Why?

Was it something they said? Was it something I did?
Telling signs let flowers die, flowers bloom; to mask the dead.
Like you can't realize you're already beautiful.
Please, tell me why.

Three years.
Straight, no arguments. No fighting.
Sometimes tears,
following laughter.

The quiet moments you break down; like I would never understand. Like I'm a puppet in a house; blindly famous and largely small.
Why. Why. Why. Again? This is a feeling.

Will I ever get you back?
I hate it.

The covering, the hiding, the sadness I can only see but
can't imagine; yet am so cursed to understand.

My only hope is fake friendliness, when I'm worried,
and God I'm worried.

God. It is you. It is you who I see, you who I care so deeply for,
you who I have spent three years knowing. And it is you still that
I can see, read, when you're falling apart.

little moments in your words-
where you cut yourself off.
like what you said was dull,
when it was anything but.

little moments in your writing-
I can read between the letters,
to see to the very bottom of
you, the very core. the horror.

and in those places, where I
love to sit, where I'm neither seen
nor heard, I watch the ocean slowly
drain from you; watch you give up.

but for what i will never know

was it a combination of your pretty friends, and isolation; or a feeling that drives you to that point. Why can't you see you're pretty?
Why can't you see you're pretty?
Why can't you see you're pretty?
Why can't you see you're pretty?
Why can't you see you're pretty?

Why can't you see you're pretty?
Why can't you see you're pretty?
Why can't you see you're pretty?
Why can't you see you're pretty?

You are beautiful.
You are beautiful.
You are beautiful.
You are beautiful.

look in a mirror.

But this pain is anaphoric,
I know it so well,
sadness repeating.
Woman (reading).

it repeats, and repeats, and repeats, and repeats,
you wake up and it repeats, and sings in your head.

Today is the day!
You've finally met fate,
so why are you so low?
Succumb to the pains!

Today is a felling tree!
It was never meant to be.
Anaphoric. Woman reading.
Collapsing. Repeating.

and days will turn into years,
years to a decade,
a decade to two.
And you will never even see it leave.

get it out,
please.

I am a hymn, in a hidden drawer.
I'm just waiting to be found,
like my grandfather,
and his father
and the father
before
him.

But what if-    I am the broken shower rod,
the abandoned one?
the less-than important one?
I ask because I'm terrified
of losing more than just
myself .

Self commentary aside, are we not all
two halves of the same loaf of bread?
Destined to grow mold, or become hard and
bitter? Can we not see our own mortality until we
are truly and utterly faced with it?
I know it's just a maze.

And like my Father's son, I am a mouse looking
for cheese in the farthest corners, the deepest
pieces of my own existence.
But like cheese,
and like mice,
one day I will grow old, and wither away.

So brush the dust and burn the fur,
watch my skeleton grey.
Don't mind the mess
from the "accident."
I was never meant to stay.
No, I was never meant to stay at all.

Heightened, above it, the crane strikes down on water.
Eerie fog splits down the path of the creature.
Lore speaks that the crane caught the trout.
Lightly carrying it in it's mouth to drop it on the shore.

forget me now,
let me drip like water
to the life after,
for I am older;
far sadder than I ever
wanted to see me.
But don't forget it,
the way clouds move away,
the life that ebbs.
That is what holds us,
binds us all together to
create new lovers.

Imagine,
                   writing simply, or rather simply for yourself.
It's a bold move to pretend to be someone else.
                     and I hope that the first draft is as bad, as it could get.
But the demon in my veins tells me that it's just begun so.

I don't care if you take your time, just listen to me, just remember me.
I don't care if it hurts a little while, just listen to me, just listen please.

Because I can't hear you when you talk to me,
I have so much I need to tell you please-
listen to me. I can't wait to be heard, I need to be heard.

