I'm outside the glass box, watching you
You don't want pity, sweetie, but I pity you
I remember the days of leaving all to blue
Showing skin for want of love
Miming moments seen
on TV
on screens
in scenes
You'd give all to be seen

Walking with a stilt two paces behind sober,
shivers bared to the air and the eyes of adorers
You tug lightly for a kiss and he succumbs
before maintaining the gait
You've only put yourself out as bait
to be eaten by looks
This love that you're seeking can't be pulled in with hooks
and ***
and sadness

You're see-through
He pities you too

You don't even know me,
other than a few flowered up, brushed-off words

which is why I'll say it here

You are the modern portrait of a woman I looked up to
You hold the life that I lost two years ago
in your smile without knowing what you carry

You are every kind of beauty that I want to be

Stay classy, stay adventurous, stay happy
you have a special kind of soul, and I only know because I knew one once
she was swept away with the wind,
buried in the sea with my tears as I scattered her ash by ash...

My voice cracks when I see your pictures; it's a good thing you don't know me past the words

I want you
to be
concrete and metal shards
ripping out
from inside me

rusty with the dried blood
of the last century

one hundred years from now they'll form you into coat-hangers
when they still haven't figured out what to make of heartbreak
they'll hang you out to dry
in the sun that never rises

eternal injustice, like salt
on the wound
the pain is a distraction from the
cancer of actual problems

Actually,
we live in
the first world

which is awfully pretentious

See what I see:
the trees clinging to these orbs of light
like spiderweb shadows cast by the moon
fingers once clasped, bent now to reflect
an eternal grasp
the instant illusion of age,
of near-death

the confrontation of another kind of cold,
the distant past and future
the distance between here and the horizon

Mental snapshot taken with shivers,
the tree follows me in whispers as my shadow shortens,
zipping my skin up to hide my heartbeat,
lock it away tightly,
walk into my footsteps
and the nighttime
swallows
the reasoned stillness
.
.
My recent stillness,
I notice,
reflects back at me in the
puddles left behind the storm
and the remnants of light flicker

like stars

hearts
beat
the rhythm
of
my feet

fading into the black and soft
and safety in the age-old breath of trees

The colors dripped straight into my stomach
swirling into grey,
darker as the wind blows cold

This space is so familiar yet so different
and I'm still a stranger
or the strangest friend, to have noticed
the air tasting like nostalgia
tasting like thorns
tasting like blood

The clouds cleared but the rain
remained
the same

the same

You said my name
I wish you said my name

I turned around and swirled
with a rush of fabric and stone-cold
into the grey and took flight

I'm trying to find a path.

The one that leads to sleep and straight into my dreams.
I'm thinking that if find it, quantify it, and twist it enough, they might become reality.
I might be able to run past the nightmares and the conflicts and the insanity.

My path is indestructible and it attracts my feet.
I don't have to think
It's like the ground is moving beneath me,
like a black strip of ground is moving beneath me on repeat.
Everyone is suddenly walking on a path
Everyone is on different pieces of ground,
on their own black path
moving beneath them
so they don't have to think.
If these paths don't touch, they don't make eye contact.
They are all together physically,
but they're in their own worlds...

...Who am I kidding, we're all in our own worlds!
And here I am trying to decide which way to go when
I realize it's already been decided.
I'm moving forward on this stupid black path that never changes.
I find myself looking around at the blank walls, the blank faces,
the plugged in faces! The darting eyes avoiding contact.
There's something wrong here.
It hits me every time, full blown.

There's a reason why I avoid the gym.
I'd rather run outside and let the world
take me in.
I'd rather be able to jump if I wanna, or sing,
or say something to the people around me.
Or escape the people around me!
Find a place where I can truly be.
On my own.
So many people are afraid of being alone.

I want this generation to see, to explore, to fall
and get up
and all the things like making forts and traps and seeing
off the top of a mountain -
from outside your car ...
Guys, there are stars in some places.
I'm telling you, there are things worth seeing out there.
I'm telling you what needs to happen.
You need to get up off your seat, unplug your eyes from the screen,
and go discover for yourself where you end up one day.
**** this path of perfection, **** all the shortcuts
and technology and craziness,
this culture of disconnection is
literally
driving
people
insane!
Start asking yourself questions and you'll realize Wikipedia can't tell you everything.
Peel away from your text and you might notice a blossoming tree.
The world changes.
Daily.
It will change, daily, for the rest of your life.

And I don't know about you, but I'd rather not let it pass me by.

Let me explain.

I blend in with the crowd once you chop me into pieces.
Sometimes I'm tough, but you can pound it out of me.
Sometimes I'm mushy and I get tossed in the trash.
Sometimes I'm tasteless.
Sometimes I'm tastelessly prepared
or tastelessly presented.

I've been both fatty and lean.
I've been through thick and thin only to be chewed up
and sometimes spit out
and sometimes digested.

And I can't be fed to the vegetarians
because the people that look closer
might see the signs of suffering