I think I wrote this 30 times not knowing how to explain or shape the sentences but here goes nothing

Pop, one pill in the morning.
This one will make you happy

Pop, one pill at lunch.
This one will make you numb.

Pop, one pill at night.
This one will make you sleep.

Pop, another, whenever.
This one, will calm your heart,
Make you get out of bed in the morning,
Make your work harder,
Make you concentrate,
Make you
Make you
Make you

Alice feels jealous, her pills make her larger or small
But not happy.
But Alice doesn't know,
After every pill,
Headache,
Nausea,
Dizziness,
Fatigue,

Alice feels, but I don't

Three hundred sixty-five days and some other dozen
After pills
Slowly but surely
I started feeling again
Sadness had a taste
And so did food
Laughter had a meaning
and so did tears.

And If you ask me what I remember of that time,
I'll tell you, not much.
It is no way to live, when you live numb
When you should feel things, but you don't.

When the struggle is no longer sadness, but the lack of it
When it is not finding happiness, but not feeling it..

Another three hundred sixty five days and some dozen
I feel things on my own
Get out of bed on my own

After pills,
I pray nothing gets in my way of feeling things on my own.

I sometimes don't want to talk to people
like everyone just gets so annoying
and I just need some 'me' time
some time alone.

and when you ask to be alone,
people find it rude and they even call you antisocial.

and when you stay amongst people with moody you
they say you're giving them attitude

like what am I supposed to do exactly
what do y'all want exactly?
why is society so freaking confusing and unappreciative
Someone tell me, Someone give me an answer please.

I never think of you
No, that's not true.
I think of you all the time

When I'm listening to a song
A movie
Or a show
I wonder if you’d like it

When I’m just sitting
Sometimes, I wish
You were there with me
(So I could make you laugh)

When you don’t text for a while
I try not to worry
(it doesn’t work)
And I hope nothing is wrong.

I say I never think of you
Because there are no fantasies
Of us in a movie
As superheroes
Spies
Or rockstars

I don’t dream of what it will be like
In ten years
Fifteen
Or twenty

I am so enamored with
What we are right now
Who you are
How you’re changing

I don’t need what-ifs
Or dream worlds
When what I’m living
Is better than anything

That I could have ever
Made up
In my head

I try this job
         I try that      
         they tell me
         That's not where I'm at
"Your not college grade material."
"Try a trade school."
         I feel the fool
        down- and- out sad
         I get the same
         from me mom and dad
"Some times tryings  not enough if your not smart enough."  "You'll have to work two jobs to everyone else's one."
          I slog on
         Shuffle my feet
         Beat the streets
         to The work man's beat
"Good jobs are for others, take what you can get." "Don't expect a lot out of life and you'll be fine."
         I try my best
         ain't good enough
         Hurled in the world
         where it's rough and tough
"Get you a bus pass and some free government cheese."  "You'll get ***** hands and need a strong back."
          Food, rent, clothes, life
          On minimum pay
          No way no way
          can this work day to day
"Find a roommate, sell your blood, collect cans, get to love 29 cent ramen noodles, you'll  be o.k."
           Thousands upon thousands
            In every city
            Ain't  pretty, real ******
            And zero pity
"Sorry but there's the "haves and the "have nots", welcome to the lousy end." "Buck up, other countries  are worse."
            While the rich get richer
             and the poor get poorer
             How did surviving in
             America
             Become such a horror
"Your the working class, blue collar, the modern day slave, get used to it. Now shut up and get back to work!!"

Hello everyone,

  I'm so very sorry … I feel horrible doing this, but I have no choice. You see, I have published my first book on Amazon/Kindle! This piece (and many others) had to be taken down because they do not allow published material to be available online for free. (Go figure) I wanted to leave the shell of the posts because I felt compelled to leave all your helpful and loving comments. (Silly sentimental, I know), but I also didn't want to just have the pieces disappear without an explanation. I feel bad enough as it is!

  I owe ALL of you so, SO much for all of your reads, love, and support. It was YOU that gave me the gumption to FINALLY get off my **** and publish! Thank you all for the warm comments, camaraderie, and encouragement! I will still be here, reading, uploading and just being the Rascal that I am. How could I EVER leave you guys?

  The book is called “The Way I See It – FictionPhilosophySoul Food” and it will be FREE for the first few days on Kindle Select, so watch for it, if you are interested. I hope that you go and grab it. If you do, I would also hope that you find it worthy, you would leave me a good review. That will help me get in the public eye! Soon afterward (2-3 days or so), it will be available in paperback.

Find the book(s) here: www.amazon.com/author/jeff.gaines

Or find the book(s), and all about me, here: www.JeffGaines.world

  Soon after, I also hope to have my first novel (a supernatural thriller), called “Wanderer” available as well!

  Wish me luck!

                                Big, Biggest Love,

                                               Jeff Gaines

Please don't think I freaked out or ran

I want you to know that there has been fire in my lungs
Since the last time I tried to love,
That the universe of your presence
Presents me with constant constellations
When your eyes spark
& That gravitational pull, you have me wrapped on
Your laugh, which you hate to hear.

I want you to know that
These heated flames cease present in the essence of your presence.
There is no air I breathe when you are near
For darling
Your hairs are galaxies
& My fingers are but comets & meteors
Traveling through this cool journey without destination.