Something in my head hurts-   it needs to know where to start-
to take over your heart, with every boring line about the stars.
They show me what these writers really are:

Just fools afraid of death, afraid of love that leaves and life that bleeds to an end. And I hope so badly that they find happiness, or a book to read that they think is magnificent, that they can treat as a friend because--- well-

I know that feeling better than anyone I know-
when your friends say they'll reply to you, then ignore you, but they're ALWAYS on their phone. It hurts pretty bad to know that something you tricked yourself into believing was false.

It hurts even worse to know that just as they left you, they will leave others too, until they are alone.

So I hope that they find love- or something close because I can't bear thinking about their notes-   where they beg someone to stay, it really isn't hard to see that they made themselves that way.

But I hope that--

I don't know.

But you think about it all the time.

Beneath the mental nothing social media masks over our young minds, to **** us out of our individuality to buy products we neither need or use, or anyone would use.

It makes it no more surprising why I self-abuse.

Because I CAN'T STAND THE CROWD THAT BLOCKS MY VIEW OF THE OCEAN AND ALL IT'S WAVES. THEY ACT AS IF THEY WERE MEANT TO BE THERE, LIKE THEY WERE BORN TO STAND IN FRONT OF OTHERS AND MAKE THEIR LIVES SOMETHING LESS, OR INFERIOR.

But you would never hear me if you tried,
I thought I took over your heart,
no, it was just your spare time.

so I hope that-

I know that you are doing well.

I'm sorry I couldn't be there.

And all is well,

I just need to let it go,
and find a way to look over their heads to whatever is on the other side.

the grass is tall again,
and towering green, with Spring.

I never expected to fall in love with it;
but it became my lighthouse in the darkest times,
and the coldest seas. The most hidden of sanctuaries.

The earth is moving again,
and I can see every little person make some progress.

I never expected to fall in love with it;
but the people around me are like carrier birds,
transmitting my few happy thoughts to the world.
And I couldn't be more joyful, when
you became a doctor,
and you became an engineer,
and you became a real chef.

It all falls like an apple down to me, and I
wonder now, what will I become?

That is what gives me heartache,
that is what makes me feel alone, far more
than when I can't write, and I feel disposed.
They say an ocean sits beneath every thought.

So why aren't mine as well constructed as they were?
Thinking about it makes me uncomfortable, but-

I am barely seventeen and I am not the writer I used to be.
I coldly snap at everything I create, because it is never perfect,
and I am never perfect.
Nothing is ever perfect.

So I've adjusted lies to make them fit my story,
and I have become less honest in the past year.

I became so fed up with fame, and finding my way through the
commercial successes of myself, when I should have been trying to find my way to the lighthouse above the sea.  Because now I am lost in an increasing wind, and it only blows harder the more I resist.

I will leave it,
it was never worth fighting
for at all, ever.

I evoke my
freedom, I never wanted
it much anyway.

I found a foreign love,
under the covers
of a scarlet moon,

she asked me how I was,
and I replied, good, you?
She then began to walk away.

And I was left,
and I felt sick
and ill
and desperate.

For I just want to be in love, not to worry of the morning light.

I left. I'm back,
as a different person,
and a cooler cat.

Won't you come?
I mean, to sing along
with me!

I know you all despise
my poetry.

To the one person that ever read-
to this day my heart is still in dread-
and my thoughts just as thoughtless!
There's not much to be in a world
filled with coffins..

In the time we last spoke-- I mean--
my fingers with the page,
my gpa was higher- a 3.5--
and my heart was aglow.

But no- I have become what I
feared I would,
manipulative, *****, bummed
out and bitter, and
I barely noticed it.

I barely noticed it.

But thanks to coming back,
and reading through my
old catalogue--

I have found a reason
to carry on.

Similar a Saturno, cuando se comió a sus hijos para no perder su palacio.

Hay una chica tan aterradora, hermosa y divertida que vive en mi mente.

Ella es suave como las flores, y áspera como un arbusto de espinas afiladas. Pero aún así, tan hermosa como una rosa.

Se llama Maga.

Y por alguna razón, ella todavía se ocupa de mi mierda.

