I wasn't always so easily discouraged.
I used to bristle with enthusiasm.
I glowed with it.
It didn't matter if the task was simple, or tedious, or daunting, or boring.
As though on rails, I slammed into each and every task with terrific force.

But I got older.
Things that used to come easily grew slippery.
What I used to do without thinking twice, I found myself over-thinking.
I threw the brake. I ground to a halt.
Finally, I became idle. A left-over husk of a kernel that's already been popped.
I drowned myself with doubts. Hypothetical situations that might never happen.
I lived in fear of what might go wrong.

So I began to watch everything go wrong, as though I was helpless.
I was no less able. I was no less compassionate.
But I had grown wary. Of what?
What was it that, out of nowhere, caused me to slow down?

I guess I looked down and realized that if I fell, I would not be getting back up.

When you're young, you have no worries, because nothing is relying on your success.
So you mess up a math problem. You'll get it eventually.
So you botch things with that cute girl who sits across from you. You're young, you'll get it.
Re-assurance, faithfully, unwaveringly. A safety line should I fall.
But I never really fell, did I? So why am I laying down like I have?

Get up.

Get up.

I worry about everything. I worry that I will fail.

I dread what comes, what I can't avoid. But time, and time, again, it comes, and I miraculously don't die when it hits, because I've been bracing for a train-wreck impact, a force that will really, truly, finally, definitely lay me flat for good.

I close my eyes, and brace. But the crash never comes. The silence that was continued to be.

I turn behind me, but there's no train there.

I'm starting to realize, with relief, (with horror), that maybe all I needed to do was step off the track.

I look down, and realize, with a first-creeping then-howling laughter that I was never on the track to begin with.

I look off where the track is. There's no train there, either. Maybe there never was.

Maybe there never will be.

An old woman sits down in the wheelchair.
A small child takes her first wavering step.

A million fireworks dance into the air, flash, ears hear songs of celebration, awe takes hold.
A million mortar shells leap into the air, flash, ears sing the ring of confusion, shock takes hold.

A man nearing the end of his time on earth stoops to tie a child's shoe.
A man nearing the end of his time on earth stoops to tie a noose.

A woman in white walks down the aisle alongside the man she loves.
A woman in black walks down the aisle to the man she loved.

A doctor readies a syringe to administer a dose of cold medicine to an ill infant.
A doctor readies a syringe to administer a dose of pentobarbital to an ill canine.
A doctor readies a syringe to administer a dose of ****** into her own arm.

A father raises his hand.
. . .
A child receives a reassuring pat on the shoulder, his team having just won the tee-ball state championships.
A woman takes aim, her lens coming into focus on her subject.
. . .
A man that has been psychologically abusing her for several years collapses to the ground.

A team of several hundred people stands back, looking in awe upon the skyscraper they have designed and built over the course of several years. This accomplishment towers above all else humankind has created.
A team of several hundred people stands back, looking in awe upon the mushroom cloud they have engineered and constructed over the course of several months. This weapon towers above all else humankind has created.

A million lives wink out.
A million eyes open for the first time.

A manuscript is penned, the author sets down his pen and takes a sip of tea.
A pile of books burns with black smoke, the cult sets down their torches and takes a deep breath before screaming.

The infant screams sharply after taking its first breath.
The old man wheezes after telling the last of his stories to his grandson.
"That's it, boy. That's everything I ever did."
A tear rolls down his cheek, the profundity of his statement dawning on him as the breaths become harder to take.
"That's everything I was to everyone I met."

Under every rock a thousand secrets shimmer.
Beneath every tree, a hundred promises have been made.
Some of them have been broken.
Remember the promises you made? You know the ones.

You can become the architect of someone's dreams or the shadowed figure in their nightmares.
You can put down the gun. You can pull the trigger.

You can.

A billion men and a billion women before you have lived out their lives, have wasted, have wanted, have sunk to the lowest depths and risen to the highest peaks. A million have set out to become the best at something, and a whole lot of them have succeeded.

