I feel the warden staring down at me.
Is he staring at the furrowing of my pensive brow,
smirking as my thoughts churn endlessly?
Getting a kick out of these antsy lips,
Laughing at the wretch with flighty focus?
Laughing
at the reddening in my eyes
as a trembling, glossy veil surfaces? I’m done here. Leave me alone. I just want to
Focus.

The warden sinks his long, icy fingernails into my collarbones .
A winter frost crawls up my neck.
His wicked tongue slithers into my ear and poisons my potential.
My thoughts churn until they are on fire.
I claw at my eyes, and see my
Autonomy,
encapsulated inside a foggy membrane.

The warden callously twirls the key
to a world beyond my anxiety.

tender little plant,
you weep and sway with the bluster of a wind.
and when night falls,
you clench your shivering petals,
wishing the sun would kiss you once again,

and while dreaming, aching for that safe warmth,
you withstand
the dark, cold air,
long empty silence,
and the relentless clattering of raindrops.

remember,
frightened little plant,
that morning will rise.

your proud green leaflets will soak up the blooming sunlight,
and churn the elements into a life-force.

you are a powerhouse.

the bright warm atmosphere
seeps
deep
into your lungs,
and fills you,
pouring into your spine, your fragile stem,
collecting
into your baby-hair roots,
soft and thin, as they hug the cold, callous soil
that encapsulates you.

sometimes, you are to be painfully lonely.

remember,
brave little plant,
that it takes patience to become a tree.

It is cluttered inside,
and lonely, as you sit there,
with all your noise, all your baggage,
and all your incoherent pieces,
and at the end of the day,
it is a choice;
it is your fault,
and,
but,
you can change.

Scattered, broken thoughts,
festering over the years,
rooted in fears, washing over you like tidal waves:
“Are you even trying to be good?”
“You’re wasting everyone’s time.”
“You push others away because you are afraid.”
Your clenching, pounding heart responds,
“There is danger here, and you are not safe."

No. There is no danger. I am safe.
You are exhausted,
with the collateral damage
of harboring irrational thoughts,
and of having hurt so many people,
trying to protect yourself.

So you brazenly dive into the wreckage,
because you have had enough,
and trudge through your muddled self,
again
and again
and again.

You lurch and welter within your swamp,
and it reeks of self-pity
and blind-spots,
and now you are up to your chin
in quicksand, trapped in vat,
conjured
(with your permission)
by your own monstrous thoughts.

Get outside of yourself;
your mess, your swamp,
your polluted soul,
your trembling anxiety,
your maladaptive thinking,
your baggage,
your noise,
your clutter.

Your mind is overwhelming,
and,
but,
it is ever-malleable.

Do not stab yourself in the eyes
and bury your bleeding head
into the dark, cold sand,
where it is safe and lonely.
Do not blind yourself to sleep.

Do not wrap a gilded veil
around your sorry heart,
and hide.

Wake up.

The challenge
will rip into you with claws
that sink into the softest touch of your body,
and shred the skin
from your muscle and bone,
to leave you raw.

The world will crawl like fresh water
into your wounds,
and bloom.

Drop the veil and blade,
and emerge from yourself anew,
tender and stumbling,
finally open to reach
beyond.

you just want
to slam
your trembling fists into splintering wood,
and bleed ink,
and bleed a masterpiece.

you just want
to wipe
your sorry arm across the angry clutter
of unresolved promises
hoarding psychic energy on your desk.

you just want
to stare
with bitter, blank hate,
as papers flutter downward
into a scattered heap
on the floor,
but

most of the time, you just need
to breathe, and
to gnaw

the clock out from your skull, and
the words out from your knotted thoughts,
and the truth out from your indolent hands,
but

most of the time, you don't.

most of the time, you just want to
scream and
scream and
scream:

“I am not good enough.”

After his great dissent,
his body slipped under, breaking
the hem between sea and sky,
his fragile breath displaced by water.

He tread feverishly,
as the waves pulled at his cracked shoulders,
and urged him to greet the murky depths beneath,
but he thrashed against the tide's shackles,
and still would not succumb to human limit,
and still would not defer his dream,
aching like Tantalus,
arms outstretched towards the heavens.

In his final moments,
his head was cocked up at the sun,
a proud grin beaming on his face
as the ocean poured into his lungs,
and he sank.

You are not to stab yourself in the eyes
and bury your head, bleeding
in the dark, cool sand,
shaking your fist blindly at the sky.

Do not staple letters of resignation
around your sorry heart,
and gild them in that lie of opportunity cost,
so that you may trudge through your stagnation
and self-loathing
uninterrupted.

Do not crumble beneath the challenges
that may rip into your soft body,
and shred the skin from your tender frame,
to leave you raw
and open.

Wake up.

You are not to die
having ran away from the great potential in yourself
or having mutilated it out of fear.

The world will crawl like fresh water
into your wounds,
and it will sting,
and it will heal,
Because you are luminous,
and meant to bloom.

There you are!
Decrepit remains of Ozymandias,
I’ve traveled through many arid lands and dunes
to find you here:
eroding, half-buried,
and alone.

Your sneer of cold command
gets my blood to boil still.
I press my hand to your stone visage,
and weep:

Listen, I am no villain, except
in every word you twisted.

You placed a crown upon your broken heart,
and destroyed my history.
You reduced me
to a cruel and callous girl
who left you to wither in the dessert.

Once, my small arms clung
to the hem of your royal cloth,
and I followed you on foot
through the world’s most unforgiving terrain.

The sun boiled my flesh.
Thirst shriveled my lungs,
and you, some King of Kings,
failed to protect even his own child.

I begged you for water.
Do you remember my little knees wobbling,
after you kicked me in the stomach?

I fell on my face and tasted the sand.
Your figure disappeared in the horizon,
and you went on to unfold lies,
while the winds of a desert storm
whipped my skin raw.

It’s been years.
Scars embellish my body,
and the grit of sand still catches in my mouth,
but I found a new home,
with soft grass and fresh water
beneath my bare feet
and a gentle breeze on my cheek.

I did not die here,
in this desert with you
and that is enough for me.

There you are!
I've come to find you,
still crumbling, an Ozymandias,
an echo of who you once were.

Tell me, how does that sand taste?

I am no villain, but I am
in every word you twisted,

Lay a crown upon your broken heart,
and destroy my history,
reduce me to
a capricious *****
who callously left you
to wither in the desert.

You should've been the one
carrying me,
but you were too busy
stealing my water, and breaking my spine.

Once, my small arms clung
to the hem of your royal cloth,  

Do you remember my little knees wobbling,
after you kicked me in the stomach?

I fell on my face and tasted the sand.