I am the Christopher Marlowe of Illinois,
forever in the shadow of my Shakespeare.
I swear if I could resist it I would,
coincidentally though I cannot.
Over the hedge I see dead mice,
underneath me, or above me in their own labyrinths.
Little hints tell me soon I will be stuck in a maze of my own,
dull and discouraged like the beaten souls of the crayon makers.
Crying won't do me any good though, I'm already hopeless,
at one point I wasn't though. I had confidence.
Really I did, if you could believe it,
rhythm was in my blood.
Yours truly had a girlfriend, some sociality, and life was looking
young and exciting. I had a world in front of me ready to see me.
Or at least I thought the world would want me, out from
under the rubble of the small town I had been born.
Really I thought-      there was a small chance I could've been
loved, and respected and recognized as a person.
Over the feeling was in just a few months however,
vivid depressive episodes followed me through a dark tunnel.
Every corner was a face that I had abandoned, a person who
enveloped me in their love that I had destroyed, that I had lost.
Viciously abandoned like a newspaper after a quick skim,
energy drained from every action, every feeling.
Really, did you know I played the violin,
yes, I still have it in my room. I also played the dulcimer.
Where would I be able to play the dulcimer though, or the
hellishly repaired violin from my Grandfather?
Every string is in tune, it's a sad sight when the musician
refuses to play their instruments. It's always damaged pride.
Except in my case it was depression, anxiety, and scapegoating.
I was a chicken surrounded by foxes who I thought were my
wayward friends and fellow artists.
Overall the point of writing for me was to convey my thoughts,
unlike what I began at first though; I mostly enjoy confusing now.
Liam is my name. I'm also sometimes called Patrick, or William,
did you know that I'm Irish? Wow, you couldn't tell?
Before I was Irish I was an *******,
envious, from two doors down like a snake.
Quaint. I've lost my mind now, I can barely spell, it's
unbelievable how many times I misspelled "Quaint".
I almost think I'm attracted to misery, like it is the
tower at which I can extend my thoughts at the top.
Entry into my creativity is painful, it's
horrible I would say that every morsel of my mind is bored.
At least I'll die nonchalantly? I guess none of us are really worth
poem-ing on about. If you couldn't tell I'm running out the timer.
Poems need a rigid structure, a sound layout, and smart execution.
You should really read this acrostically now. See the irony of
                                                                                 post-modernsim.

there was a penny,
lying on the ground, rusted
not much unlike me.

I am not beautiful,
and such as a rose covered- awash
in the scarlet moon,
I have become the stem in which
water is drunk from the Earth.

Tin pan, in hand,
fists closed,
clutching a thermos.

He has brown eyes,
a scarf, striped.
He sits on the floor.

Legs crossed, a cane
between the fragile limbs.
He is there, watching.

The sun casts a shadow
on narrow buildings;
tall enough to blot the heat out.

There was a fire here
until the police
put it out.

"He probably did it to himself," they say.
There are marks along his neck.
The scarf covers them, but they know they're there.

and so
                                     beautiful
                         was the
                                     tree
                         of which
                                    hidden
                         love could
                                    reign,

if I
       could ever
name the
        feeling
of being
         nailed
to a
         wooden
board and
        thrown
into the
        sea.

depression comes
like a roaring wave
to wash me away.

Run away Daniel-
through the brush towards the light.
See how far you go.

Who is the crazy mountain man?
He sits on his wooden stool,
smoking his withered pipe.
The air around them cool.
The air around them cool.

Next to him lies his son,
bitter and to confuse,
pretending to catch grasshoppers,
father never had much to lose.
Father never had much to lose.

Bright fluorescent lights,
they are now
shining down from above.

The line is long, the wait is on,
it's taken so long and I am
only there
for sugar
and milk.

There is a woman
in front of me,
and we look at each other.

She seems to see it
deep inside me,
she seems so
worried
and
understanding.

