Take a trip inside of my mind
But be warned that there are worse things than
Lions, and tigers, and bears.
The monsters that guard this jungle mind
Aren’t soft and nice when they choose to be
They are horrifying,
Bloodthirsty,
Larger than life,
All sharp teeth and horns.

Take a trip inside of my mind
But know it’s easy to get lost in
Mazes, and illusions, and metaphors.
The jigsaws aren’t easy 50 piece puzzles
They are thousands of broken words
With no guarantee
That they will fit together
Nicely-
Or at all

Take a trip inside of my mind
But remember that you will find memories
Broken, and wonderful, and messy.
These recollections will tell you who I am
They say where I came from,
fears,
dreams,
hopes,
And lack there-of.

Take a trip inside of my mind
But it isn’t overly charming between the
Monstrosities, and mazes, and memories.
If beautiful is what you were searching for
You can only find it in glimpses between
Sharp teeth,  
Broken words,
Lost hope,
And jumbled jungle vines.

So if you decide
To take a trip inside of my mind,
Take note of the
Beautiful disaster,
Organized chaos,
And sweet sorrow.
Be gentle,
Be cautious,
Be aware.
Because this is one mangled mind,
And you are one of the first
To go inside.

The world is dark
but the moon is big enough,
bright enough
to light it up just enough to make out
the dark grey silhouette
of the mountains
against the blue-grey sky.

The hustle of the day goes quiet.
The stars are out.
The night is chilly,
but warm enough
that you don’t need a jacket.

What a perfect night to be lonely.

This bittersweet sap slows time down.
It feels thick and slightly cloudy.
Its the feeling of being full and heavy.
It is happy and overbearingly sad
all at once.
But this sap
is comfortable
and welcoming.
I want the quiet night
and bittersweet sap
to last forever.

I let the rain fall upon my shoulders.
It is cold,
yet welcoming somehow.

I taste the salty sadness
as it runs in lines
down my face,
and drips off my chin.

After months of the emotional hiatus,
this storm has ended it all.

I feel the electricity welling inside me.
I wait for the lightning to strike,
before the deafening boom of thunder.

And I am awake.

For the first time in months,
I feel everything instead of nothing.
I am somber.
I am impassioned.
I am free;
to feel
and to let the feelings take me in their arms
and throw me until I can’t move.

This monsoon
is long overdue
and the numbness of emotion beats
the paralysis of feeling nothing.

A night of peace and stars with a makeshift family.
Sitting in the warm, spring night,
colored by long strings of yellow Christmas lights.
Around the patio table, we laughed and talked for hours.

But all at once,
I felt your soul go quiet.
I felt the leftover splash from the wave of sadness
that had taken you under.
Every part of my body went numb as my heart lept
to try and touch yours.

My eyes searched the others at the table.
I was the only one privy to the melancholy waves
That radiated from inside you.

My lungs felt like they were shrinking,
unable to hold too much air at once.
My brain and my heart signaled to the rest of me.
They said
“sing”
They said
“Play.”
I wanted more than anything
to have an instrument in my hands.
I wanted more than anything
to sing the happiness back into us.
Or maybe I needed to sing the sadness out,
find a way to tell the rest of them that we were sinking.

I wondered what had happened.
Was it the peace?
Did you feel guilty for feeling okay?
I couldn’t tell if it was
The liter of alcohol you’d downed
Or the same guilty sadness
That seeps from my pores every day.

If I feel your waves now
Do you feel mine?

You stumbled along the path,
Then slurred your goodbyes.
I drove you home
And you acted
Like everything was fine.