I toss and turn.

dreading the concept that I might not be living up to my potential.

I sit with a bottle of whiskey before I am comforted into believing that I can sleep.

I still don't believe it however.

Maybe it's the drugs but maybe it isn't.

Either way I am enslaved by the desire for progression.

It looks healthy on the outside, haha, truthfully it's haunting on the inside.

Perhaps I just need some more prescription drugs from my Doctor.

Part I

[1/21, 23:37]

Will a day come where I no longer need to run, from the fears entrapped in my mind?

Can I just decide to leave them behind? Is  the choice even mine to make? Or is this a designated - haunting - punishment by fate?

Whatever the answer
I can't run any faster from the shadows that swallow my mind.

They follow my moves every step of the way - am I a fool for even trying to get away?

This game of hide and seek
I don't know how to play -
wherever I hide they seem to find and no matter how much I seek I feel   I n c o m p l e t e.


Will there be an extinction of this sorrow? Or will they be here tomorrow? Waking me with a pressure on my chest.

I promised I'd try my best...

I just don't know how to break out from this intricate mess - Each day I feel -
            
less and less.

Until the only thing left is this
                  PRESSURE
                on my chest.

But I will still run and fight off the fear of tonight - my stength slowly drying.

They say every cloud has a silver lining? I hope they're right because my precious mind Is slowly

D y i n g.

Part II

I square up with my worthy opponent because I'm not dead yet.

I feel the fear in my eyes
    And I see it in his.

But who on earth wins when it's
                 me vs me?

The one that leaves me
        perfectly free

-All I'm trying to do-

Is free myself from me.

If you want to see a girl leave you;

Tell her she's beautiful.
Tell her she's perfect.

If that doesn't work -

Tell her you love her

I close my eyes.
I remember the day.
My heart barren and dry.

I caught a glimpse of happiness in your eyes. In your smile.
It was the first time I believed that maybe I could be happy too.
It was the day you set my heart's dry landscape combusting into flames.

                                     You promised me you’d stay.
                                                           ­ …

I tried to hold on! I did!
But every memory of your scent, your soul, your touch, melted through the gaps in my clutched fist.
reduced to ash.
Just like the rest of me.
The flames. Still burning, but aimlessly, searching every inch of my being for you.

But there was              
                        
                                Nothing

to be found in an evacuated heart.

You watched...
From a distance.
Your smile no longer recognizable to me, as the insatiable flames grasped and clawed its way through my soul.


Then, it stopped. Your fire, suffocating itself to sleep.

. It was done.
..   I opened my eyes. and saw
.....   from the ash of what used to be,
..........
...............
....................
................­...........
..................................
A brave soul sprouting...

© John Paul Fraser

He achieved great things.
   And so did she.
     They stopped wars; Fed the hungry;
       Clothed the naked; Cured diseases;
         They chased after their dreams
           and in doing so they changed the
             world.

                What motivated them?
                        
Time;

                 They knew that time was
                impatient;
      
               They knew there was no
              negotiating with time;

            They knew that this World was
           waiting impatiently for them to
         reunite with the Earth from
        which they Arose.

      Every night they whispered a
     reminder to each other;
       'Time is  r u n n i n g    o  u  t'

   Until one night it.
.....................................
Go now, child! Do it!
Change the world around you!
We don't have much time.

My Girl.

She was not mine to keep.
They tell me it was for the best.
Besides, is anything really to keep?

Maybe I am meant to cherish the times I held her in my arms.
In those moments it felt as if that was what my arms were made for.

I thought she felt loved. I thought she felt safe.

Didn't s h e?

She returned to the arms of the very man who drove her into mine from the start.

Maybe she expected more from me, I don’t know.
I can live with never finding out why she left.

The one thing I cannot get myself to do,
is find another reason to allow my arms to make another soul feel safe.

I guess there is one thing I get to keep….
…… my arms to myself.

From everyone. Everywhere.
Why do they not see the good in what I have done?
By choice they label me, persecute me.
The pressure.
                 Pushing
                 me
                 down.
So heavy.
I’m strong but it seems as if this battle was designed for me to lose.
I cannot lose!
There was something inside me that I couldn’t let die.

Why are they doing this to me?
Are they scared? They fear what they cannot control?

                 ‘Yes’  My soul whispered.
         ‘but so are you’  he continued.

I faced them, all of them. Alone!
They buried me in the earth that day.
In a dead and lifeless landscape.

The earth, warm. Held me.

                  ‘Why have you taken so long’  she whispered

I couldn’t answer.
She collected my tears with caution and precision.
The more I cried, the more the landscape flourished.
Life sprouted, excitedly.

I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore.
My tears ran out.
Under pressure to maintain the new life.

I turned to her, already knowing what I was going to say…
                
She answered;
                    ‘Be still my child, your time of tears is over,
                     there is another, like you, who will be here soon.’

Like a blank canvass I entered her life.

Like a set of pastel crayons she coloured mine:

She taught me how to live, she taught me how to smile;

She taught me how to lie;

She taught me how to dream.

And in the end, she taught me how to cry.

We must accept that we cannot blame the mirror for what we see when we look into it.

To do this would be self induced delusion. ©

John Paul Fraser

I can't get myself to allow another human to hold my heart.

Not because of the fear that they might break it.

Instead that my broken heart, in pieces, shaped with sharp edges will hurt them.

Take a rose for example, it's thorns prevent you from holding on to it, you might put up with a cut or two but after a while no matter how beautiful the rose is - you will let it go.

As the rose is better enjoyed admiring from arms length, so am I.

As the rose grows until picked by someone elses hand, so am I.

So let me go. Let me grow.

Admire from afar. I've seen my mark in too many people's scars.

John Paul Fraser (c)

Am I delusional as they say hearing my declarations

Am I favoured as they boast in my achievements

Am I wrong or am I right

Do I speak a language foreign to that accepted by our societal limitations?

Am I the only one who believes in the power of the human soul?

Can someone please tell me what's going on, what is real, what is true

because I'm losing my mind trying to figure out what next to do

To go all in or to fold for another chance -

   but - we never know if that chance will come

All we can do is hope.

I hope that I am I am true.