Like she, like I, has been there before.
The place where eyes don't shine.
The darkest places that exist in our minds.

She seems to be sad
as I ask her where
she
gets her
hair
dyed.

Then I see the stamps
she passes to the clerk.
A blue, and a white paper.

"Oh, you have kids?"
the clerk asks; she
replies with
a casual
and polite
"Yes."

She is young, barely
older than me,
and I feel the weight
of the room fall
down onto all
the people in line.

I haven't seen her since,
I just hope she's doing fine.

On my own island; dark clouds all around me.
Living forever away, awash from other people.

I have to do it; I know I have to make the jump.
I am standing on childhood and teetering to adulthood.

But it's like life is a rough pine tree,
distanced as it is from the sun beneath a canopy.

Of other's that have reached the surface and spread,
the same that feel the sun. That know not the ground.

The dirt, the worms and insects crawling all around; the
pinnacle of wellness from which they stand their back's upon.

I've been hit in the head with a frying pan.
There's a bit of a ringing in my ears.
All thoughts stem from depresson,
so I sit inside my room.

I watch the walls
yellow and I watch the
shadows change for hours.

I've been hit in the head with a frying pan.
They kicked me to the dirt, hit me, crippled me.
And I can't bear to weigh my options.
I can't bear to leave the house.

Is it you again?
Outside the bar,
smoking. Your hair *******.

I swear I see you
everywhere. Like
the passing phase of the moon at night.

Are you still cold?
Do you still think I was pretty?
Questions I swear I've asked, but can't remember.

Sometimes the wisest words will come from the pieces of you that can't speak. Like a knife with no blade; no means of expression.

Sometimes there is a happenstance, however.

Sometimes.

Do you sit like fire before rain,
calmly in the wind crackling along,
with a vinyl static hiss?

Worrying,                                              If I could sit in a vacant sky,
I'll fall.                                              I'd watch the hopeless world go by,
                                                                   and if I could apologize,
Don't catch me,                                             I would. I would.
please just let me
drown inside the sea,                        But when you've ruined yourself
let the water lap.                                  far too many times to count,
                                                                   is there really a reason?
                                                                       Why bother?

the worst part is-
nobody, anywhere, can help you.

They all see you, and they decide-
you're uninteresting, or boring.

Then comes the mania-
where you convince yourself, for days, weeks, years,
that you're okay, and they're the reason
for the heartbreak, the distrust, the jaded
worldview.

But it was you.
And you can stare into the waterfall,
or into the photograph,
or into the mirror,
and see that it was you.

The sanity, in the whirlwind of self absorbed thoughts,
is what reminds you of those days.
It brings you back,
dragging you all the way.

Till your brain screams-
ugly, useless, worthless.

The only good thing about me was my collarbone.
And I was so ****** up, to ever be distraught, at
the fact that my parents hated me, and would
never allow me; hurt me, if I was close to you.

Do you see the irony like I see it?
Where you tell me I'm not ugly,
then show me that I truly am.

Actions speak louder than words,
sounds like something you said once.

Rain drops down on heads,
they look out the balcony at
me, and I am alone.

My own little black box,
four walls, a floor, and a roof.
No water, dried lips and a sore
throat. I'll never escape this,
you'll never hear me play the
violin. I doubt I'll be as good as you expect me to be.

But wouldn't it be pretty to think so?
Guitarist, turned musician, turned
pianist and back, just to reel again onto a new distraction.

Well, I can't distract myself forever,
or can I? I think they'll know it when
they see it. I think they see it now.

I'm a leech, I dig into the skin of the
people around me-     I **** the blood
from the strongest people.

And I'm alone.

In this cabin in the woods,
in this moment in time,
in every heartbeat.
Feeling every heartache.

It's more a forest fire than a candle now, isn't it?

It's Thursday, the 28th.
Time flies through the window
like the breeze, and I can't remember what day it is most days.

You know how, in those old quiet movies
the hopeless romantic would die in the end.
Or those faces, like a walk in the park would one
day end as well.

