I think I finally understand what people mean when they compare their love to a burning candle.
I thought I had already known years ago, but I could never have been more wrong.
You were talking about those butterflies you get when you're around me.
As we danced and swayed together that night, after you carried me out into the backyard to the perfect spot in the wet grass,
We held each other in subtle motion together, with arms drawn close around our bodies, as one.
And it was then, amid the misty nightfall, that you told me about those butterflies.

I smiled and delicately ran my hand across your chest, feeling your heart beat with such profound pace and purpose.
I swear, your heart was beating so powerfully that I could feel your thick pulse hurtling throughout your entire body.
We stood there, swaying, and that's when it hit me.

I probably get those butterflies too, when I'm with you.
But I get them more at the thought of you when we're apart.
And at first it worried me, because it felt as if my brain wasn't synchronized with what my heart was feeling.
I  knew I loved you, but I didn't know how I loved you.
It's not as if I don't feel that excitement, or that rush of getting worked up over you, because I most certainly do.

But the main thing that I feel when I'm around you is this wholesome peace and calm atmosphere,
As if the Earth stopped spinning and time is slow.
You make me feel so utterly relaxed that I don't ever notice any other feeling when you're around.
The air feels thick and comforting, sweet and pure, as it surrounds me in everything that you are.

Nothing about this love I have feels rushed, out of control, or over-powering.
It feels like a slow burning of pure passion, delicately taking its time to pass on by.
Its slowness is not to be confused with "boring" or "dull", oh no.
It's something that is slow and careful, but so bright and powerful and...calm.

That night, it hit me, and that night, I knew
just how it was that I loved you.
I finally understand what they mean when they compare their love to a burning candle, and it's not what most think.
For a candle is not fast to burn, nor does it vary in how bright its flame flickers.
Once it has been lit, there's no stopping it, not for anything in the world.
Its steady candlelight glows with ease, with hues of a radiant spectrum of heat.
My love for you is beyond measure, beyond pace, far beyond description, and it feels as old as this dry August sun.
A candle, burning lazily, flickering in a vibrant display,
just as it will be tomorrow, and as it was yesterday.

I haven't been on here in months.
I haven't written anything in months either.
I haven't even opened up a book,
and my drum set has mostly been collecting dust.
It's sad I know, but to be honest
I haven't been doing much of anything lately.

I've been in and out of court,
in and out of towns,
in and out of schools,
in and out of hospitals,
in and out of houses...
It's been one hell of a time to say the least.

I've been to the city's courthouse so often, it's almost funny.
Almost.
I recognize the security guards every time that I'm in there,
even when they switch shifts.
I know the layout from the first to the seventh floor.
I know which of their vending machines is the best to choose from
and how the elevator doesn't work the way it should.
That place is too familiar for my own good.
It's a world of officials in immaculate suits,
dishing out the ***** work in the most vicious of ways,
with small talk, fake smiles, sweaty palms and anxiety.

In the past year, I've lived in four different places
spread all across the Keystone state.
I look back on the first house I grew up in with a twisted nostalgia.
How could things have been that simple, that easy?
With one big happy family under a suburbian roof,
in a small little town that nobody's ever heard of.
The simple times.

That simplicity was shattered,
with the family broken and trying to go our separate ways.
I did love our next house for just a few reasons though.
I loved the fresh new perspective.
I looked at my town in a whole new way.
Hell, I looked at everything differently.
I felt safe and secure,
even though we were living paycheck to paycheck, day by day.
Our next-door neighbor was the sweetest woman that I've ever met.
She brought the culture of her home-country to us,
getting us together for meals,
brewing tea with sugar cubes on a silver platter.
And even though things were turning into absolute ****,
I thought that it was going to be okay.
It was nice while it lasted.

Living in the mountains was refreshing.
I was torn away from everything I had ever known and loved,
****** into a living arrangement that was not exactly ideal.
Secluded by trees, nestled at least a half hour away from civilization.
But you take what you can get when you have nowhere else to go.
It's funny how life works.
I grew to appreciate the simple things:
having a bed to sleep in,
food to eat,
a place to shower,
clothes to wear.
I finally started understanding my life as it truly was,
a big, swirling mess.
But it was okay, because I was finally going to start anew.

