It’s five thirty in the mirror maze,
and you’re all standing still,
surrounding each other at every angle.
There’s a way out but do we deserve it?
And the answer is no, no we don’t.
So we don’t try it and then it’s just you
and you and you in the mirror maze,
making yourself claustrophobic.
It’s hard to stand yourself in here
and it makes it hard to move.
We spend so much time alone together
that we begin to loathe each other
and then how can we get out?
If we can’t tolerate our self,
how do we leave the mirror maze
and inflict our self on others?
See, it’s better to just stab yourself
in the back three times over.
Let’s call it penance.
Let’s call it a lazy sort of suffering,
a selfish sort of punishment,
a sorry I’ve been such a bad person
but look at how much of my life
I’m wasting, look, I’m suffering now,
and I know I deserve this, I’m so sorry.
I understand I’m a terrible person.
We make no attempt to escape the
mirror maze that we’ve made for our self
so the life outside goes rotten.
It withers or it outgrows us,
and still, we’re standing in the mirror maze.
One day, I tell myself, I’m going to make it.
One day, things will be different.
But you can’t see it in the mirrors.
See, you’ve tried happiness before
and each time you find that beautiful blue winter,
that purple evening, that wide ocean,
you blink and you’re back in the mirror maze.
In the happy spaces, the mirrors put themselves back up.
Each perfect place and each perfect moment
becomes another mirror maze because we’re so stuck here.
You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve this.
Why should you be happy? You don’t deserve this.
I hate you, we tell each other and try to turn our backs
on our self but you can’t do that in the mirror maze.
We ought to be sad. Why aren’t we sad enough yet?
It’s unproductive, it’s toxic, it’s pathetic,
all this self-inflicted sadness, but aren’t we
all supposed to hate the girl in the book
who refuses to be sad? I don’t know what to do anymore,
so today’s yet another day gone, six o’clock in the mirror maze,
wearing yesterday’s bad feelings because new ones don’t feel right.
​

You are my start and my end
My solace, and my best friend
The keen listener at the end of a long day
The only light when shadows are at bay.

And yet, I can feel myself slipping
As you guide me across the frozen water
Even with your reassuring hold on me tight
Somehow that just isn't enough tonight.

There are too many missing pages
Endless questions left unanswered
That I am left torn by the discrepancies
From those who claim to know you better.

Faith does not exist without trust
And trust does not exist without clarity
Realizing this I feel as if I have only been pretending
To understand more than I actually do.

I witness as the structures surrounding you collapse
The fear creeps in for I know nothing
Of the world without their shelter
And here I am left to design my own skyline.

I may wobble and crash onto the cracked ice
That threatens to swallow me whole with every impact
But nothing counts unless I've earned it on my own
So hold on to me and the hope for my return.

For I am your catapult, my Love
Stronger the further I am pulled back
After all, you are my start
And my end.

Busy people rarely ever feel sad. Why? Because sadness requires a certain depth of epiphany, a subtle but constant blow in the gut. You can never find sadness lurking in the corners of a busy office or in a library full of curious young minds.

Sadness, I think, is when the world has momentarily left its orbit to embark on a dim lit path. It is there when the day is over and the lights are out and you are left sitting in the dark feeling every bit of human. It is when you'd rather stay in for the rest of the night- and day, as well -because frankly, you have forgotten the difference.

I walk the fine line between love and hate
Consecutively losing balance and falling
Into the deep abyss of either one
Just to climb my way up and slip right into the other

Every landing just can't seem to arrive any sooner
Consistent with it's tasteless teasing
As if my mind has not sat through enough horrors
I reason with myself, that it probably really hasn't

My vocal chords have no more screams to release
Aware that they would just be consumed by the echoes
From the last time I was there
A shift in amplitude never changed a thing.

And still, I walk the fine line between love and hate
Despite the times my body slams onto the cold, hard ground
For it is the only path I have
To absolute indifference.

I live my life in hues of blue
I live my life in spite of you.

---

You once drew a picture
Of the land and the sea
With our names scribbled across
There was you, and there was me.

Always a few steps ahead
You saw the divide
As I stubbornly attempted to prove
We belonged on the same side.

The pin-drop silence and still air
Distinguishes the wrong from right
I keep my eyes glued to the ground
Embarrassed, with my lips sewn tight.

Rather than intersecting lines
With a single momentary collision
We are more like those parallel
Dangerously close up until infinity.

So though you never asked
I've come to fix your little metaphor.

Me and you, we're more like
the sea and the sky
Each passing second
As my waves rise and fall
I tirelessly beat my own record
Of new heights, just to get on yours
But all you do is look down on me
With a hint of amusement.

I lay defeated beneath you
On my back, lost in your vastness
My clear waters reflect everything
That is painted across your horizon
And I am most beautiful when mirroring the color of you;
Your favorite, that powder blue.