You know how in those silent films, without the
lively piano you would watch a completely different movie.
Like the actors are puppets being controlled, and you
can see the oldness in their eyes through grainy film.

You know, there's a beauty in watching the degraded old movies in my attic, on that reel. You can feel the artist's burst of creativity.
Really see the practical effects, the struggles to capture the same
world we can capture so easily now.

It makes me feel like I'm worth it; like one day someone might come across my poems and feel what people now can't. Like maybe in the future someone might understand my own bursts of happiness, and sadness, and recognize my attempts at capturing my world.

You care about only a few things.
The odd specific details in our
encounters with one another,
how you become so entranced
by the wind; how I'm sometimes insane.

Is my insanity worth the few moments
you spend happy with who I am?
Are the lapsing courses of impending
schizoaffective illness scary to only me?

It seems you're a different type of crazy.
Not a starving artist- not unlike one either
though. I wonder if it may be inside your head
as you watch me, watching you.

I'll break the poetic rambling, poetic romancing
and tie myself to the tree that is the wind flickering
across your hair, beveling your face in the morning
light as we walk, and you talk about your dreams.

Do you know anything about the nightly terror?
The slow and collapsing waves of the mind as
they reflect on horrid dilapidation, horrid existence?
I wonder as you wonder if I wonder too.

Oh! The saint has called upon the regal
battleground of Illinois to deliver me
a message of utmost sincerity and
inner-beauty. A quaint "I love you."

You ask me if I could ever be less
complicated, non complacent. And
you also ask me a million other things
I dare not answer, I would never answer.

You entertain the idea that inside my irreverence
there is some hidden truth or holy gospel undelivered
by your poetry books and your indie rock bands.
I can't see past the orange highlights in your hair.

How beautiful! What marvelous features on your
face, what exquisite traipsing lust! Sometimes
I disgust even myself with the utter health
of my persistent reeling comments on vanity.

And I suppose it seems quite blank and dim.
I mean to never have a single fear.
I see that you have become kind of slim;
the way you hurt yourself is what I leer.
Would you ever be kind enough to stop?
I don't think that you understand my plea.
You stand in the center of my dad's shop.
But I can see that you are just a flea.
A passing wave on my own separate sea.
I was writing a sonnet until you-
lost my train of thought by
cutting yourself. Can't you see?
Can't you see?

Nothing matters so why believe-
in someone who you'll barely see?
Maybe twice a week I'll entertain you.
Maybe twice a week a shaded hue
will fall to stop my clue-
less heart as it bursts.
I am cursed.
I am cursed.

So, I'll bear the weight as I watch the way the
red scar, jagged runs along your pale neck
as you undress, your v neck dress.

I'll see your perfect figure in every glass
and every reflected tabletop, my dear.
Chicago has killed you.

And every party-
every piece of sanity
is useless, hopeless.
As every man-
every other lover
is just as mindless.

I wish that-
with you I
could complete-
a thought-
maybe without
the stutter-

but with beauty
comes a sincere-
scarily closing
portion of my
chest.
A lapsing
wave as I-
proclaim
to never
breath again.

Judge me-
we'll dance in the
moonlight until morning.

It comes like an electrical fire,
slow and creeping; slowly building up.

But it reigns down like memories of childhood,
and laughter underneath the sun.

Like the loudest chanting choir,
or a reasonable markup-
everything screams "would
you ever have fun"

On your bike,
down the street,
six or seven times.

I wonder if you felt the same pull
to talk. I wonder if I'm just jaded,
or the sign of you coming down the same
little street so many times was a signal.

I wonder if we're both drowning in the same sea.

I guess I would know if I'd just talked to you.

I'm so sorry, if I could've helped you.
I'm so mad at myself for not approaching you.
I'm so scared that I'll never love anyone as beautiful as you.
Most of all though, I'm terrified I was just "that" creepy guy.