Like matter and antimatter

We were attracted

A scent of cake batter

A disease we contracted

An infection of attraction, recollection of the actions

That we took upon the shores of memories long gone.

And no matter how we try our lives continue to flit by

like photons from a far-away explosion drawn

from the straining of a system (void of friends, and sorely missed them)

The reaction came cascading to a halt.

The galaxy looked down upon us as we walked around.

Together you and I, perfection, to a fault.

Like matter and antimatter, our time together was brief.

There was nothing left of either of us after our chance encounter.

But for only a moment, we shone more brightly than anything in the universe.

The derivative is the rate of increase of a function.

Pleasure is the derivative of Happiness. The more pleasure you are experiencing, over time, the happier you will become.

Happiness is the derivative of Worry. The more happiness you feel, the more you will believe you can lose, and the more you will worry about losing it all.

I have never been happier in my life.

I charged headlong into her life.
I managed not to break anything.

Except her heart.

Into deep depths, dependent on breadth,
redlining death, lingual flexing.
Thread the new lead, fed on white bread,
a pencil pretends it's not vexing

Next thing you know, end of the show,
red curtains flow, script continues.
Wish we could grow, emotions stow,
sadness, the foe, deep within you.

A sin you believed, your conscience relieved,
the consequence, leave all your values.
No time to grieve, train's gonna leave,
could you retrieve it, or shall you?

Wailing below us, the truth hides.
It's not what we think, or believe.
It's not what we see, or think it'll be,
It's not even real, but the light within-

She,
Is a light.
She,
Is an angel
She,
Doesn't fight
She,
remains faithful
We,
aren't alright.
We,
aren't going.
We,
mustn't try,
We,
cannot go where she needs us to be


A drink

The wizened barman pours another drink
The waiting patron grasps and gulps it down
The barman says, "Now what is it you think
you'll find in that brew, but not in this town?"

The drunk says, "Man, you'd laugh if I told you,
The reason I'm so broken down and cold."
Barman says, "Try me, talk until you're blue."
The drunk says, "Have a seat then, first I've told."

The barman takes a seat and he looks on.
The drunkard pauses, sips, and draws a breath.
The barman tilts his head. "Is something gone?"
The drunkard nods, "I caused my own wife's death."

They sit in silence, the barman stands up.
He sits back down and pours himself a cup.

"You aren't the first to come here drowned in blue."
The barman tilts the bottle back upright.
The drunkard shakes his head, "If that were true,
I'd like to meet the ones who share my plight."

The barman says, "Now, I'm the first you told,
but do you think that means you'll tell yet more?"
The barman, seeing sadness, "I won't scold,
but men who share your plight are in a war."

The drunk says, "War? You must elaborate."
The barman laughs, "It's war within themselves."
He glances at the clock, "It's getting late,
last call for liquor." He points to his shelves.

The two men drank until the morning came.
And, left alone, he stroked a picture frame.

there are some things that everyone simultaneously knows and acts in spite of
and we live in a world where pointing these things out gets you labeled as a try-hard
it's ***** in a bucket syndrome

the ***** instinctively bring each other down
because competition is all they know
cooperation is foreign to them because they are scavengers
most people are scavengers

you've got the scientists and engineers bringing truth down to earth and making meat of it, you've got the market cooking that meat and packaging it, and you've got the investors deciding which meat is the best and which meat to make more of but also eating most of the meat in the process of making that decision

the rest of society just gets the scraps
so anyone who wants a better life is seen as a try-hard, someone to be competed with and brought down

it's a brilliant system developed and implemented by the rich investors to keep the middle and lower classes fighting amongst ourselves over whose scraps are less filthy instead of claiming the meat for ourselves
or better yet putting our efforts towards turning more truth into more meat

but, because of their intention to keep things as they are, and despite the fact that most people are very aware of this
pointing it out gets you labeled a conspiracy theorist, or a crank or something.
you don't get to both speak truth and be taken seriously.

