I like to think that the real world doesn't contain color;
That it is only by mechanisms of human interpretation
That we attribute green to new budding life on spring branches,
And pink to the under bellies of clouds in winter sunsets.
That it has been developed by our species like language
In our race to improve human experience
Created as we were pushed forward by human nature.
I like to think of human nature as the only constant,
Human nature as the driving force behind nature itself.
Nature, which we have always taken as greater than ourselves,
But what can be greater than we
When we are the determiners
Of what we see around us?
Who can draw a line between perception and reality
When we can only perceive our own separate realities in truth?
A line we've never crossed to draw our own conclusions
Is to allude to the possibility that what we see isn't reality,
That reality is really only our means of defining
The parameters of our lives,
Colorless or otherwise.
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 4:58 PM UTC
it's strange
to see a river spring into being
violently churning
but without sound
to see sticks and even trees swept away down its length
but not feel its current's tugging pull
you wonder whether the river is real
or nothing but an imagined torrent
but the waves lapping at your feet cannot lie
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 4:54 PM UTC
I'm looking down a forested path
Winter white
clings to the rich brown branches
And misty fog
hangs like heavy hope in the air
sun shines
seemingly brighter
than its typical summer rays
As it is reflected
in crystalline daggers
The atmosphere
is set for a jovial run to the end
But I only wish
that I was at that foggy gray expanse
between the trees
seemingly too tight together
farther on
I want to be there
Yet the trip is unimaginable
The snowy ground
sparkling in the sun impassible
Clinging snow
sure to weigh on my feet
Causing me to break
one more perfect surface of white
as my last act
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 4:52 PM UTC
The greatest of distances separated us,
but being abrasive at best,
our two rougher edges always sparked.
Even when friendly,
a side conversing of judgement
and not-quite-resentment
kept the parameters of conversation
shallow and narrow minded.
Deeper inference
caused interference
like static in my mind,
and short circuits were common
even in the most civil of discussions
common to other circles.
Round and round,
wishes to connect and
a secret bid for volatile collision
kept us chasing,
while a wary voice forced us to stay separated
like magnets pushing and pulling.
Never did two people
hate so many common things
and yet repulse each other so completely.
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 4:50 PM UTC
You're asleep
As I pace floors
Circling
Not needing the cliche to think
Because I know what I should say to you
You're asleep
Because you need your rest
And on a recovery bed from emotional scars left by yours truly,
Maybe that's justified.
I'm awake,
Because this mind doesn't rest
My skin doesn't scar
And my recovery bed is the pacing, as I recover from emotional scars left by yours truly.
Pacing
I've been thinking
About what you told me
I've been thinking about
how We have to talk about the thing
That happened when we were new and didnt know consequence
When recovery beds were not needed and even scorned
And you have to realize I'm trying to comply with your tell-all policy
And I hate to nag you
And you know I'm not this person who drags back up
A warning flare burning for yesterday
So I'm sorry; you're welcome.
I've been thinking about how my accidental mistake brought iron fist repercussions and threats
And now when you have a cold-thought fault I have presented you not with rebuke but apologies and
"Just make sure you're okay"
It hurts not to hurt
Skin that doesn't scar itches
And I choke on blood from internal bleeding where I've managed to lay my scars every time I open my mouth to say "I'm okay with it"
I'm not. Obviously.
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 4:46 PM UTC
The iron in my blood has grown too heavy
The only sensation
I have
is anxiety:
the about-to-jump uneasiness of limb
without the adrenaline.
The lump in your throat
almost heartburn like heart ache
but aches have faded to numbness.
I'm dumb.
And founded on this quiet existence
of waiting for the next hill to climb.
Wryly smiling
at the slightest hint of a plateau
and shattering its mirage.
A barrage is barring the beatings of a heart
that I've often questioned existentially
in nights as dark as my thoughts
and equally as empty.
Every relief
stands in cold contrast
to all my other anxieties-
building up their mounds
to amounts unspeakable
in the crowded, concentrated ball
which has made it's way to my throat.
It's heavy.
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 4:57 PM UTC
I want to look up at the stars in wonder again,
To gaze up at those markers of other worlds
And for once not notice the Earth spinning beneath me.
To compose songs based on their rhythmic twinklings.
I want to imagine constellations,
Write great ballads to their heroes
and odes to their determination to shine surrounded by inky velvet.
I want to paint their brightness and endless possibility for stories
On the canvas of my chest
And carry them with me even in the day.
I will always have a clear sky in my heart
so that I will never be plagued
by grey clouds
and starless nights that sink into me with their lack of light.
I want to look into myself and see those points of brilliance.
I want to draw lines between what lights me up inside
and form constellations to memorize and explore.
I want this blackness of the night that resides in my mind to be broken,
Pierced by shafts of light travelling from fires in my core.
And on my cloudy nights,
I’ll use that light to paint my own stars into the sky.
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 4:49 PM UTC
When was the last time that you took a full breath?
And don't tell me "on the weekend" or when you got home today.