I wonder if we'd be good friends.
I wonder if we'd drift apart.
I wonder if I would've been cool enough for you.

I would love to poke fun;
really really I would.
But that was more your thing.
Your shtick.

I'm more-   I'm more anaphoric.
But I don't really know what it means.
But did you know what it means?

I am a kite,
soaring through the sky,
no thunder, lightning, or obstacles in my path.
I am a staircase unwavering in an abandoned building.

Like the one's we used to climb.

But half is missing, corroded and fallen to
the basement, what a shame it would have been to
fall with it. For a while I'll be honest I thought I did. Like I
was a goner, alone and confused and scared. Like the world is.

But then something changed.

I realized the pieces of my staircase that have slipped,
wavered and crashed to the basement in plumes of dust
were necessary to be me. To be or not to be the person I want
to be. It's sort of convoluted I know. But it is true nonetheless.

So I am a laughing lynx,
sitting on my wavered
old fence, waiting and crying
for the sun to shine down
on whatever I will be.

Sometimes it's hard to walk.
Like I've tied both laces together,
with my shuffling steps echoing
down the hall.

There was a time-   the echo
was in four, not two. Bravely
together, I remember fighting
back the feeling.

Then the preacher came,
told us words; shoved them
down our throats. Dragged
you into fake lights.

I resisted, I knew what they
could do to us; would do to
us. But you never listened
to me. You were a loner-  a
rebel like your Mother.

It's a weird, weird world; passion
means nothing in the mire. When you
think you've flown out, into auburn lit
skies and towards better days; the rope
reaches as far as it can extend, and you must watch
yourself hang above the streetlights, and below the stars.

You can scream, "But I love her" as loud
as lungs can carry. You could give a final
death throw, like a horse that has been shot
twitching in the dirt. But it would be so much
easier, so much better to numb the pain.

You can scream, "And I love her" as loud
as a semi barreling past; but you know, like
fire it comes to flicker until it burns low. It
would be so much easier, so much less chaotic to
extinguish the candle.

But then you wouldn't be a rebel, like your Mother.

I scour over the memories- pictures on the floor.
Some 35mm, some 600, a few digital printed on paper;
all languages I have known.

I take my time writing them out for myself,
the dates, as I rip them and throw them away. I think I used
to be someone else.

Like, the kind of person that would laugh at other's struggles
with humanity. Saying all the while, "Your problems are nothing compared to mine!" while I became increasingly bitter.

I don't like riding this blurred line,
I hope you never cried.
But I would never say it out loud.

No, I'll keep that to myself.
And all these moments afterwards,
where I see the speckled clouds behind my
screen; reflections of a time I remember a year ago.

So loud is the thundering,
though the clouds are white.

Could you ever-
drown yourself in the river of life,
have you ever been lost?

It's quite an experience for
one with anxiety, to be lost
and feel so useless.

Stupid, worthless, thankless.
There is no home for the dull,
there is no passion in idiocy.

There is no comfort in death and that is what they will tell you.
But I am telling you, I am waiting on a better clue.
There is no pain after life and that is what I am scared of,
will there ever be a day to mourn the passing of the dove?
I am so worried for myself and that feeling isn't new.
This hurt grapples me like the stern grip of a pirate's worn glove.
And now I can't bear to escape in the stories that I knew.
What a poison to believe in, what a curse to let you love.

there is a house among the shallow plains,
where wheat and field waltz hand in bitter hand,
And in the closed off floor beneath the frames,
there lies a fire dancing in the sand.
It's name is not important to the plot,
but it's been hiding there for quite some time.
it lives and cries beneath the fabled lot,
it sits and tries to find another rhyme,
But there are none here, there are none inside;
if there was a glimmer of consciousness,
it was massacred by life's closet teiid,
and destroyed by their own self consciousness.
So in the house among the shallow plains,
the ******* son of dumb and dumb remains.