Wrong.
Suddenly we were back down where we used to be.
A tad bit further south, just on the edge of the Maryland line.
Once again I had a new perspective,
once again in a living situation that was not ideal.
It's been rather awkward,
being forced to live with family friends.
It was either that, or I would've been forced to live with a monster.
You take what you can get when there are no other options.
This is the life.

It's pitiful to see the state that I'm in.
One would think that I am a pill-popping drug dealer,
for all the bottles of pills that I have with me.
A little bit of Naproxen, some Carafate,
along with Pantoprazole, Methylprednisolone,
standard painkillers and Flexeril, among others.
But nothing is touching the pain,
and the doctors are running out of ideas.
If my father doesn't **** me, this stress certainly will.


Ladies and Gentlemen, I know this isn't exactly a poem...
I don't even know what to call it.
It's just something that I've thrown together for my sanity,
because I've tried everything else.
It's just a big clusterfuck of words,
because I don't even know what I'm saying anymore.
It's just what I've been up to lately.

I've lost countless hours of sleep to these nightmarish thoughts of mine as they engulf me from the inside out...trying to write them, to let them escape, but my face remains as blank as the empty paper.

What can I do to make you see
what the world can truly be
and the endless possibilities
that are out there for you, and me.

What can I do to make you smile
for you to sit back and stay awhile,
to get you out of your comfort zone,
to show you that you're not alone.

What can I do to make you laugh
about something other than your crumbling path,
why can't I help you open your eyes
to look ever so slightly on the brighter side.

Just get up.
Get up, and feel the thrill of being alive,
I want you to be your best and thrive.

Just wake up.
Wake up, from this hazy nightmare,
wade through the depths of your own despair.

If you ever get there,
come and find me.
I'll be waiting beneath the old willow tree.

It's the one filled with memories
of what is and what used to be.
Under the constellations of wonder and awe,
by the sea of emotions, ever jagged and raw.

Its roots are etched into my bone and skin,
for it's part of who I am and what lies within.
I want you to meet me there,
in the lands that lie beyond your despair.

I'll be waiting, ever fading
for you to see what I can't bear to know
that it's up to you, there's nothing I can do.
Time will pass, what will it have to show?

Dear Talia,

I don't want to be a tortured artist.
I don't want to be depressed and I don't want to be anxious.
Competitive sadness and disorders treated like accessories disgust me.

The world glamorizes mental illness, and I don't understand why. There is nothing romantic about being mentally ill just like how there's nothing glamorous about a broken wrist or a torn medial collateral ligament. There's nothing romantic about constantly being afraid that the world will fold in itself and **** you with it. There's nothing romantic about feeling like you could break down and cry at any moment.

This is the first piece I've written while being medicated.

I want it to be Christmas already.

The world dreams itself a halo, but can only attain horns. The halo is an illusion and the horns are an idea.

I'm due to take another Lorazepam. Would I look cool to the kids who idolize dysfunction and misinterpret pain as style, if I were to take one of these, with water and a distant glance, in front of them? Geez, to have their approval would to have everything and nothing at all.

I'm not sure why I've written as much about this as I have.

You.

It is 2:48 am and all I can think about, in this moment, is you.

I can't wait to spend Christmas with you. I can't wait to wear bad Christmas sweaters, and be the couple everyone hates, as we sing Christmas carols and spread holiday cheer.

I wrote this poem a few minutes ago. Sometime around 2:30 am. I'm not sure. I'm exhausted:

I sat on the edge of my bed, and on the edge of my life,
medicated to the point of pointlessness. Soft.
It was the nineteenth, not the twentieth,
and I wished I saw the fireworks with her fifteen days earlier.

My gasps tore the shingles off of the house.
And they hung suspended above the hole in the roof.
And God stared down into my room, as the shingles swirled skyward.
"I see you," I said, "but I don't believe in you."

I left home and ran until I was a dream that had passed itself.


I hope that was okay.

I love you.


Yours,

Joshua Haines