I am greedy, I am covetous, I am insatiable
in the way I want all there is to have about you,
and I grasp at it with earnest hands.
Yes, I do want to know all your fears and dreams,
and of course I want to know things like
whether or not you like your eggs over-easy.
But I want to know all of the things about you
that have made you the enthralling individual you are:
each of the things that make you cry,
anything and everything that has made you smile,
all of the reasons you have scars and blemishes.
I want to know the hex code for that perfect shade
of blue in the sky that brings you peace, and
tattoo it onto my skin so that I would never forget.
I want to learn everything there is to know about you
and spend the rest of my life trying to memorize it.

I had this notion of wanting
to be more like oldself–
not more like myself, because myself
has become too sad and too hurt;
I remember oldself being so much more.
But where does one look for one's oldself?
It's not like I just hanged it out to dry
or hung it up on the wall next to a poster.
No, oldself has been scattered and beaten,
tossed along the path of nostalgia.
Bits of oldself linger among
sketchpads and sneakers, SEGA
and Lego sets and Star Wars.
It's back there with s'mores and scouts
and bonfires and books and
the belief that the big, blue world
was a place where dreams came true.
Oldself thinks that optimism
is the only option, myself makes a
note to self: that matter mostly
isn't true, as a matter of fact.
I can't always see oldself, it's buried
beneath six feet of dirt, gossip and rumors;
there's tons of stress and anxiety weighing
on its chest, dressed in a halcyon suit.
Oldself never used to worry
like myself does so often nowadays
but he also couldn't sing like myself can.
He had a wilder imagination than
myself could ever conceptualize,
yet I've exceeded so many of the dreams
that oldself had for my future self.
I often think to myself: what would
Oldself think if Oldself met myself?
And although I may not have turned out
exactly how Oldself envisioned myself,

I've grown and learned from Oldself
and now I'm proud of myself– a place
that my old self never thought I would be.

It's four in the morning
And I am all alone
Except for the shadows
That call me home
The darkness is mingling
With the tears that fall
Giving strength to the demons
That await in the hall

There is nothing left
Of this soul of mine
It has broken away
And it's so hard to find
There's nothing left
For me to show
It's been taken away
By my ghosts

the star
obliviously
makes her
rotations
of life
around
the black hole
glowing
shining
fiery
pits of hell
if you get close,
but providing
warmth
and life
to her planets
that stay
far enough
away

naive
creature
born maybe
closer to the black
hole
than others
doesn't
notice it
as
out of the ordinary
anything
other
than her life

each
movement she makes
she will
be closer
to her destination
closer
to her destiny

took me
twenty years
of life
until I realized
the full force
of my depression

only when
she got close enough
did she realize
she was falling
into
the black
hole
that this
was what
wanted
her energy
her mass
herself
*******
pulling
with more force
than anything
she had ever
experienced

the realization
that her
entire life
was spent
waiting
to be devoured
by this
hell
oblivion
all she knew
was a
fabrication
never even
thought to wonder
what
she was circling
just
ignored
the glaring questions
ignored
the evidence
ignored
all of the signs
until
it was too late
to escape

event horizon

help me

i am trying
to gather
the momentum
strength
power
to get myself
outside
this point
of no
return
seems
impossible
seems
wasted
I won't stop
until I am devoured alive

I am the star
at an
event horizon

black hole
let me
free

I used to be so hesitant about expressing
the extent of my feelings towards people.
There have been too many instances where
I value and appreciate and love someone
much more than they ever would reciprocate,
and to them I would seem overwhelming,
reckless, and desperate with the way I felt.
I’ve learned it’s too risky to pretend not to care.
What comes next is too uncertain, too capricious.
In the next 24 hours, I could get hit by a bus,
move to another country, I could disappear.
I am young and we are fragile and mundane
and we never know when the bus is coming.
We don’t know who won’t be here tomorrow
or in two weeks or in two years from now.
All we know is the unadulterated here and now
of our infinitesimal existence on this planet.
I love being straightforward and honest, I love
telling people how much they mean to me,
I say things like “you are one of my favorite
human beings to ever walk this earth of ours”
and “you are a strong, resilient, beautiful sunflower.”
I love hands in hands and heads in laps and
kisses and hugs and cuddles and caresses.
I love saying "I love you and I appreciate you."
I need you to know now, in this moment
that I care for you to the ends of the earth, and
I cannot believe that I have the privilege
of knowing you and your story and simply
having someone like you in my life.

I love being unapologetically Harsh.

No matter what you do in this life,
put all of your heart into it.
Invest every fiber of your being
into whatever you work on,
no matter how arbitrary
or even how irrelevant.
The best that comes about
this exhausting way of life
is that you end up with
a job well done, and
all the recognition you deserve.
The worst thing you end up with
(stay with me, trust me on this)
is the raw, unfiltered fact
that you gave it your all.
You tried to the fullest extent
of your capacity and ability.
No one, no matter who they are,
where they come from,
what they look like,
how they got to where they are,
or what their story is,
can ask any more from you
than your absolute best.

Without wax,
Someone Who Should Have Always Tried
But Didn't

* P.S. Because what more can they really ask of you?

I was driving through Washington yesterday,
we started our trip in Renton and made our way
down to Moses Lake; and in the process,
we had to pass through the Cascades on our way there.
As we drove, I watched as the exits flew past:
Newcastle, Wenatchee, Snoqualmie, Ellensburg,
and as we sped past each of these, Mt. Rainier
loomed in the distance; her snow-capped peak
standing tall and piercing through clouds,
as the winding road passed through hills and valleys.
As I gazed upon the jagged sheetrock
towering all around me, I could not help but feel small.
We've been told our whole lives just how big the world is
and how much bigger the universe is in comparison
But I've always had a hard time conceptualizing
how infinitesimal and insignificant my existence is.
So to be surrounded by thousands upon thousands
of rock and stone that have withstood
floods and storms and winds for millennia
and still stand strong, well into the stratosphere,
is nothing less than humbling.