Sometimes I think "How would I tell if I was the last man on Earth?".
You see, I'm always in my room, always hiding, always diverting it.
I have this feeling outside, like the world is crumbling, like I'm just it.
But it makes it easier I guess to see the flaws in other's words and I-
like a patient saint have become accustomed to pain; conditioned by
it.

Kohl ash sings in the wind, I can see fire.
It's all rising around, jubilantly consuming faces and buildings.
I run down the street, I push a man over, I hit a car door as I try to escape it, the rising smoke. But it covers me from head to toe.

I slowly walk in the ash, the darkness, feel grains of it
run down my throat and matte in my hair,
I want water. I want to take a shower.
But nothing is in sight, I'm gone.

I run now, but it is quiet and I know I've been caught.
I listen to the wind, I listen to my heart beating.
I Listen to the clock tick away, yet I can't find it.
I run towards a building's wall, for what seems like hours.

I am never getting out.

I sit down, open my mouth, and let the ash cover me.

I've been running from a heavy sky.
The clouds are black and round,
and in this chaos I'll lose my

drive to ever cry.
I watched the clouds as they dripped and frowned.
I've been running from a heavy sky.

I guess I'll just repeat myself, and fry
the parts I love of my life, black edg'd around,
and in this chaos I'll lose my

will to ever try,
I can feel it as I sit on the ground,
I've been running from a heavy sky.

It sits inside my mind's eye.
Like the worst syndrome of the pound,
and in this chaos I'll lose my

thoughts as they say "bye";
leave me to the lapsing howl of my brain as I walk. Oh! Spellbound,
I've been running from a heavy sky.
And in this chaos I'll lose my-

I am thinking. and there is a pain.
Like a large wooden door, metal hinges and all, sitting locked in front of me. But I can't open the thing. I pull and tug, and twist and try so hard. But I can't open the door. No I can't get in.

So I back up and trip over some barbed wire, out on the concrete courtyard. Large red and black flags swing all down the large hall, with buildings as it's walls. The sky today is so blue and sweet, but I can feel eyes search me for a reason to pull me, berate me, hurt me.

I need to look within myself  they say, and fix the demon
that has been released to devour the man living there. But I couldn't bear to **** the thing, it's eyes look just like mine!
And his hands are the same dry, cracked ones of mine.

Do you remember when you were young? It asks me.
Do you remember when you were young? It asks me.

I don't. I can't. I only see bits and pieces.
It's finished it's daily checkup, now it will eat some more.

If I could feel no pain,
maybe I would comb my hair,
run my fingers through it like curtains.

If I could feel no pain,
I would be unstoppable.
No story unwritten, no person unnoticed.

But if I could feel no pain,
I would not be me.
I am a refraction of my feelings.

Sometimes the fragments--    of myself
like shattered glass reappear.
My old glasses, my weight, my memories.

They all pour like dark rainwater down
to the waves, when I am alone and I am
teetering on who I am and who I see.

And in that darkness, in that cacophony
that screams "Worthless! Nameless!"--
I can see someone else behind the haze.

A little kid, no more than ten or eleven,
with his backpack on and a smile on
his face. Innocent annoyance in his eyes.

I can hear him too, hear his sense of humor
as his mother loads him into the van. The
sun just rising on the horizon behind the house.

The early summer air is like a fresh bouquet
of roses, but then I look slowly around.
Notice the other people surrounding him.

Remembering the late nights, the slow declines.
Remembering; but every thought slipping away,
like a nightmare where the hall is eternally long.

And I see my fingers, their callouses, taking my
eyes from the broken things around my feet to
the messy counter; the room I've grown inside.

The lock was shut, always. My hands always
dry and cracked, the mirror fogged and the
lighting as poor as the terrifying feelings inside.

And it yells again, "Worthless! Nameless!"--
and I am still sitting and watching paint
dry on my mirror. Watching me decay.

Seeing now, my cheek bones as they sink,
as my face begins to turn ever paler,
as my hair begins to fall out.

If I could leave this pain I would throw it all out.