no one cares because they were brought up not to care

it intrigues me that the truth can be shunned in the first place
those who know the truth should be praised
like why isn't that how it actually works

people are extremely stupid jealous creatures with no vision

WHY
IT HURTS

the majority of people are little better than animals but we must live among them because we have no other company
we keep things this way because the alternative is loneliness and that's even worse
that's why we all pretend
we're afraid no one will follow us off the path laid down by those more fortunate.
we choose company over truth and humans always have.
we are not simply being pulled back into the bucket
we're hesitating to put our full effort towards climbing out of the bucket
because while we're in the bucket at least we're not alone
outside the bucket, who knows? most people haven't even seen over the edge of the bucket.
what if everyone spreads out and becomes lonely out there?
suffering is a common experience which people can bond over. the relationships among the upper class are strained and artificial because they have far less in common with each other than people like us do with each other
they're in an even bigger bucket
but their bucket is one they built themselves, by choice
the bucket called earth, they killed the interest in interstellar space travel
now no one at all gets to leave
we will fill the bucket with excrement and ***** and we will all drown together

and the lord said let there be light. and he saw that it was good.

amen.

i didn't see it

flash of light against the coat
i didn't see it

bone crunching against metal
i didn't see it

legs splayed, spinning away across the asphalt
i didn't see it

tires squealing as the car came to a stop alongside
i didn't see it

shattered ribs heaving with labored breath
i didn't see it

leg twitching feebly against the unforgiving road
i didn't see it

waiting outside in the cold for cars to pass
i didn't see it

crossing the road with shaking steps
i didn't see it

standing over the carcass, its eyes glossed over
i didn't see it

apologizing again and again to ears that no longer heard
i didn't see it

touching its wet pelt, caked with dirt and blood
i didn't see it

lifting it first gently then with whatever strength i had
i didn't see it

feeling the skeleton splinters move under the skin as i pulled it
i didn't see it

resting its head against a plowed snowbank
i didn't see it

pool of red by my feet swirled with the snow melt
i didn't see it

opening the door and sitting down, breathing heavily
i didn't see it

blood and dirt on my hands, gripping the steering wheel
i didn't see it

that night, i closed my eyes and tried to sleep.
and do you know what happened then?
i saw it.
i can't stop seeing it.

Sometimes, when I climb the stairs at work,
I trip.

But I always catch myself without injury.

What I fear is the day someone sees me trip.
Not because they'll laugh, no. They wouldn't laugh.

They would ask me if I'm okay.

And I hate being forced to lie.

It doesn't feel like she's gone.

I am struggling to come to terms with it, and you are coping with sleep.

You're smiling. I bet you're dreaming about a world where she's still here.

I hope you stay asleep, and in that world, for a long time.

It's far lonelier in this one.

All too often, we will title
books that won't be wrote, just idle.

Everybody wants to call it,
when it will be nothing, stalled, it
won't have pages written steady,
won't have concepts, base or heady.

It it's read, call yourself lucky,
many writers remain stuck, see
writer's block, the crafty murd'ress
takes your drive and quick submerges.

It'll stay none, it won't take form,
just grows cold, it never stays warm.

To succeed, you have to conquer
all your fears, and don't you squander
any effort on convincing
yourself that you're no good, wincing
from the pain of dreams abandoned,
are you real, or just a stand-in?

Fear will grab you, if you're lonely.
Gentle tendrils sigh "if only",
only what? You gripped the paper?
Grabbed the pen, became the maker?

If you leave your dreams to idle,
all you'll have will be the Title.

They told me you weren't hand tamed.
But we proved them wrong.

After three days, you were fluttering to my finger
From half the room away.

Quickly though, you slowed down, and grew unsteady.
In those last moments, you looked at me, trusting me to help you.

But I couldn't. I didn't know how.

I passed you off to the doctors,
in the hopes that you could be cured.

They did what they could,
but in the end,
I only succeeded in making your last moments a mystery to me.

