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AfterImage Sep 2016
I am a person of almost and kind of.
I am a shadow of what I was
Hidden in the darkness of a past
Cast down by the light of the future.
This present of in-betweens
The liminal space in which I exist.
The here and there on the journey ahead.
I am the line between the points
The mystery before the solution
I am the median, the average, the midway
I am incomplete.
Pieces of a whole
unable to form the big picture.
This limbo of emotions
The neutral of positive and negative
Inactive, inert, insufficient.
This heart filled with grey
Longing to see through rose colored lenses
Paint my world with emotion.
Trade the silence for music.
To fit in the missing pieces.
But almost doesn’t offer solutions
And kind of doesn’t capture the horizon.
AfterImage Jan 2016
In a sense I haven't breathed in a long time. I haven't given any gasp of pleasure or a sigh of relief. Air is ******* within me like a Gordian Knot. Too long have my ribs served as a cage for the trapped air within me. The wind in my breath the very symbol of freedom and my restraining it a resemblance to my claustrophobic thoughts.

I want to melt into the winds of a storm and surrender to the release it would give me. I wish to be as carefree as the breeze and to carry on across the world like a zephyr. I want so much to take example of those drafts and follow a course all of my own.
           I am a pocket of air beneath the water's surface.
                          I am a balloon anchored to the ground.
                                              I am not free to do as I will.
                                                           ­           I am trapped.
                                                        ­                I am caught.
But I will wait for the time I am able to breathe again.
AfterImage Jan 2016
Driving without destination
Going for the sake of going
Existing between here and there
Where nothing is happening
Yet progress is being made
We’re still moving forward
Enjoying the journey
Capturing horizons.
AfterImage Jan 2016
There are echoes in my bones that shake me to the core, but all I have to offer is the whisper from my lips.

From my lips, the sound that escapes me the silent cry of a million aggrieved souls.

From my lips, the sound earth shattering in its own right, but unheard by all.

From my lips, the remnants of the shouts cast into the mountains of my mind.
AfterImage Jan 2016
And I knew in that moment, you were to me as the moon to the wolf: infinite in beauty, but impossibly far. And for this I cry.
AfterImage Jan 2016
...And I reached out, like the hands of a clock, uselessly grasping at time; and like a clock, all I could do was tell of it's passing.
AfterImage Jan 2016
I turned to him and asked "why?" As the record droned on in the background. He opened his eyes and smiled as the tapping of his feet slowed.

"In our final moments there is silence. I fear that final silence." The song began to reach its crescendo and he held out his hands as if he were embracing every note. "So let there always be music."
AfterImage Feb 2016
I understand now when they say he spoke with a silver tongue. His words flowed from his lips like beads of mercury, mesmerizingly beautiful, but toxic nonetheless.
AfterImage Sep 2016
I am only a shell near your ocean, helpless to your pull,
Wave after wave tumbling across my seeking heart.
AfterImage Sep 2016
Life is never a structured path that is well lit and fenced in. Life is not a road. Life is the wilderness that we are all crawling around in, blind, ignorant, and hopeful. You are not guaranteed to succeed, but if you are still alive you still get to be a part of something messy, strange, and beautiful. We all came from somewhere and took steps forward. The steps don't have to have shoes, don't have to be steady, and they don't have to miss all the puddles.
AfterImage Sep 2016
There is nothing beautiful that came to be without effort. Even the flowers had to push through the dirt to show its face to the sun.
AfterImage Jan 2016
I am barely surviving on a thread of superficial interest and the minute that expires I feel like I will too. And the list of my interests is getting shorter and shorter.
The stories
I once liked,
The sites
I once browsed,
The drawings
I once admired,

All slowly

f a d i n g  


f  r  o  m  



t  h  e  



n   a   r   r   o   w  




s    c    o    p    e  




o     f  





m      y  




m       i       n       d       .           .                .                   .
AfterImage Jan 2016
I am concerned that I am growing more and more comfortable with my bouts of apathy. Things are easy to deal with when you don’t feel anything, when you don’t care. The problem is only when you come out of it and start feeling again. That’s you see the effects of your apathy:

The disappointment,
                  The concern,
                           The anger...
                                  Much like falling,
                                          It isn’t the falling
                                                That worries me,
                                                        It is the sudden stop.
AfterImage Jan 2016
Wandering I was, but now no longer.
Captive I am, my cell bars made stronger.
For wit of words beat the enamored eye.
Unworthy are we to stumble and try.
For surely your tongue strikes like a lance,
To slay dragon hearts and pierce short-lived chance.
Defend your strong castle with unyielding wall.
I will await if in love shall you fall.
I never intended for my wandering eye to get lost in you and your exquisite mind.