If I could feel no pain, I would be a jester; sitting
high in my palace, no bitterness, no faults.
I would be a fool in a hat and suit with money.

If I could feel no pain, I would still be afraid of
everything. The siren sounds coming from my
own mind at night; the horror that I left locked in.

The buzzing of the locusts' wings on my window
flicker through my ringing ears, my destroyed,
ruined atmosphere. My meditative chamber/pile of ruins.

I listen to them tap on the glass, their wings turning from
buzzing, to fingers scratching, to accusations of my lies.
They tell me I'm unsure, that the world is as I see it.

But why would I listen? What insanity in the dead of night!
Isn't it pretty to think so? Isn't it pretty to think so?
I can see the drilled abscesses in their skin.

I crawl beneath my bed, escaping them. But I feel
their talons all over my skin, trying to pull me into
the world that I can't see, that I can't reason with.

They scream "Worthless! Nameless!" and I crumble
like overly baked bread. I am the crust of the loaf
in the sink after it is cut, I am the vessels' thoughts.

They are all within my mind, they are all within my
own delusional world; where I can see or not see whatever
I want. Where I can forget about the people I've loved.

And where I am in my little place, my mindless thinkless
chamber above the clouds, I don't have to think of the
beautiful people I've destroyed, consumed, manipulated.

And they yell "Worthless! Nameless!" until--
I can't bear to hear them all scream out loud--
Their teeth and eyes glaring, the torn twill--
I feel it around my fingers bowed--
like a great ship, the edge phased--
Sinking beneath sodden roaring waves--
I can't hear myself think, I'm amazed--
I will end up in the same graves--
SO WHERE DOES THE OCEAN MEET THE END?
OR HAS IT BEEN MASKED ETERNALLY?
I CAN FEEL MY THOUGHTS WHILE THEY TWIST, BEND--
IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL INTERNALLY.
But in the real mental insurgency,
I am losing my mind in urgency.

So if I could feel no pain at all,
I would be the same.
Bitterly, utterly similar.

Boring, worthless, nameless.

Does love ever die? That's a question I would've asked a year ago.
The feeling sticks after I receive the answer.
Like a faulty receiver, the trigger bent and twisted; or a node for an AI that doesn't have a behavior tree to attach to, it sticks but nothing becomes. There is no takeaway.

Trains riding past the sun,
it hurts to be dull-
you never know what day it is.

like it wasn't even there at all

an anvil in the sky

proclaimed, one day,

that the city in the frough, fried

would become a sight to the eyes.

So it matched it's creator's ties,
mix matched the hearts and souls of many,
and watched the silly little poor people dance,
too far away to see the look in their eyes.

One day, however rich the city became

the farmers marched forth, from fields and hay

to arrive, from outside, to the center,

where they kept the dreams of their children,

to crash them to the floor. Smiling as the glass shattered.

Smiling as the crowds stopped, to stare at the torch thrown

to poverty, and the torch ignited to the city.

She was a model, but now she's terrified.
She looks in the mirror, scratches all the imperfections.
A day rolls by, and she looks again.
She doesn't see herself, doesn't see Lisanne Falk.
She scratches all the imperfections, like her face is
a guitar's fret board and she is soloing. Like her face
is a test where she got every answer wrong.

A day rolls by, like the hills past her parent's car on those old
recordings she keeps in 35mm.
You can see reflections of the 70's in the grainy film, an odd beauty to the young girl in them, and the long days at the beach.
There's this one where her and her mother are walking along a
narrow bay, with rocks everywhere. They're looking for shells.
She picks one up, holding it to her ear. Her mother stops her, and
she mockingly says "Lisanne, the ocean's right there!".
For a brief moment, as she turns around to look back at the camera with the softest, most soulful smile a child could muster, Lisanne stares at the screen in the dark. For a little while, a fraction of a second maybe, Lisanne is back in 1972, with her mother and her father picking sea shells off the beach and listening to the waves crash against the shore.