It's so stupid and it's all been said before.
It's all but a dream, and I wake up in Albany.
Apr 1, 2018
Apr 1, 2018 at 10:54 PM UTC
I was told there's a difference
between embarrassment and shame,
and that if embarrassment let exist
without treatment, without care;
it soon swells into a pestering hornet's nest.
humming violently in the back of your head.
It feeds off of instinctual fear
and it sets your skin aflame.
I feel as if I'm being melted alive
and there's no way out.
I can't even find the escape route
to take a moment and see outside of this issue.
The fear of rejection overloads my system
and all at once, memories of childhood rejection
flood like a tidal wave,
wracking my core.
I'll play it off as a joke,
I'll get the option back, maybe,
But I fear everyone will look at me differently.
It's true that when I'm pushing 30,
I won't cast a second glance back at this very moment.
But everyone tells me to focus on there "here-and-now",
and I have no choice but to wallow in the existential dread
and overwhelming fear
of everyone being mad at me, being disgusted by me.
I want out.
Nov 1, 2017
Nov 1, 2017 at 6:43 PM UTC
i want to drive through the imagery
of cruising down the highway,
your dozing off figure in the passenger
and as the night wears on
and the miles pile up
we stop at a 7-11 for slurpies
and you blast Hollywood Undead
just like you always do.
windows rolled down,
summer evening breeze parading
and the chirps of diligent spring peepers
or cicadas chiming in,
and just ******* lose ourselves
in a place that is anywhere but here.
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 9:56 PM UTC
do you care?
would it matter if i showed up one day,
or never appeared again?
would i even be a passing thought?
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 6:31 PM UTC
soon enough i'll be below the ground
or perhaps decimated into ash
and captured in a marble urn
in the arms of someone i could never picture not loving
or on the mantle of a fireplace in
the home of a barely relevant
family member
claiming they only wanted the best
but sincerely because my will
included their name.
and it makes you think if anything was ever worth it
why be conceived, why hold another living being
inside of you for 9 whole months
just to watch them burn themselves alive
or suffocate while testing the limits in a frozen over lake
my lungs were never really that strong, to be honest,
and i might just convince myself of the same to my heart
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 6:30 PM UTC
i guess there's a commemoration
behind the glass walls
and a figment of imagination
will soon deform into distraught recognition
i'm so tired of craving what will only **** me eventually
but i suppose if i am to live,
it'd be the best bet to fulfill whatever i desire
in which will only harm myself
it's sorta weird to know how we were made
and crafted at the hands of the Universe
like the concept of a God was just a pitiful grain of sand.
i wish i could just let live and be
but the waves are stronger now
and i try not to let the wind sway me
because i am aware of my surroundings
as much as i can be
and i know that the second i put forth the effort
to made a dramatic change
the "Big Snooze", as Jen Sincero calls it,
will do anything in her glory to prove to me i am incapable
i am not incapable
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 6:21 PM UTC
And so tonight, I'll join the rain
with pills in my belly
and skin burning with fever
And my arms chafe
the sides of my ribcage
like Heaven never spoke
and Hell was anything more
than a dream
I will not allow
The king of pearly gates
Prisoner of Leon;
Victim to alias,
Victim by association
So you'll tattoo a human heart
Wherever you feel it should belong
I'll date you when I'm dead
I won't have to fear you
Touching another
With my scent on your palms
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 7:58 AM UTC
12:24PM, January 21, 2017. Saturday.
This feeling is like the sweat beads
Dripping down my back
On a sweltering afternoon.
I lay here in remorse,
Feeling and experiencing
Like life awakening from a coma
You were never aware you fell into.
Speaking of falling, have I mentioned that I am?
Questioning the permanency of a foolproof plan
And no one knows who or what
I'm talking about
Not a single thought in their minds
As to what the gears
Behind my eyes are creating.
A concept of solipsism,
The revolution of somnambulism;
It's why we all want to take
A psychology class but confuse
It with philosophy and end up taking both anyway.
I feel like the cotton candy at a carnival,
So many pick and choose the pink or blue
The black and blue on my ankles and chest
Hands gripped around my neck;
Sorting through what particular part of me
Makes it worth sticking through.
They want to taste what it's like
To break me down
But the second I hit the tongue,
I dissolve. I melt away,
And they are satiated,
Left forgetting me and the craving urge forevermore.
When the pen seeps through the paper
I expect to be reminded of how
Every little tear ******* burns my eyes.