-In response to "Vision" by Alyssa M Luptak
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1532225/vision-10w/
AfterImage Jan 2016
When you speak, the listener understands you. When you write, the reader understands themselves.
AfterImage Jan 2016
I’m staring at cars going to the horizon.
Thumb out by the road I walk beside them.
Some are too kind and give me a ride.
                                       But I’m a passenger. Their journey’s not mine.
                                       They head to their goal with no hint of doubt.
                                       Soon they will stop and I must get out
They leave me behind, I’ve no car of my own.
I look for headlights to bring me along.
I beg for rides just to get farther.
                                       My journey is long and it just gets harder.
                                       I steal each mile and climb even higher.
                                       Keep moving. I am life’s hitchhiker.
Sequel to 'Drive'
AfterImage Jan 2016
The most painful lies are the ones we tell ourselves.
AfterImage Jan 2016
Tears like avalanches.
                                                    O­verwhelming.
                                                                ­                     Unleashed potential.
Sadness like waves.
                                                    Devast­ating.
                                                          ­                           Unceasing assault.
Fists like thunder.
                                                    Enga­ging.
                                                           ­                          Unintended consequence.
Hate like earthquakes.
                                                    ­Consuming.
                                                      ­                               Unwanted arrival.
Smiles like sunshine.
                                                    Cap­tivating.
                                                       ­                              Unassuming appearance.
Happiness like hurricanes.
                                                    E­very feeling.
                                                        ­                             Unending experience.
A simile in disguise.
AfterImage Aug 2016
Effortless Falling
My Endless Adoration
Helpless Before You
AfterImage Sep 2016
I exhale my thoughts across the page.
My pen bleeds them into being.
The paper victim of open wounds to describe a hidden hurt.
This vicious dance of pain.
Breathing life to this war of love.
A mosaic of broken hearts.
Sharp edges of loneliness hidden in the mortar of hopefulness.
Is it fair to make believe a whole out of pieces?
To take these glass hearts and shatter them to make a masterpiece.
Taking the ruins of a life,
Puzzling them together.
A cobbled set of emotions.
Flashes of light against the surface of what once was.
Reflections of color, seeing beauty in the aftermath.
Perhaps hearts were never meant to remain whole.
Collecting parts of others
Quilting the fabric into a blanket
Warm enough to forget I am made of parts
Parts of everyone I’ve met.
Surrendering shards of me for the art of others
Taking pieces for myself to fill the gaps.
AfterImage Jan 2016
I have a tendency to remain quiet in a crowd and simply observe those around me. Because it takes someone who is completely silent to actually listen. Because silence is louder than words. Because there are things that the body betrays that the mind refuses to tell. There are things that don't need words. Even now I can hear it all around me; the nervous hands, the tired eyes, the rigid posture that tells me we are not yet known to each other. There is so much going on around us that it gets exhausting. While many see a silent room, I see a conversation with waves upon waves of emotions. Pictures drawn from unspoken metaphors that describe the view from everyone's mental heights. There are no lies in silence. There is no omission in body language. You are an open book, a window pane, a clear crystal. Your silence is all there is to know.
sequel to "The Truth in Silence"
AfterImage Aug 2016
My breath is caught.
There's a reason they call it a rib cage.
reply to Sophia The Local Dream's "My bones" http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1747078/my-bones/
AfterImage Jan 2016
A tender touch down your spine,
Unfold your delicate rib cage,
The ink that is your blood,
The stories you hold
Pulsing beneath the title that is your skin.
AfterImage Jan 2016
I find myself lingering more and more in the emptiness and because of this I awake in the chaos of a misplaced life. I am constantly forced to build an empire from the ruins of my mind, but the bricks never align the same each time.