I want you to know
That this song in your chest will always be my favourite rhythm,
With it's low-end cut synthesized *****
That puts the wind at your mercy
& leaves tastes of your lips like Hershey's

I want you to know
I have never felt more free
than when I'm in your constriction
& I will love you in every language.

I am tired, exhausted really.
I’m not getting enough sleep. Not enough is going my way.
Writing takes a piece of my soul and turns into words while meaningless by themselves becomes something with power.
Life doesn’t feel vibrant and colorful like I know it sometimes can be.
Life has instead been replaced with a gloomy, apathetic relative.
Life has been treating me unfairly, despite my best efforts.
It has left me broken and bruised and bleeding in the middle of the battlefield.
Despite my cries, nobody hears me as I continue to disintegrate into a shriveling pile of nothing.

I feel like I’m losing. No, I know that I’m losing.
Because see it’s not the battles that matter, it’s the war.
Things have changed, I’m slowly coming back to the person I used to be, unhappy with myself and with life.
I’m completely terrified of this thought but far too tired to resist.
I don’t know how to reverse, I don’t know how to find happiness.
I have lost the road map, I’m scrambling for a hand hold or some sort of sign.

I’m too tired to fight.
I’m too tired to be happy.
I’m too tired to focus on school work.
I’m too tired to push myself through 6 hours of homework a night.
I’m too tired to carry around a 40 pound backpack from class to class.
I’m too tired to find balance between healthy habits and what reality holds.
I’m too tired to effectively manage my time, I would rather self-sabotage.
I’m too tired to write, I’ve already said this.
Maybe if I got more sleep, not so much in my life would be wrong.  
I like to think that the majority of my life’s problems would be fixed with a little more balance.
Perhaps my life would look a little more like my aspirations.
Perhaps I would be happier and my eyes filled with more ambition.
Perhaps my notebooks would be filled to the brim with intelligent ideas and beautifully crafted writing.
Perhaps my life would look more like the plot to a cheesy indie film with the protagonist figuring everything out during a montage set to sentimental music. I would enjoy that.
Or
Perhaps nothing would change. And everything I imagined is nothing but an impossible world created by fractured idealist’s fuel and fabricated fiction.
I’m exhausted and tired of putting my ideas out only to have them rejected.
But that’s what writing is about. Reality, and pushing through.

Writing isn’t supposed to be infused with sugar-coated metaphors and avoidance of the truth.
Writing isn’t supposed to be lies, although that narrative is proposed often.
Writing isn’t supposed easy.
Writing is supposed to be about emotion.
Writing is about failure.
Writing is about heartbreak.
Writing is supposed to be about the rough times as much as it is about the good times.
Writing is real.
Writing is exposure.
Writing is powerful, simply because of the truth behind it.

So I will continue to write even when I don’t feel like it.
I will continue to face reality, head on with a stare colder than ice.
I will write because it’s not supposed to be easy.

I hear a train is coming
Vibrations on the ground
Speeding down the tracks
Lights flashing all around

I hear the trains heart beating
The whispers in the crowd
Something worth repeating
By someone well renowned

I hear a train is coming
Unmistakable and proud
Man made engineering
Constructed; tightly wound

A whistle in the distance
Without a shadow of a doubt
Driven and persistent
A stop in every town

I feel a train is coming
Powerful and loud
Charging to its destination
Pedal to the ground

Picking up momentum
Towards what the law allows
A spirited conundrum
Inching to the speed of sound

It’s final destination
Over leaps and bounds
Exceeding expectations
With no signs of slowing down

when she speaks her voice oozes.
humid, sticky, heavy like
fog. i beg her to talk and it bleeds into me,
seeps into my pores. cocoons me in sludge.
i feel her yellow teeth sink into my skin and i feel my fingertips buzz,
i let her tear into me. i sigh into her canine teeth like
they’re the rim of my bathtub.

i feel her scraping the filth off me,
layers of sedimentation in
bacteria and saliva.
it collects under her blackened fingernails and
pools around the edges, soft,
revolting. she peels off my epidermis and my
blood rises to the surface, basks in her presence,
makes me dizzy in its hubris.

i feel all of her, i feel her teeth grazing my
small intestine and i muster a whimper.
aren’t quick deaths supposed to be painless?
like ripping off bandaids or
snipping umbilical cords.
i admire the holes she’s left in me,
tracing their edges, treasuring her bite marks,
realizing that this is all she’s left me with.

she gave me the privilege of a shallow grave,
sticky with topsoil and my own fermentation.
i become aware of my body, all my ridges,
open wounds, angry with infection,
******* liquefied tissue, cellular debris,
pus-filled and trembling.
i make friends with the maggots.

i press on my gashes and watch decomposition seep out of my pores,
i feel my new friends feeding off me, my skin hot with embarrassment from all the attention,
and i hold my breath just to feel the strain of my lungs.

they work their way up to my jaw, giving me soft kisses down to my dermis. i think of her one last time, and how she was too soft,
too soft and yet brittle and harsh and
alarming. i think of her body, all of her parts conjoined with
scarred lacerations and freckles.
i feel her eyes dart over what’s left of me. i feel her breath on my skin.

i ask the larvae if i taste sweet.
they assure me that im rancid.