They say it's because of dehydration,
The less water you drink the more salty
Your tears become.
But you'd figure after so long,
Your body would become used to the pain.
Then again, that could apply to
Most of the pain this fragmented coffin of a figure
Endures pathetically.
Am I pitiful?
Because even after years
Fighting, struggling, suffering,
Working to better myself any chance I get,
I still feel selfish for crying out.
I've lost too many people
And sometimes I wonder how
Someone so strong could become
So fragile, withered,
Wracked with debilitating illness
That they can barely stifle a single breath.
Sometimes I wonder how in a matter
Of a month, someone could go from
Talking, though strained, walking, though barely,
To completely immobile, paper-thin, codependent
Then ripped away at the seams
From those who are still now learning
Just what exactly death is.
And here you are, standing over their corpse,
Crying in silence so no one detects
The vulnerability seeping out of your pores.
Your hand is stroking their hair again,
But they're cold, stiff, devoid of any sense of future.
No light, no twitch, no remnants of the soul
You'd connected with, the one you'd spoken to
Just the day before.
They don't open their eyes then,
And the more you stare at their chest,
Thinking every couple of seconds that
You swore you saw it rise just that little bit.
You soon enough come to the abrupt realization
That there is such a thing as a permanent marker
Because I'm forever stained with the memory they've
Abandoned me with.
And I don't blame them for leaving,
I don't blame the one who took them.
The time comes and it's inevitable,
And with that notion comes the irrationality
Of being afraid of the one thing we know for certain
Will always happen to each and every one of us.
Not a doubt. No cheating death.
And so begins the process
Of desperately clinging onto the memory
Of someone you never got the chance
To properly meet in the first place.
They tell me they're better off
But not a single **** one of them looks at peace.
Not a single one looks asleep,
And not a single person can fit the lie
Into my head that they went peacefully.
That they never suffered.
That they weren't terrified
Of the door being closed on them.
That they weren't afraid to die.
I know the story, I knew the hope.
I knew the fight.
And they say it's "always darkest just before the dawn",
But I've been walking through this tunnel
So long now that I have familiarized myself
With every single **** crack in the stone,
Every patch of moss,
Fathomed obsessions over every fiber;
Unable to see the stars
While everyone else is at the planetarium.
I've been traveling for so long,
Believing this fact of hope and drive,
That I'm now starting to recognize
That this, this right here, is all a glitch.
This tunnel has no end.
And as a matter of fact, I have yet
To see any flicker of light at the farthest point
To which my eyes can see.
The only small, hopeful, good days experienced
Feel like thousand-year-old stories carved into the cave walls,
Or a smidgen of a hole in the ceiling.
And it hurts.
My feet burn from walking.
Even in my sleep, my soles meet
The cold stone floors, strolling, wandering,
Unable to stop.
I hear the trickling of water now,
Like a small babbling stream
Abandoned in this cave.
Just like me.
But now, sometimes I fear the rush.
Because I know, soon enough,
The water will overflow again,
And I will drown
Because nobody had the time or devotion,
Dedication,
To teach me how to swim.
I feel like I've lived a thousand years onwards.
Occasionally, I lay back and close my eyes,
Feel the chill of the stone wrap itself over my body
As my body temperature drops gradually
Just to listen to the stream lull me.
I'm still trying to figure out if it's because
The stream often symbolizes the foreshadowing
of the Undertaker, and I am accepting defeat;
Or if this is simply the only way that I can
not only drown not just my thoughts,
But myself.
So, I keep falling, in more ways than one
In search of that permanency,
Or at least substitution.
I crave people, because
This cave is so lonely,
And autophobia eats me alive
As people drop like flies.
So, I guess selfishness isn't a lie, after all.
Couple years past, still in a ditch.
Like this is some section to uplift,
More like a fork in the road
Or an alternate ending
When the main character isn't defeated.
But somehow, over time,
I've obtained the process of how
Moss is a life form, perhaps parasitic,
But thriving in the smallest
And most desolate crevices.
So, I've formulated a plan on how
To make rope out of this fiber.
And if this ladder fails me now,
I will come crashing back down
And break my spine.
Hopefully, if it ever were to heal,
Maybe I'll be able to conjure up
The strength of a better backbone
Because these demons glow in the dark,
And I've gotta gather up the guts
To turn on the lights once and for all.
- C.B.C.
Cecil Beau Calcifer
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 2:28 PM UTC