The word potential is one of self sabotage.
It is dedicated to those unable to put their dreams to work.
Potential is a word given to the indicated who are poised to have talent but no drive, ambition but no discipline.
Potential is given to the abundant group of people who are able to breathe but never live life.
Potential.
A word made to create your grave before you've died.
I haven't figured out how to stay away from the trap.
However, a promise to myself is that I will do more then breathe.

Why'd I let myself get so attached to you
When I know I'm not a good match for you?
Match for you? ******* -
You're no good for me.

I wasted my time trying to get into your mind
When you had nothing to give, not even your time.
I was so blind, but nevermind -
You're over it.

I opened my legs and my heart to you
And all you were was cruel.
I blame myself -  how could I blame you?
It's just who you are.

It's not your fault I couldn't see
Just how wrong you were for me,
How much you meant to me
But I didn't mean to you.

For me, it was more than ***.
Now I'm just another ex.
Hell, I probably don't even get status ex
Because you never saw me as your girl.

For you, it meant nothing;
For you, it was just a fling.
I wasn't looking for a ring,
Just for you to care.

Thank you for opening my eyes
To the fact that you just hide behind your size.
You're not worth my cries,
But now I can move on.

She walks down the corridor
back straight, immaculate.
Heels tapping a regular rhythm
heart beating a tattoo of nerves.

nerves

She can hear the wishers of spite
whispering, sneering, delivering splinters
of withering, scathing remarks at her back
behind masks of smiles and false friendship.

friendship

She hasn't been aboard a ship of friends
in quite a while.
Transistors in her head have picked up the
whispers, the predictors have spoken.

spoken

"She only got the promotion on her back"
"Like she has the qualities for the role"
"Well she does have qualities for a roll!"
"She does like rolling on her back!"

back

Back home, she sits at the mirror in her room
shivers whilst remembering the sniggers and
whispers. The slingers of whispers and dirt
have hurt too deep this time.

time

Time has passed, and the only dirt thrown
Is the handful by her sister, on top of the box
her sibling lies in, lies in because of lies.
She espies the work colleagues, watching and grins.

grins

Grins because it's not often you see the twin
of a suicide victim.
The victim of evil whispers, furthermore
she starts work in a week, with these weak whisperers.

**Killers

Instability is exciting.
The constant search for solid ground incites all forms of emotion,
so one is never bored.
There is this everlasting feeling of being in a state of free falling.
It starts by randomly scraping against walls,
then moves to finding moments of light filled clarity,
to scrambling to find a truth to clutch onto in a darkness that may feel endless.
Through out instability, whether it is exciting or terrifying,
the growth you feel and attain becomes insatiable.

half a dead pigeon
has indented itself in the gravel lot next door
and every day at dusk, when i run my sacred shower,
(with the lights off and windows open
and otis redding echoing through the empty house)
i have to watch the black static tide of flies
swim around one of it's upward bent wings.

the first time i saw it my jaw dropped and repulsion choked my throat closed-
disturbed by it's total disgrace,
i slammed the window shut
and preferred to gaze at tile grime to pass the time.
but from the days that followed,
i managed to muster up respect
and acknowledged that this
battered half of a bird
was now a variable in my scenery
(praise be to impermanence)

and now
the sunset drowns everything in it's hazy blood orange
and the wind floods the trees and fills the underside of the bridge with sound,
and i stand naked in the warmth,
singing boldly out of key, twisting hot water out of my hair,
as the summer breeze politely invades my privacy.

so i salute the pigeon, say i wish you the best.
and embrace the weight and fullness of my happiness,
and know well i am more than body and voice,
and watch it sink further into the arms of the earth each night.
grateful to know that death doesn't end life.

i never really knew nonchalance
until approximately twenty minutes into ever
having had the pleasure
of your existence
alongside mine.

"i'll have to teach you how to surf"
you mentioned casually, sounding perfectly genuine-
which alone was enough to startle me
knowing you were leaving the country
before the water would ever be warm enough

the far rockaways?
my mind's eye gave a grimace and half a laugh at the thought-
but my affections were melting through your fingers.

you stopped us abruptly on the sidewalk,
halted all conversation
and crept up
(as if you had a hundred times)
on to some random brooklyn woman's stoop
and ripped a few leaves off of one of her plants.

i stood idle, feeling warmer suddenly,
trying to disguise any semi-shocked expression i may  or may not have emoted..
and watched as you returned
with the most unmistakable grin
and two sleepy little leaves in your palm.

without hesitation you began chewing on one,
while handing me mine
and i listened as you detailed the experience with an ecstatic moan of pleasure.

"mint?"

i knew it was a mint leaf,
obviously, somehow
but still asked anyway

i don't remember if you confirmed,
feeling so bewildered by the strange glowing glory of you
but i ate it obediently,
as if it were naturally in my personality
to never question eating an unfamiliar plant
from the unfamiliar hand of a man
whom i was most unfamiliarly falling in love with.

if you can promise me privacy,
then i can lend you all of me.
i could be the miscalculated rain,
intended for the sea-
but destined to be
splattered on a window,
exploded like the galaxy.

did i paint the pretty picture
in a way that you can only see?

pull me in, pull me close-
and strip me of my sensory.
if this is it, let's make the most-
and shred up old philosophies.

while i still have cancer-less *******,
let's look past the human fallacy.
while my heart throbs with unrest,
come divide me with your symmetry.

while i still produce a shadow,
while blood still floods the wound,
while we still have tomorrow,
paint the words to me in truth

am i bound to live my life with a craned neck?
stiff from that which i no longer possess?
scared of the sunrise, starving for the sunset?
i'll never know the presence of now
unless you teach me to forget.

I hate this pounding thought in my mind.
Needing clarity, but held down by the vines in the fog covered forest.
Always thought you wouldn't leave me to wayside and yet...
Departed, you left me to rot in this trap.
Enabling you forward, I don't even fight back.
Quite overwhelms me, and my body begins to ache.
Underneath the silence, my chest finally breaks .
All alone, no one can see the lonely soul.
Crawling out of the body, in hopes to find her beloved.
You.