People often make themselves feel better in times of despair by quoting that there must be darkness to see the light.
I suppose I see things a little differently, without darkness, I have nothing.
And by that I mean that by ridding my life of negative influences and hostility, I have realized that I have nothing left.
I am an empty carcass, cracked down the spine with no light inside to leak out into the black room.
I am looking to replace the bulbs in my organs if I can find the right ones, but I don't know the difference between halogen and fluorescent and the sparks in my brain are starting to dull as well, there are also cracks in my skull, but that's not the only way I can tell..

So,
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please call..

Things have been feeling very off for me.
I wake up and stare at the light coming in my window and wish I could live in a timelapse and watch the sun set and rise and set again within seconds that I didn't have to be truly present for.
I'm searching for life's purpose and the little joys in between but I'm tired of looking so it's not very thorough.
I don't want to read books, or play piano, or paint flowers, or talk to friends (not that I have any, anyway) and I don't even have the desire to drink wine all night or try to impress you.
My heart feels heavy and my brain feels empty and really I think the problem is that I haven't been feeling anything lately.
The numbness has taken over and turned me into some sort of zombie that doesn't even have the energy to eat.

there are always those people that you can never abandon your affinity for, the very first poem I was proud enough of to share with people is about the same person i'm writing about tonight.
the one soul I was so close to learning and yet, never got the chance to.
I don't think I'll ever stop trying, however, these days I hear from you on days far and in between.
and that's the way it will be and it's the way it's always been and now it has to be that way but i never wanted it to be.

some nights i have dreams of ventriloquist dummies leaking ink and tsunamis washing over me and some nights i have dreams of you leaving me and sometimes i wake up crying hysterically but never because of the dolls or waves

I look back at those words and wonder if they meant anything, and convince myself they weren't ever written for me anyway.
It's not very hard to do that anyway because of the words later spoken that overshadow and contradict the previous ones.
I have always been in denial, despite the opinions of others, that they were ever there for me.
But after accepting that it's a possibilty, I wonder even more so how you could say such lovely things, then turn around and **** me.

I hope you can write that sweetly again one day and mean it.

December 31st, 2016
Sometime around 10:40pm
On a balcony in the closest thing to a mansion I've ever been in
The weather was the worst weather for a New Years Eve party I'd ever seen and yet, there we both were, on that balcony overlooking a dark and foggy field under electric blue lights shining upon red solo cups.
I first noticed your sweater, where a hypothetical pocket would be, a little girl in a yellow dress holding a purple umbrella, standing in the rain. Salt?
Salt.
I then noticed how you looked European, only to find out you're from Florida, but living in New York. I didn't get that information from you, your cousin filled me on who you were.
At some point, I was in conversation with some friends sitting under the blue lights, with a small plastic pastel pink cup filled with chardonnay, and as you walked past me, you quickly tapped the tip of your beer bottle on the rim of my cup, a tiny toast, without even looking at me, and you just kept walking to wherever you were walking to on the balcony. I'm not sure what about that exact clink intrigued me, but I looked down and smiled at my cup in thought for a few moments. I ended up observing your mannerisms for the rest of night.
You had a cigarette tucked behind your ear, a sinister but pristine set of white teeth behind pink lips. The bags under your eyes complimented the blue in a way that when I looked into them I could see the nights spent awake, probably at a skate park, or some ***** New York alley, smoking *** with girls with septum rings and stiletto nails.
I moved closer to the table to see who was winning the game, like I always do when I don't feel like engaging in small talk with old acquaintances. You mocked me for my black and mild and asked to have a hit. You offered to share your behind-the-ear cigarette with me and I accepted, and lit it with my flannel pocket lighter.
We passed it back and forth while you tossed a ping pong ball back and forth across the table.
At 11:40, I left without saying goodbye to run towards my midnight kiss, and made it just in time. I'm not sure if you got a midnight kiss.
I hope you did, under the fireworks. But something about you makes me feel like you didn't deserve one. You looked like trouble. But I don't know anything about you except that you said you were twenty one which I'm almost sure was a lie, off about five years, give or take.
Our meeting was brief and both pleasant and bizarre.
The fact that we met in Louisiana was a lucky happenstance.
I'm not sure if I'd even say lucky. Our chance meeting has had no true effect on me, except perhaps, maybe next time I pull out the salt from the top shelf of my pantry, I'll think of you and smile in that weird sinister way you do.

January 3rd, 2017
9:05 pm**
I was closing the coffee shop after a long downtempo day. I had almost everything done when my boss texted saying he had some things to do, and that he'd be there soon. He told me he brought a friend, named Elif (which I later secretly googled in the office to learn the origin of) that he would like me to meet. "You'll like her."
And I think I have just laid eyes on possibly the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.
I shielded my irritated pink eye behind my hair, along with rosy cheeks at the sight of her.
There she stood, tanned skin, long brown hair with blonde tips, a soft smile, softer brown eyes, natural thick eyebrows, a septum ring, green socks over stockings with flats, a mustard yellow cardigan, her own handmade crystal beaded bracelets up her arm.
God, where did he find this girl?

He made us lattes, and we talked about my tattoo that she inquired about, but she'd never heard of Shel Silverstein and I was afraid to make a fool of myself and say something dumb so I kept the explanation short and sweet.
She held a peppermint mocha latte with whipped cream up to her lips and inhaled with a soft smile, and I wish I could've captured that moment forever, it was so sweet and heartwarming, to look at her small figure like her core was gravitating up into the cup, her shoulders right below her ears, her fingers wrapped around the red paper mug.
As he pulled a shot of espresso for me, steaming whole milk even though I mentioned I'd rather almond milk ("it's better for latte art"; showoff) he mocked me for always showing up late, but she thanked me because the way things worked out, he was able to leave early to spend more time with her because of my mistake, and I claimed it was what the universe wanted to happen, and she laughed. And that felt nice, to hear how she laughed.
She was so soft, but also genuinely easy to talk to, and thrilled to talk to me, and she was just so cool. so so cool.
She leaves tomorrow morning to return home to Georgia, not Turkey, like I thought, which we both agreed would have been sad.
I wish I did not get introduced to her the night before she leaves, but I am glad that he knows me well enough to know that I would greatly enjoy her presence, even if only for a short while.

I will add that he had little love marks on his throat, I'm sure which were from her, and that makes me very very happy to know that he has found someone that I think is almost as interesting and dynamic as he is.

I hope to see her again. She said she'd make me a crystal bracelet and gave me her email.
Maybe one day I could email her and maybe if I ever happened to end up in Georgia, or her, back here, we could have a cup of coffee together and I could read her The Light in The Attic.

sometimes i want to scream at the top of my lungs
the way you do in the car randomly
i bet it feels exhilarating when ya need it
but those walls were thin and these are too
so I'm forever left to sob in silence