and all of my demons?
they look just
like
you.

somedays you just
need kind words
[even if they're not meant for you.]

i am heavy
[with ugly emotion
that nobody
deserves.]

i care about you more than i should. there's no rational reason for me to; it's been long enough, with few enough words between us and small enough talk. we've dissolved into strangers, but to me you'll never be estranged; i think about you everyday, even when you should be the farthest thing from my mind. when i'm putting on my uniform for a school you never attended. when i'm driving down a road that you couldn't even name with a map. when i'm dissecting a cat, for christ's sake, committing an act so clinical it could be performed by a robot. i shouldn't feel anything, especially not for you. but i do. i still do.

it doesn't consume me the way it once did, thinking about you. you don't consume me the way you once did. i don't ache at the thought of you.

but still. there you are. you've made yourself comfortable in the back of my mind and something tells me you've no plans to leave.

and something tells me i'm okay with that.

i am a black hole
and you
are the stars.

pushing for love is scary. people like to say that it's worth it. but love is a bitter boomerang; you push too hard and it comes back swinging, comes back pushing you, comes back beating you to the ground until you can't breathe. true love leaves you gasping for air, but not in the poetic sense. love leaves you tied to the bottom of the ocean with rocks in your pockets. trapped in a plane with your head out the window. inside of a plastic bag. love is suffocation. pushing for suffocation is scary.

true pain is the kind
that is u n f i x a b l e
the kind that doesn't
come with an instruction
manual and a simple
way to make up for it
pain that never goes away
because it never can
true suffering is found
in this pain
and true strength is found
in living through it
or, rather,
learning to live
despite it.

there are horror films
where my heart
should be.

if this is a warzone,
then call it a warzone.

i don't think i've ever felt that my life was completely my own and i don't think i ever will. i am thrown off-guard by people who simply choose to live. mesmerized by people who throw themselves into their life, as if that is all they are here to do. mind-boggled by people who've never considered the possibility that their life may be bigger than their own, that it could be -- easily -- if they'd only let it. contentment is not in my vocabulary, it is not in my bones; i don't sing in the shower, i breathe.