                       I am
not doing
                          well. I’m
     not
                                 doing well
          at all.
AfterImage Oct 2016
The symphony of your skin
suffocated my senses.
Smothered my resistance
against the sensations
you sparked down my spine.
I surrender to your siren call,
my simpering protest
met with sinful seduction.
AfterImage Jan 2016
Awkward astronomer-lover.
Your nebulae concept:
The universe drawing together,
A delighted animation.
We ruefully laughed onshore,
That profound abstruse oxygen.
Their unappetizing myopia,
Misguided eye sockets.
I picked out words that stood out to me in the book I was reading and arranged them as best I could. This is the result. It's refreshing. I might do it again.
AfterImage Jan 2016
Your shadow shouldn’t stop you from basking in the sun.
AfterImage Sep 2016
The theory of our relationship
A complex set of numbers
Are we where we want to be?
Are we who we want to be?
What do we become when we're together?
I hypothesize and fantasize the answers.
My only conclusion?
The       distance       between       us       is       too       cold       to       define.
AfterImage Jan 2016
there is a truth in silence,

the words you do not say;

written between the lines,

a secret untold.
AfterImage Jan 2016
Tragic Memory
Haunting Dreams
Held By
You
Calmed by
Caring Hands
Swift Recovery
AfterImage Aug 2016
They say time is money, but I’m getting broker by the minute.
Time to spend, time to ****, a one way ticket
from tomorrow to today.
The past is getting thicker while the future’s looking slim.
The dawning of a new age, but the sun is getting dim.
I’m tired of it.
The clock turns and the pendulum swings
a metronome for the monotone
Straining their ear for when the fat lady sings
Tone deaf for the sounding alarm
hitting the snooze hoping to disarm
The bomb of lost seconds and hours
we don’t have time it has us,
dragging us along in a prison bus.
The sand’s slipping and slipping between our hands
Grasping nothing but air as the hours expands
A big bang of a moment to make the seconds last
We got pictures of a of life long gone in the past
Hold on to the memories cause time’s going fast
The future’s a fight but were losing all the time
When the hands start spinning and spinning and the bells chime.
Our shadows stretching longer and the moon changes face
We’re all running a race struggling to keep pace.
With tomorrow the reward that we’re all going to chase.
Tick tock the future is here
Time wasted with the end drawing near.
Keep running and running keep ahead of the pack
The past is the past so stop looking back.
Turning the days to weeks and the upcoming years
Success to failure and smiles to tears
What do you do when time’s coming for you
Fight back every moment
Stealing seconds at a time
The bell tolling our atonement
Making gains in our climb
But my pockets are empty and my wallet has nothing in it.
Because time is money and I’m getting broker by the minute.
AfterImage Jan 2016
I don't feel like myself. Now that is a contradiction in itself, for who I am is different than who I was and who I was is different from before.
I was
am and
will be
constantly changing, so who is to say that me not feeling like myself now is not just me becoming who I will be next? What should be said is I don't feel like who I want to be.
Because this transformation was an unwanted arrival. I never asked to be put into this chrysalis. Even now I am shouting from the inside for someone to let me out.
This is not what I wanted.
This is not what I want.
This is not what I will ever want.

I don’t want to be this new me.
AfterImage Jan 2016
My greedy heart: an endless stomach hungry for your affection.
AfterImage Jan 2016
Words poured forth from your mouth and I struggled to catch them in my hand,

but alas! They slipped through my fingers like so many grains of sand.
AfterImage Sep 2016
Anticipation, a frozen breath upon the wind.
Endings beginning where beginning's end.
I am captured in waiting.
Time marches on trading all of our nows for laters.
Deliberate and debate, I delay.
I am captured in waiting.
Vacant visage I sleep away seeking morning’s light.
The next day and still the next, always.
I am captured in waiting.

I am still in waiting.


I am in waiting.



I am waiting.




I’m waiting.





Waiting.






Wait.
AfterImage Sep 2016
We will weather
The lightning of fists
The thunder of words
The rain of tears

We will survive
The war of love
The wounds of him
The blood of her

We will withstand
The sea of hate
The tides of battle
The wave of emotions

We will become
The voice of reason
The song of safety
The music of freedom

— The End —