I mean without that feeling like your throat might close in halfway through.
A breath
without a stress headache pulsating in the background.
I mean without your sleeplessness telling you to slow your breathing
to lay down a while,
take another breath
and another
and close your eyes.
I mean a breath before the long nights, the headache-blurred vision and this brutal self evaluation.
a breath
not taken underwater.
Not taken with your own hands threateningly clasped around your throat, only letting go long enough to make strokes to drive yourself under further.
You've swum so deep hoping the pressure will hold you together by sheer force, but by the time your bubbles of alarm reach the surface now they'll be too small to notice.
You think
that if you pile enough things on yourself
you wont be able to fly away.
Your dream of release is to crack into hundreds of pieces
disintegrate
finally
from the pressure you're applying from inside
and float to the surface.
You imagine it constantly.
You hear smashing mirrors
You hear windows on the brink of breaking,
squeaking in protest.
You hear glass hitting floor in crashes
but also like chimes.
You see visions of spectrums
refracted in your shards
when you hear that range of sound in your midnight imaginings
that taste like guilt.
The art of those colors,
the music of that sound,
is so alluring.
So you do- you shatter.
Crystal walls to scattered fragments that litter the floors.
You start to collect yourself
in the sinister triangles and unidentifiable shapes
that lay like splinters of a tree hit by lightning on the ground.
You'll put them together again.
You'll make art out of what was broken for so long.
You see that now,
your stark fractions have long crashed,
snapping as you walk
rattling in shining scraps
sharp on the edges
like shards of broken conscience.
You're tired of leaving a fine dust
everywhere you walk
because of the grinding every move produces.
Tired of leaving glass slivers in all that you touch.
You're frantically trying to reassemble yourself.
You'll be better this time.
But are you sure you have enough glue?
You're tainting the pieces as they cut you.
Your hands were worn before
but now they're bleeding
and scarred forever.
You hated the glass shifting inside you
but now it's embedded in your hands
and never changes.
You're like a frozen reflection
of off-kilter fragments hastily thrown back together
in the smooth mirror that you so envy.
Your cracks are now immortalized
like paintings
in the stories that the pains in your palms tell
as a new sliver resurfaces everyday.
So what do you do?
Can you melt yourself down,
knowing that being melted
you'll lose that last shred of self?
Somehow you know you'll be recast in an image not your own.
At least in pieces you were still yourself.
You've forgotten about exhaling in your efficiency.
It serves no purpose other than to allow you to fill your lungs again
so you endlessly breathe in,
your breaths becoming more
and more
and more shallow,
and if you only took the time to breathe properly
then you wouldn't have to learn to live
with how those bits of yourself sound as they shift,
because exhaling
would let them fall
into place.
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 3:43 AM UTC
Hello?
Is anyone there?
We're in a lonely vessel
on seas of a size beyond the parameters
of what we can imagine.
We're a lost ship
riding tides,
tearing through blue mountains-
Always against the wind,
always in search of home shores
that we've lost track of on our maps.
Our charts tell us
which direction to head
but we never see the horizon change.
We can't remember anything but this,
This constant sail toward..
we don't know.
We have no goal,
no memory of home,
but something tells us this is a journey,
and aren't those supposed to have a destination?
We see bleeps on our radar,
The same size and shape as our metal shell,
but our trajectories never meet.
Your heart beat
beats out a morse code SOS
but no one hears the message.
Full-stop.
There's too much interference,
too many seagulls stop our signal,
squealing and wheeling
in those empty clouded skies.
Full-stop.
The waves are too high,
The spray too loud.
There's a storm coming, always.
The clouds advance.
Full-stop.
Too much
Too many
Too high
Too loud
A storm.
Full-stop.
Has anyone seen the shore?
Have you seen the birds land?
Where is this home?
This mother that is supposed to provide for us?
Full-stop.
The waves are bearing in
like walls of barren grey doom.
The sky shrinks
The ground shifts
You slide.
You send your final dot and dash cry out,
out to the greyness whipping you around.
Too much.
Too many.
Too high.
Too loud.
The sea,
too wide.
A storm.
Full-stop.
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 3:20 AM UTC
Priests and mothers alike laughed
when it was proposed that he is the center of everything I know.
That forces, still not understood,
push and pull me around in a spinning dance
like the ones I dreamt of before those forces took hold
and polarized my ideals.
Firmly in control,
but with his soul's solar flares reflecting my tilted axis,
fires burn in passionate eyes,
and I can see only by the light
that he casts on my life.
Finger tips brush across skin
like sunlight on morning cheeks,
each photon preserved in poetic eternity,
as it traveled through emptiness from my solar system's heart.
It's worth the dizziness of my travel
to arrive in summer close by his side
to soak in those rays,
and sneak raised glances up at skies that are his eyes,
blue as though in tribute to my oceans below.
With gazes that could move heavens
and ideas that shine as numerous
as the stars in his velvety backdrop,
heliocentricity has become a sure truth in my life.
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 11:19 PM UTC