Something inside of me is broken.
Some piece of the machine has cracked, the gears in my mind have come to a stop, rust has begun to collect.
Some days it feels like I might be dying, or that I may already be  dead.
A numbness creeps into the spaces between my fingers and toes, spreading slowly up my arms and legs, wrapping itself around my middle like a snake, squeezing the life out of my lungs, the last of my air pushed out from between my quivering lips trying to form the words to scream for help.
I used to think that I was strong, powerful, mighty, but I’ve come crashing down in a ruin that would put Rome to shame.
The pieces of who I thought I wanted to be have collected around my feet, crumbling so severely that they blend in with the dirt beneath me.
I have been left naked, without any sense of self, afraid to look down and see what scars people may have carved into my two-toned frame.
I’ve tried to be so many people recently that I’m not sure I could pick my own mind out of a crowd.
My thoughts revolve around people and places that I want to reach for, but my heart holds my hands at my sides like a straight jacket, doing all it can to not be torn apart before it has a chance to find a way to pull itself together again.
The blood in my veins has begun to flow red hot and ice cold at the same time, two separate types of burning which should balance out but instead have learned to coexist.
I want to slice open my veins, pour out the two streams, mix them into a lukewarm state of nonexistence, so that maybe I can feel something somewhere in the middle of two extremes.
I am scared.
I feel alone in a crowded room.
I crave attention but shy away from the light.
I like the shadows.
I like the darkness.
Sometimes with a body lying next to me, but oftentimes with only blankets to pull closer.
I like to feel protected but I hate that I haven’t yet figured out how to protect myself.
I haven’t figured out how to give myself over to a person, to trust that they’ll give me back, to learn how to take myself back.
I haven’t figured out how to not be serious.
How not to love with everything.
How not to feel pain when everything is not what I get in return.
I want to learn how to feel any emotion except sad.
To be able to touch my own body and feel more love than in the fingers of someone else, as they trace over the skin I’m still tracing myself.
There is an incomplete self-portrait in my brain that I have been relying on others to finish instead of transforming the mangled pieces with my own hands, letting my fingertips smudge out the harsh lines to become soft.
Soft is how I want to feel.
Soft, like the sand underneath the smooth stones and sharp shells by the ocean.
I want to blend myself into oblivion, until I am nothing more than the idea of a body, until only my mind remains, and I learn that soft is not weak. Soft is powerful. And neither is something to be afraid of.

as i pass these unfamiliar faces
i begin to wonder
about how their lives are
how many kids they have
if they even have kids
whether or not they're feeling the same sonder i am
i wonder if they're okay
if they have eaten today
have they been out all afternoon
if someone loves them
but then i stop and think about my pondering and realize
you have literally no idea what goes on in someone else's life

The city was laid bare:
like a patient upon the operating table
I walked the streets with precision
I was the scalpel carving communities from the fauna
the city was alive, and so it was truly sick
concrete jungle
projects and penthouses
the beleaguered old traipsed about, silent, but not quiet
the youth, rambunctious and carnal, feasted upon the dying
With each touch, I soothed the soul
Kisses, like antiseptic.
Lectures, like stitches.
Like cumulonimbus, the raucous ramblings of crowds grew
I said to myself, "It is fine, this is life, let it live."

Youth, ablaze with carrion wings, descend upon the old
beaks barrelling forward, pecking and snatching decency
still there are some who help
swooping down like proud eagles, they shoo away the scavengers
they beat back the tide of villainy
they shelter innocence, foster truth
but they are not enough...
I carve out the **** of corruption
I ventilate the lungs of the city and plug the punctures
but the pollution is virulent and stubborn...
Still, I say to myself, "This is poetry, love is a mystery, let them be."

I will hear them cry in the rain
I will not know my place
I might extend a hand, proffer an embrace, but
they will shy back,
for man will become monster
and God will become devil... in their eyes: deluded; poisoned by hate.
I will wonder where I went wrong.
Will I try my best to turn the helm against the wave,
go THROUGH the heart of the storm?!
Of course, I will try
I will try,
but I will fail.
Man will flaunt his freedoms, those which were freely given.
Despite my grief, I will say to myself, "All things have an end. There was nothing I could do."

I wonder to myself...
How many centuries have I folded my hands against the storm.
Behold! It's patience!
It will ever rise,
It will ever approach!
So long as man lies,
It will reach for his throat!
Man will always feign surprise,
It is a sickness he cannot broach...
As the color of morning skies is calming,
The fumes of the rumbling storm are maddening!

I always let the storm build until the lightning sets the world on fire
because
I thought the storm was man's voice in an inimical life...
But I was wrong, the storm is the beast that lurks in the shadows.
It sets the table for carrion.
The beast builds the cumulonimbus, preparing the kindling for the floods of war.

The storm's pallor stains man's skin so ubiquitously
That he mistakes the storm for himself.