Were you scared? Calm? Vengeful? Understanding?
I will never know.

They brought you back in, so we could say good bye.

Your eyes stared at me, unblinking.
Gently, I reached to close them.
But each time, they sprung open once more.

Defeated, I covered you, so you could have peace.

Why did you journey so far to meet us,
o passing angel,
only to say good bye?

The spider has chosen her lair. A mere tangle of branches, she alone realizes the potential held. Thread by thread, the foundations are woven.
An inch.

The fruit of her first hour of labor is a mere speck within the cage of twigs. The removal of even a single thread would unravel all. Despite the fragility of her creation, she persists.
Two inches.

Without pause, she brings forth the creation as it is held within her mind. A fly, without warning, smashes into the framework. But her web holds strong, and the fly is promptly wrapped and set aside.
Four inches.

No longer insignificant or fragile, the expansion of her dream continues unabated. Its full complexity known only to her, the web spreads not only wide but deep. A labyrinth, from which the only escape is to be wrapped and set aside.
One foot.

Her tiny body is dwarfed by the scale of the construction, yet her pace still quickens. Each thread wrapped around countless branches, each branch twisted and bent. The core shifts in color as a beam of sunlight attempts to penetrate to the ground below.
Ten feet.

A bird flies into the web, and its motion is abruptly arrested. The inexorable spider crawls onto the bird, ignoring the sheer difference in size. The bird's wings are stretched apart by the threads added, a flag and a warning.
Thirty feet.

The sunlight catches the ever-expanding structure as it twists in the wind. Distressed chirping, croaking, buzzing, a symphony of pain. At the center of it all, she weaves on.
One hundred feet.

The surrounding greenery is shrouded in a wispy cloud which blocks the sun. People, terrified by the sudden appearance, gather to witness it, uncomprehending. A child stumbles into the web, and the spider pulls its limbs apart.
One quarter mile.

The heavy tan trucks roll in, the area long since cordoned off and any trespassers removed. The lever is tested, and the fuel line is connected, before the device is ignited. The flamethrower operator lets loose a jet of liquid heat. The web burns to ashes in mere minutes, taking with it all the limbs and wings. The buzzing, persistent cacophony of pain is replaced by a rising crackle.



Zero.

We were on opposing coasts.

A roaring current separated us.

You were far enough away that I
couldn't see what you were doing,
Obscured by the mist as you were,
But close enough that I could see
you were doing something.

I didn't know what it was,
but then your arrow
struck me in the chest.

And so I bled.

I was first overcome with confusion,
then anger,
then sadness,
but eventually I understood.

When you were so far away,
this was the only way
you could touch me.

I would survive this,
and I would heal.

I cannot hear you,
but if you are apologizing
for hurting me,
you are forgiven.

After all, my dear...

I can shoot arrows too.

There will be a point long in the future where there will be no matter left whatsoever. Hundreds of thousands of millions of billions of trillions of years will have gone by before the last bit of physical existence reaches its un-being.

When that happens, it will mark the end of time having any meaning.

The theory of relativity states that you can move through time, and you can move through space, but there is a limit to how quickly you can move through either, and moving quicker through one slows down your movement through the other.

If I die before the end of time, I will have failed to love you until that point. So I have come up with a plan. I have figured out a way to love you forever.

If we can truly reach the full speed of light, then for us, time will stop. The universe will spin itself apart, into oblivion, while we careen towards that ending, hand in hand. We will reach the end of time in an instant. And I will have loved you forever.

But at the end of time, there is no beauty left for us to experience together. There will be nothing to show you. There will be nothing at all apart from us. It will have been an eternal love, but in name only. A love so full, so complete, that it is utterly empty and as meaningless as time after the end of everything.

So I think that I will take my chances and stay right here on this planet until I die of natural causes, an infinitesimal distance from here to the end of time, a time so short it may as well not have even happened.

I regret to tell you that I cannot love you forever, but instead only for an instant.

In that instant, we will know a lifetime of joy.