There are times when I doubt,
More often than I want to admit,
Whether it’s worth it to say I love you,
For the 100th time.
Because even though you’ve only heard it once,
You’re always on my mind,
And I’ve written 99 bad rhymes trying to figure out just the right way to say,
I love you.

But honestly, I feel like it loses worth the more we use those words.
From moment to moment,
Minute to minute, hour to hour,
The power of those words,
is found somewhere between often,
And never,
Just common enough to be delightful,
But rare in a way that a tactical box of chocolates and 99 bad rhymes are just clever enough to mean the world..

So I’m sorry if I try too much to make those moments perfect, but I want I love you to be worth the phrase,
And when I look at you,
I know that saying it was worth the wait.

Fanciful words fall upon a flighty pen,
If only in the moment before they are written,
This is the trial of the artist-no-more.
To know that their once treasured wordplay has failed them,
Shored-up upon the hollow recollection of an intangible dream,
And dried to ash in place of the passion which once drove them.

If all the stars in the night sky had suddenly snuffed themselves out of incompetence, we would weep..though not for those too far from reach of our eyes, the quiet ones would fade as they had always been, dimming, and forgotten.

This is the way the world views the dying gifts of a pen..through the lens of stars centuries old, still remembered in their passions. All else..forgotten by time, and destined to feel it more deeply than anyone else around them.

For the sake of my own mental case, I must brace for the fact that I lack the capacity to write like I once did..to understand that what was, cannot bare the thought of what is and visa versa, to realize quick and fast that the past for me is a curse worth breaking..because it’s making me doubt who I am.

It used to be in music. In the moments we define by how divine they are in the instant they pass..in those moments I would see..love, life, and tragedy played out before me as they have been for so many others. I began to make comparisons between the heart, the soul, the struggle for the independence of thought and the understanding that striving for freedom of self means letting others define who you will be, if only a little.

That was me then..a quiet soul among men who found great joy in describing the world with words like “soul” and “shadow.” But from my recollection, I made them sound awesome. And maybe that’s the trick, to realize that the only worth something has is that which you are willing to give, and I should strive to live every day with my best foot forward..but who am I to talk? I was never supposed to have a leg to stand on.

On this quiet day she laments. For the friends she has lost, for the hunger she now feels, for all that once made her human, it is now gone. She sits quietly staring into the pond, hoping beyond hope her own reflection would see fit to deem her an intruder and work it’s damnable curse upon her. Yet no matter how hard she tries, she still knows the freedom of movement.

3 years. It has been 3 years to the day the gods have cursed her. 3 years alone in the garden of stone, so aptly named by the few adventurers who have managed to come in and out of this place with their wonderful zeal still intact. At first she tried to converse with them, that was a mistake. Her words were drowned out by the horrible cacophony of hissing “things” that sum up everything she hates about this life, and the adventurers, being all too eager to swing a blade or mutter some incantation they picked up from who knows where, well, they just called her a monster.

Honestly, they weren’t wrong, though it was never her choice to be this way. She laughs for a moment. “No one ever chooses to be who they are.” She says to herself. But she knew what she meant, it wasn’t her fault she became the thing she is now. It was the Gods. Zeus in his **** avarice, paired with Hera’s own petty jealousy make for quite a nasty combination. How was she supposed to know it was Zeus himself tempting her? She couldn’t, there was no way. Knowing that, the punishment seemed entirely unreasonable.

Thinking that, she laughed again.
“The gods deal in the unreasonable. They made all this from nothing.”
She waited there for a moment, then set out to attend to her garden. She spends the first few hours of the day gathering white lilies and roses, there always seem to be an abundance for some reason. Then she slowly goes around to each statue in the garden, and lays them at their feet, letting out a few tears for each as she does so. “It isn’t fair that you suffered for their jealousy.” She whispers underneath her breath.

From twisting, gnawing, wrenching pain,
The doctors promised him refrain,
And from their view where patient lied,
No one knew of the metal grind.

Until he woke that dreadful day,
And in his bedroom where he lay,
He felt his tendons begin to cry,
Here comes the hell of the metal grind.

From root of bone there promised pain,
The likes not known to him again,
From each heartbeat felt before the slide,
Here comes the hell of the metal grind.

His blessing then turned into curse,
As pain to him was well-rehearsed,
So he sat awake the entire time,
To feel the hell of the metal grind.

He never knew when it would come,
And always thought that it was done,
After every stab into his side,
He feared the hell of the metal grind.

And when the cure for this was found,
The doctors surely did resound,
“Your tolerance for pain is very high!
Most would feint from the metal grind.”

And laughter rang out from their breath,
Though none from him for none was left,
And if he feels invincible for a time,
He recalls the hell of the metal grind.

I’ve spent my whole life running a rat-race and chasing deadlines without ever finding the time to live for something more.

And I try to express how upsetting this is to me in written form, but it seems the older I get, the longer I spend here, the more I second guess the words so clearly set in my
head, until there’s nothing left but something that’s already been said, and I think..“That’s not worth writing.”

So the light within me fades. Replaced by everything that used to be, accompanied by memories that once to me were comforting, but laugh at me just out of reach. I’ll never write like that again, so passionate in type of speech.

So I resign by way of pen, because I never practiced what I preach. Living here and now beats living there and then, heed my warning if you please.

In reconciliation with my own contemplation, I have to say that, life is taking me down a peg.

But I’ve tried to make the best of it, what’s left of this, a quiet voice that’s too easy to dismiss, fades into nothingness in the presence of absent love.

But it’s enough to know my thoughts are mine to keep. So when I try to speak them, rhymes come out in rhythm as a way to be defensive, dismissively accounting for every word I’m doubting, so I seem less apprehensive.

But I feel the weight of silence sometimes too much to be quiet, inner thoughts get violent when saying things I m dealing with.
“We’ve clipped your wings, it’s happening, this life’s just passing you by. We know it stings, it’s sad to see, so why do you ever try?”

So I write them down to get them out, here in the open. It’s what I’ve found to deal with bouts, of depression as I’m coping. But I show these words to those I love, and rejection is expected, so when it’s all been said and done, silence is all I’m left with.