My theory about reality
is that it does not exist.
Reality is a figment of the mind,
which can be morphed, twisted, and altered,
based on how the individual sees fit.
Reality rests in one’s perception—
flimsy and weak.
It can be tweaked easily.
I used to do it all the time.
For a while, my reality was endangered,
because my mind was constantly hanging
off the edge of a steep cliff.
I fed it with colorful substances
that made my vision fuzzy 'round the edges
and left my fingers tingling
as if licked by electricity.
Manipulating my perception took on
a graceful, gradual easiness,
and life was less painful that way;
objects and thoughts became
murky, dull, and intangible—
like lying in a pile of clouds
and fluffy, cotton candy pillows
while the whole world passes you by.
Everyone you glance at
is in dark robes, their faces plastered
with stern expressions, but you
are the only one smiling
and the only one wearing white.
It felt nice, simply, and so
that’s why I did it,
and that’s why I did not stop.
Facing reality is too difficult
when you are drained and feeble.
It’s a truth I still acknowledge
from time to time, when my feet
are too tired to walk and my hands
are too tired to play.
He was dead too, I believe—
deep, deep inside—
but he never let me see that weakness
even though I suspected it
and tried to find it.
I knew it was there in him,
that same thing I had that made my knees
wobbly. He was good
at pretending and perhaps
that was why I really loved him.
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 1:19 AM UTC
when I pour ***** **** on my wounds
so I can sleep in the pain
that burns a hole in my chest when I drain
away the **** with a side of *******
it's as if I'm winning it all--but in the end
I've only lost myself in the fall;
from the finest of nights to the poorest of woes,
I'm throwing just for throws 'cause I've got nothing to hold
‘cept you when I'm gone, done escape from this world
to sounds of shot glasses shattering insane,
blood falling like rain;
**** **** I'm out--
I ain't playin' this game."
In too far, don't know how it'd begun;
Don't know the difference
between dying and fun, it's all the same--
There's lipstick smeared on my name, whiskey flaming
too bright ***** can't even put it out
so I shout, hoping you'll pull me out,
push me down, **** me out--
It's over, I'm done.
Jul 18, 2015
Jul 18, 2015 at 10:21 AM UTC
"I wouldn't say I'm happy," she breathes,
cigarette smoke drifting from her fingertips
and diffusing into her tousled, coffee-brown hair.
"But I'm not sad either, no--not exactly.
I feel very...empty. Yes, very much indeed."
We sit together at a small table
at a corner cafe
separated, but somehow a part of
the busyness of the city street.
As we sip our teas,
we watch the cars, people, pets
materialize, flicker, and disappear--
she, with a heavy, languid weariness
that peeks out underneath
her black eyeliner and dark eye circles;
and me, as if
I am looking behind a glass screen.
She laughs softly, bitterly.
Blows out more smoke.
Sips more tea.
I stare at the condensation forming
on the inside of my cup,
see the droplets accumulate only to fall
down again into my sea of tea.
"You see, life moves in circles."
With her cigarette, she outlines a rough circle in midair,
producing swirling trails of smoke that solidify,
then diffuse into nothingness.
"Infinite, never-ending cycles that take you
right back to the starting point.
It's happened always,
now, in the past, and
will continue to happen.
And it's an unstoppable force
that of which we have little influence upon.
"But no, cycles are necessary.
They are there in nature, and naturally
also exist in society."
She pauses.
"But there is an unspoken pointlessness
to this cycle of life."
She stops talking and so we drink our teas
together,
silently.
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 2:55 AM UTC
I don't want to be
one of those girls that need love
but I think I am.
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 3:15 AM UTC
sometimes when you aren't looking,
I gaze at you the way
a painter gazes at his artwork in a museum,
like you are mine but not mine all at once.
my eyes run along the scar on your forehead
to the brown leather shoes you have on your feet
and my hands comb through your thick, black hair
and trace lines on the back of your pianist hands.
I am inspecting you silently and wondering
why and how you have become mine
and asking myself in tiny whispers
why and how you will eventually leave me.
but you bicker and laugh with me
like you have not a care in the world--
like this moment with me will keep replaying for eternity
until we both drop down from old age and die--
and for a moment, I believe that too
so I pull a veil over my worries and smile.
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 6:15 PM UTC
Maybe tomorrow, I'll fade away
and all the mistakes I've made
they'll stay
and haunt the Earth for years to come.
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 1:26 AM UTC
yesterday, my body vanished
and found itself in somewhere new.
and when it awoke
a bed of grass lay beneath it;
a lawn of wildflowers
tossed among the green
like cherry tomatoes in a salad bowl.
the sun reached out behind
faint wisps of white, marshmallow clouds
and its light swathed my body
in dazzling streams of melted, glittering gold--
warming and kissing and seeping.
as my body watched the small birds flit
from branch to branch
throughout the meadow,
I think it knew
that I was absent--
****** into the real world
as if by a tornado.
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 2:19 PM UTC
The seething cold that seeps into his skin pores
bleeds into his wooden guitar too—
and when he plays, all I hear
are Heaven’s tears pounding on the rooftop
like discordant footsteps in an empty room.
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 12:42 AM UTC
It is living that brings forth words
and shapes them into sentences inside my head.
Sometimes they are beautiful,
but usually, they make my palms sweaty
and my chest hurt, as if my lungs
have expanded too large
for my rib cage to contain.
Today, the words
come to me in slow rhythms,
like two lovers waltzing.
I love these days the best,
when I sit at my kitchen table
and gaze outside across the street
while the afternoon sun warms the side
of my body, my head cool and calm.
I twirl a spoon in one hand
absentmindedly,
rest my head on the other hand.
I wish the sparrows would sing
like they usually do,
but today, they seem
to have gotten tired of it.
They are all scattered across the front yard,
little flecks of light brown splashed
in between splotches of grass and cement.
I see one perched on the top
of my mailbox, its head in my direction.
Words sprout out from the fountain inside
my head, and suddenly I am crooning,
Sing, little bird, sing.
I gaze at the sparrow intensely,
urging it to understand. It ***** its head at me
and then flies away in the other direction.
...
The next time I wake, the words flow
angrily.
They stain my head
like splattered ink,
and no matter how vigorously I rub at them,
they are there,
as black as the soles of my shoes.
The sun won’t reach me today, because I refuse
to let it. Living is safer
in my room, where I am shielded
by walls and doors, cocooned
by blankets and shawls.
My mother taps lightly on my door,
begging me to return
to the outside world,
but I keep the bitter sentences
I have formed
from slipping past my lips
and curl tightly against my pillow.
I am done with pretending. I am done with words.
Living would be easier if I could shut them out the same way
I shut everyone else out.
On days like these, I like to imagine
that I have a little hole in my skull,
and when I tilt my head just right,
the words pour out in dark streams.
Then they will be irretrievable,
gone forever like the silence I wish
I could give myself again.
Feb 16, 2014
Feb 16, 2014 at 12:36 AM UTC
Whisper to me softly
like fingers grazing on skin--
slow breaths like early spring mornings
and riverside freshness in the autumn,
emptying both warmth and coolness
into my lungs like liquor drunk in sips;
a clump of lace bunched in my hands.
Whisper to me softly
like the wind whispers to the leaves;
each word a caress on your lips and on my chest,
heaving with desire and emotion and wanting
to collide our bodies violently into one.
Of gazing eyes and tender limbs,
curves of light and dark on bare skin,
full in your words, full in your arms
of whispers held for solely me.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 9:40 PM UTC