fluttering wings in morning sun
handsome bugs filled with beauty
a myriad of lustrous peculiarity

“I only wish I had your talent.”

No.

Being a poet is not as much of a gift as you would like to believe.

You are forced by your own internal writer
to measure your thoughts perfectly
and pile them pristinely
onto a piece of piercing paper
that wishes
nothing more
than your emotional demise.

Mapping out every thought and emotion
is not a gift,
but a burden.

The more language you know,
the less words you seem to find
to describe the ever growing complexity
of the depths of your mind.

Being a poet is not a gift at the best of times.

I’m not okay, but that’s okay.
I don’t need to be okay all the time.
I don’t want to be okay all the time.

That’s unreasonable.

I’m not okay, but that’s okay.
Waves wash over me in each gulp of broken breath I take.
Waves wash down my cheeks in every glimpse of this greyscale world I get.

It seems unreasonable.

To not be okay, is it really okay?
To have thoughts of everything in a field of nothing?
To believe you are nothing in the moment you are the most something?

It’s unreasonable.

I’m not okay, but that’s okay.
I won’t be okay all the time.
I can’t be okay all the time.

Unreasonable.

I’ve said it so much that okay has become unreasonable,
that a word repeated has lost all meaning
and all emotion.
It has lost structure and no longer looks of a word,
but the remnants of one.

Explain how a word that can be simplified to but two letters can lose all meaning.

It’s not okay.
It’s unreasonable.

I don’t need people to tell me that life will be okay.

I need people to tell me that life *****.
That these lows are inevitable,
and that you cannot undo what is deemed inevitable.

These lows are what drive us to our highs.

I don’t need people telling me sweet nothings.
I don’t need feigned reassurance of a better future,
but acknowledgement of a ****** present.

Is that so much to ask?

You can’t find love without loss;
You can’t find joy without pain;
If you don’t go through hardship,
Life would stay the same.

It’s knowing what’s the worst
That lets you love the best,
And every moment in between
Is nothing like the rest.

The people that you fight for
Are the people you should keep;
If they’re worth every breath,
Believe in faith and leap.

If they bring joy in the pain
And provide love in the loss,
Then it was written in the stars
For your two paths to cross.

It seems cliché and cheesy,
But this much can be true:
You must mean every word
When you tell them, ‘I love you.’

I am always told
Patience is but a virtue
I do not possess.

I never sleep,
Never breathe,
Never eat,
Never heave.

I watch others as they run,
Running out of time,
And their broken hourglass,
Is what I claim as mine.

The souls of the grieving,
Give me no remorse,
A job I must complete,
Successful by brute force.

I am needed everywhere,
But needed nowhere too,
For I lurk the wailing halls,
With only a job to do.

I have no time to sit and cry,
No time left for my own,
I wander the Earth’s surface,
Searching only for my home.

I know I will not find it,
My company is not yearned,
And over millions of years,
‘Tis the only lesson I learned.

People wait for me to show,
As they grasp for breath,
But I am not wanted here,
For my name is Death.