Close one eye.


                                                          ­                        L


                               What do you see?


O


                                        Now switch.


                                                       ­                 O


             Close both;
             And- open.


                                         K


Each perspective, giving light to new way.
Each angle showing its very own and personal meaning.
Every piece forming the large view of it all.

We can do this now with our thoughts,
Some might call it-
"Taking a walk in their pair of shoes".

I prefer “art”.

Simply put, you start with nothing.
From there we add stories;
Be it experience, imagination, fictional, or realistic.

The best part is each story has meaning
Ranging from deep to no meaning at all.
And from there we see coincidence, similarities, and difference.

Regardless of any one story-
Its relation (or major lack there of) to another,
Makes a picture.

Like forming the Mona Lisa from pieces of toast,
Or 9/11 from individual pictures of victims,
Every minor part has a purpose,
And every purpose give larger meaning.


      Close one eye:


W


View the items you can see without peripherals.


                                                  ­                                   I


                                    Now both:

                          T


                           Seeing not with eyes but all else that is handed to you.


                                                          ­           H


                                                             ­                                     And open:


                                                         ­                                I


Yet do not immediately place it all together.


                           N


We are not all lucky enough to be born blind, def, or dumb.
But we all have the capability to see words from letters, weeks from days, buildings from bricks.

Just because a brick is left over or a painting of a shoe sits next to a photo of an ore,
Does not give reason that it is a mistake, or unimportant
Without it, Such words would never exist.

Get It?

As a writer,
Pictures inspire the emotion:
The journal acting as the canvas,
And the pen being the brush,

And as a writer to an artist,
Black and white had never shown more beautifully.

Though as a writer dating an artist,
To view meaning within the basic lines of the world
Compares not to the placing of meaning atop the ones given.

For as a writer dating an artist,
A blank page envelopes more than unfinished work,
As any unfinished work soon becomes accepted beauty.

And as a writer dating an artist,
Seeing emotion in color no longer feels foreign,
Evolving old metaphors into nothing shy of the neanderthals.

Thus as a writer dating an artist,
I've begun to learn the way of the trade,
In fear for when my words run dry.

As an artist,
Words inspire the feelings,
The canvas acting as the journal,
And the brush being the pen.

And as an artist to a writer,
Silence had never been etched more enticing.

As the writer dating an artist-
I have become the artist in love with a writer.

I am not afraid of the dark.
Nor do I fear the thoughts in my head.

But the bugs.
Aye.
The ******* critters in my brain.

My fear, I’m afraid, is they power they have mustered-
Controlling such thoughts; destroying slumbers when days-light dims.

Like solar paneled viruses that attack at the core of emotion,
Ripping through the Limbic system.
Erasing Memory; Re-circuiting Anxiety.

Taking the wiring from retinal output and re-coding each message.
Hacking the server until ants become Godzilla
And “hello’s” read as “goodbye”.

Twitching fingers and feet that scratch at the skin.
It’s these ******* leeches in my skull that **** my nerves dry
Til I’m hot- **** no, cold.

And the extermination comes:
Sunrise.Coffee.Interaction.

It’s like they live to die by the hour of midnight,
Only to do their time through rummage and destruction.
Hatching eggs in my nails, Chewed away by discomfort.
Growing to new forms by lights out.

Rehearse.
React.
Repeat.

It’s these bugs that I fear;

Fearing the darkness.
Fearing the thoughts inside.

It’s these bugs that I even doubt this ****** piece of work.

Yet these bugs are what created what you now have read,
The over exaggeration now etched on paper.
And it is the small bit of me still left alive at night behind them,
Refusing to see this truth when the extermination has come.

It’s no plead for help; No cry for sympathy.

I am me as you are me-
So please take me as I come.

I’m a shell of a man,
In this shell of a world,
Surrounded by nothingness.

And it is this shelled life we live in,
In such a vast shelled void,
That makes us feel so empty.

But our shells are not the one which lives inside,
The five senses know not of who that shell can hide.

For some of us fill the shell to the brim with alcohol,
Til they drown the one within.

While others mutilate the shell in fiery destruction,
Finding not what is lacking beneath.

Some starve the shell down to a much thinner lining,
Suffocating the air for the internal.

Some shells are altered in design and decoration,
Rendering what feels as difference.

While the others that have kept original and the same,
Slowly grow in independence.

When we fall -crack- and our true selves leak out,
Some run and hide the broken; faking in disguise til repair.

When we can’t escape judgement for the innate shell and/or the cracks we bear,
Some leave the shells found hanging in closets or simply lying warm gun in hand.

Forgetting our gift of common sense we lack as a whole,
We define each other with what only our five senses show.

For I've found I’m a man in a shell,
In this awful illusion of a shell,
Surrounded by ignorance.

And it is this shelled world we create,
In this vast shelled void,
That makes us feel so empty.

Ask of me my troubles,
I wouldn't know where to start.
Ask to share my joy,
And I’d get lost in layers of darkness,
Simply searching for a worthy glimpse.

The thing about new lives are —
finding where the old ones end.

Why are the beginning of life stories skipped over?
An authors job is not to choose where to begin.
Why do we feel the need to fill life with action or tragedy?
An authors ending isn't created but rather written through.
Why do we force a story if it doesn't fit the mood?
The fact of the matter is, an author can only choose “when” to write.

The thing about old lives are —
deciding when the new ones begin.

Ask of me my high spirits,
I wouldn't know where not to look.
Ask to share my pain,
And I’d be blinded by the depth of light,
Simply searching for a sliver still fresh.

My problems seem to have evaporated.
Condensing into a clouded form of stress.
Only to precipitate through the cracks of my eyes in my shower tonight.