Pain is inevitable,
Suffering is optional.
The crossroads of success,
Is always constructional.

If we could become tress,
Solid and stoic, deep rooted
In Mother Earth's flesh;
We could stand firm
Through the tempest, unswayed.

But we are only humans.
Covered in darkness.
Hiding behind our fears,
Timidly withdrawing from
The ominous tempest.

So, embrace the fury,
The daunting gales that
Once were scary.
After all, you can't
Stop the waves,
But you can learn to surf.

And even if you sank,
Deeper into the void,
At least you'll drown
Knowing there was
Beauty In The Struggle.

it's not that i'm afraid
of how you will react
the words just
scar my skin
as they leave my mouth

The world is waiting
to hear your thoughts once again.
When will you write more?

6:54 PM
9/1/21

for a moment, i can feel
the weight of your wings
between the palms of my hands
i can imagine the struggle
you've endured, yet still
sing your blue-bird song
and when you slip your feathers
through the strands of my hair
for a moment, i can feel
we are two small souls, connected

PorcelainTears [Anna-Maria]
November 14, 2020

the stress was messing with
her periods
so she got even more
stressed as a result

Oh, and that guy she met
through the dating app, he considered
himself catfished. Why?
She looked like
in the
pictures. No difference.

More stress...

It all started with the premature
death of her
mother
And then there was
the messy divorce and all that
But she didn't wanna think
about it

There was only one way to cope
with the stress

She sat on the couch
and turned the TV on
and got the
nail clippers out of her makeup kit
and used
them to chip pieces of skin
off her knuckles
and then chew them like sunflower seeds

it worked wonders
as a stress relief technique

The skin of her
hands looked very much like
Swiss cheese but
the dents were rimmed with redness

She watched her hands
as she chewed on the pieces of skin
and then it hit her
"Oh God! I'm such
a *******. I forgot to take off my
wedding ring.
No wonder the guy considered
himself catfished. He
saw my hands and
thought I was some unhappy
wife looking for hookups. Oh dear..."

he was a doctor

*******, they were looking at
a doctor
He came into the casino in a suit,
the same suit every day and night
dark gray
shiny with grease around the
elbows and lower back
smelly
patched up in places

he kinda forgot what it was like to be
sober

and lately he kinda forgot what
it was like to win at the slot machines

he forgot how to perform surgery
how to diagnose a patient

forgot what the company of a woman felt like

forgot what love was

he was a machine that consumed cheap
but strong alcohol
Rubbing alcohol filtered through bread
That stuff was 70% alcohol
his liver knew it

"Ah, pleaseeee, for the love of God, don't
make me work with this
stuff again," he would scream while
playing at the slot machine

and the bouncer would walk up to him
and say, "Hey, hey, doc. Everything all right, man?"

"Oh, sorry. That was my liver shouting
through my mouth. He's a *****."

They say companies that deliver food
get very suspicious when their
regular customers,
the people who order every day,
stop ordering all of a sudden
They even check on them

Well, we don't deliver food
but we got really concerned when
our favorite doctor stopped
showing up
all of a sudden

Maybe our managers would've checked
up on him but
there was no phone to call
and no door to knock on

Still, one of our boys went to the nearby
park and asked the homeless men around
for our favorite doctor
and the man handed him a
newspaper

****,
it wasn't even on the front page
there was some political **** on the
front page
Nobody gave a **** about that article

The real thing was a few pages
after, not even colored
HOMELESS MAN DIES AFTER TRYING TO
PERFORM SURGERY ON HIMSELF
IN PUBLIC RESTROOM

That was a doctor with guts
Guts pouring out of him
straight into the sink
and another cluster found in the toilet

We framed the article and pasted
it on a board in the back room
of the casino

our very own patron saint

The stars still tell me
stories about you and I'm
so glad I listened

3:57 PM
2/11/20