Death does not frighten me.
It calls to me from beyond the veil,
Beckoning with it's bony hands,
And I resist it's siren song.
I do not fear it.
What scares me is that one day I may wake up
At 60 years old and feel exactly as I do now,
Wondering what the point is,
Trudging through the days like wet cement,
Feeling like all those expectations were wasted upon me,
And I have nothing to offer for all the burrowed time they gave me
But the scars that show I toiled to be alive.
It scares me that while others grow old with grace
And pass down stories of a life well lived
That I will be keeping the same desperate, empty company
I've always kept,
That existing will still feel like hard work,
And that I will have spent the next 40 years trying to prove my worth
By maintaining a body that's been trying to **** me since I was twelve.
It's not death that frightens me.
I am terrified of a life that does not feel like living
And a world that will be so disappointed in me for never becoming
More than I am.

My soul itches for poetry,
Fingers long for the tap of keyboard or scratch of a pen.
My mouth curves around syllables,
Missing the way they slam against a microphone
As I make myself heard amongst a crowd of those
Who know what it means to be beholden to this master,
To write lines of a poem the way some breathe the air,
To be so made up of adjectives and metaphors
That I no longer know where I begin and the poetry ends.
I am simply molecules and letters masquerading as a human,
Trying to become whole again on paper.

When I was waist high,
Freckles are angels kisses,
And bedtime seemed a comeuppance
Years old,
I used to wish to grow up in effort to shed my
Child's problems.
Now that the years have raced past,
I've grown into an adult's body
Along with adult problems,
And I wish I hadn't pleaded with the fates
To hurry it onward so.

I am not made of miracles or borrowed prayers.
There is no magic in my bones or mysticism to my name.
I am made of sweat,
Of salt stains on flushed cheeks.
I am made of blood smears
And too much hand lotion.
I am made of toil and trouble,
Of mistakes and rectification.
I am composed of ink and paper,
Of ill-remembered idioms and words I've absorbed from books.
My existence is fueled by a certain brand of sock,
A teddy bear given to me at birth,
And a desire to prove that I was more than what they told me
That I could be greater than what I thought of myself.
I am made of laughter and twisted humor,
Of Murphy's law and learning to conserve energy and care.
I am made of misbehaved neurotransmitters and wild thoughts.
I have a love of the night sky and swimming in cool waters.
My soul steeped in the desire to frolic and eat sweets.
I wear scars that prove I have suffered and earn me judgement,
But I have survived a world and brain designed to be my unbecoming
Not because I'm made of miracle or magic or prayers.
I survived because I'm made of attitude, resolve, resilience,
And a thirst to prove that I can.
Most importantly,
There always seems to be a flicker of something that promises me
That even in my worst moment, I should continue to live.

The tree is dancing and flickering
Like some computer glitch,
ANd the sound of fpptstops trail me,
Doors shutting,
Chairs scraping,
Dogs barking in an otherwise empty house.
I do not know how to sav myself from this
Remix of unreal and reality,
Just hiding blasting music
Trying to drown out the sound of someone trying to **** me.
The figurine of the pink power ranger rests under my pillow while I try to sleep,
Guardian, protector,
Save me.
I do not want to listen to my thoughts.
They hurt adn conjure things,
Enamored of death or a way out of this hell.
At night I dream
Of people stealing the earrings out of mye ears
And hundreds of people chanting my name.
No matter where I run, they call me.
Even hiding amongst the frogs brings no relief
As their Ribbits shout my name from behinf the bushes.
Save me from this hell, my mind.
I don't want to listen to it.
I don't want to die.

Error 404: Higher brain function not found
We are sorry to inform you,
But the thought machine is out of order
Please, step back and remove your quarter.
We are taking your thoughts Tough Mudding
They must now swim through wet cement to reach your consciousness,
But fear not
There are legions of them 'Worming their way through your soft tissues
In between apathy and emotional volatility.
What's that?
You say you're going crazy?
Oh, my darling,
Nothing but a case of spontaneous dyslexia
Words and numbers were made to be in motion,
Slipping through your grasp and changing location
Just a spot of fun
It hurts to think
To exist is to be locked in a dance of exhaustive hyperactive misery
There is something wrong with my thoughts
Please, I do not want to listen to myself think

I am often told that love will leave me breathless,
But I hope I never know a love so greedy as to steal the air from my chest,
For I have memories of a time when my body was oxygen starved
And my lungs unable to draw in breath,
Bogged down under soupy pneumonia that clung to my innards
With vice-like, snotty grips.
My mind is sometimes lost in the sensation of frantically
Drawing air inward,
******* it into my chest with great gasps that never alleviated the burning of my lungs
Or the way pins and needles tingled down my limbs.
My brain cells were consumed with desire to force O2 to bind with the red blood cells churning in my veins.
The air surrounding me was dense with particles that refused to aid my survival,
No matter how much effort I exerted to the contrary.
Sweat dripped off my too thin form and pallid skin
As I drowned slowly from the inside out in a room full of doctors
Until they finally placed the tube back into my throat to breathe for me.
The pain receded as oxygen raced back into my cells,
And I marveled for a moment at the fact that I could not feel myself breathing,
Couldn't feel the rise or fall of my chest.
The mark of my vitality was absent,
And yet,
I was very much alive.
I remember what it was to be truly breathless,
The blind panic that seized me before finally giving way to a wish for death.
It's because of this I hope love never empties my lungs.
I want a love that makes breathing feel safe and exciting,
A love that feels so gloriously alive that I am acutely aware of my chest rising.
Love should always make breathing feel like both a right and a privilege.
It is a privilege to love her and be in her presence.
But I hope she never leaves me breathless.