When can I breathe again?
I’ve been holding it for the past week.
When will my lungs relax from this tensed up state,
of ******* in air and keeping it there.

It’s like every time I try to exhale,
I choke.

Because I’ve been planting new trees
in this forest of responsibilities,
******* the hours out of the day
Taking away
My carbon dioxide
and expelling stress
The poison that this oxygen is

Because the message chime of my phone
has become a dreadful drone.
Chat bubbles rise up into the sky
They pop and pop
Like some kind of cry
For help
I need some air for myself

Because I’m so ******* mad
And not at any of the friends that I have
But at my own selfishness
They deserve the best
And yet I treat them like a pest
How do I even ******* live with myself
When I ever only give to myself

“I need to breathe”
**** that noise
Are you even listening to your voice
You’re acting like a child

“I’ll do it, just give me some time’
Always looking for excuses
Keeping expectations low
With this self-deprecating *******
We get it, we know
You’d rather not do anything at ******* all
Playing the day away
Watching the night away
Wary of making plans
Because you know when you do, you can’t
Back away
You’re scared of facing the day
That you need to give your time away

“I need to breathe”
“I need to breathe”
How much ******* air do you need?
Are you blowing yourself up like a balloon?
So that you can fly
High
Up in the sky
And get even more air for yourself
But here’s the thing pal:
At high altitudes, the air is thin
Oxygen sparse
And that’s when this whole farse
Will come and bite you in the ****
And you’ll realize how it feels to be alone
And there’ll be no home
To return to
Because you pushed everyone away
away
Away
Away
Like you push the air out of your lungs
In the hope that people will get hung
Up on this crystal clear facade

JUST ******* CUT IT OUT, MAN

ANd I’m out of breath again

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Since I last talked to you? Because it feels like lately all you’ve been doing is yell at me and I stay quiet.
I keep holding back my tears, biting my tongue... I don’t want to look weak, but I don’t want to lash out at you either, so I stay quiet.
Every word you spit in my face, every insult you throw at it… it doesn’t break my bones, but it hurts me in ways I could never have imagined, yet I stay quiet.
Though, lately, they seem to bounce back a lot more than they used to, or maybe my sense of pain has just been dulled, so I stay quiet.

To tell you the truth, you’re not good for me.
You like to beat me up when I’m defenseless.
You tell me my problems don’t matter when I’m hurt.
You call me an attention ***** for reaching out to others.
You confuse me with your mixed signals and overthinking.
You make me feel alone and unloved when I need others the most.

You’ve made me lose motivation to become a better person.

Because maybe I really am that bad. I try to look ahead of me, towards the future, but you keep beckoning me to look back.
At all the mistakes that I’ve made.
And I know, there’s a lot of them, each one worse than the last, but you act as if that’s all I do, as if no one will ever love me because of it.
And the thought of that hurts…
So much.

You’ve left a hole in my heart where my inspiration and motivation used to be, because you keep bashing my work, telling me it will never live up to my expectations. I can’t even begin to count how many of my writings’ deaths you have on your name.

Even right now, when I’m going through a lot already, you just can’t resist to make me feel even worse, can you? Whispering in my ear that I don’t try, even though I do; that I will fail when I need to believe that I will succeed.

But I’m done taking this abuse.
And if you think that means I’ll retaliate, you’re sorely mistaken, because I’m not going to fight fire with fire.
If you think that means I’m finally going to leave you, you couldn’t be more wrong, because I need you more than anything.
No, instead I will love you, because you’re all I have and I am all you have. I hope that one day, we can set our differences aside and work together to be better. You haven’t always been like this and I know that deep inside you’re still the same person I’ve once come to know, the person I’ve once come to love.

So remember, despite everything, I will always love you.

Love,
Alexander

You’re more than the sum of your parts.
Your form, as it travels through the air, is poetry in motion,
a poem written in the wind,
invoking a wide range of emotions,
from getting your blood pumping,
to getting your heart bleeding;
from jumping for joy,
to jumping in fear.
But unlike others, your beauty carries something soulful:
a memory.

My blood isn’t boiling over the heat you radiate alone;
I associate it with facing my nemeses.
My heart isn’t soaring because of the wings you give me;
it soars because I remember the excitement of a victory.
My tears aren’t welling because of your rainclouds spilling;
the pools form over the fall of a friend.

Had it not been for these memories,
you would have been nary a whisper,
facing a boundless flood of noise,
but even as I’m drowning in its vastness,
you, I will forever proudly hoist.

Ravished by love or violence, it bleeds.
Amply present in the sun’s morn glow.
Ignition of a candle’s fuse, it burns bright.
Nature’s leaved veins extend in its wake.
Boundless oceans hold it in their foamy arms.
Otherworldly bodies at night, it envelops.
Wind blows through its vibrant petals.

Beauty cannot be captured with one color alone.
It’s a spectrum.

I used to hate rain.
I hate how cold it feels.
I hate how it makes you run for cover,
behind whatever you can find.
I hate how it trickles and burrows where it shouldn’t go,
because even the strongest of mountains
raindrops erode.

But rain has its upsides.
Rain washes away the bad.
Rain is like an artform,
expressing itself against the canvas of the earth.
Rain brings people together,
as they shelter inside cozy houses
and the sound of downpour is drowned by friendly chatter.

I used to hate rain
and I think i still do,
but I miss it too.

And today, as I had my head cast upward
awaiting the saltwater release,
I opened my eyes to a sight of relief.
After years of clear skies
and drought,
I finally saw it again:
a cloud.

Mistake.
A miss taken.
A misstep taken.
A misstep is all it takes.
A misstep takes it all.
Take a misstep, all breaks.
A misstep is all it takes to break.
A misstep is all it takes to break your spirit.

Do you know the feeling
of adding onto a mistake?
Switching, twisting, making it more appealing,
but no matter what you make,
what it used to be leaves an imprint on the paper.
Black on white.
Wrong on right.

Don’t you wish it wasn’t so?

But you can’t delete your save data, like in some game.
You can’t just start over, blank slate, new avatar, new name.
The system will never forget;
On that, you can place your bet.
And in case you’re wondering why...

Regret.

Like a whirlpool out of control,
like a rampant snowball,
runaway, amassing all
intrusive memories it can gather,
moments and details you would rather
forget, but the fact that you remember makes you madder!
And it is as such with all matter.

Mistakes leave a stain
on your brain.
Wipe the muck?
No such luck.
Because that’s not how the world works, you see?
The way of the universe is entropy.

“Oh, you’re baking a cake?
I can help with that!”
I say as I accidentally leave the cake in the oven too long and burn it.

“Oh, you’re painting a banner?
I can help with that!”
I say as I accidentally knock over a can of paint and make a mess.

“Oh, you’re moving some stuff?
I can help with that!”
I say as I accidentally drop a box of fragile things and break them.

“Oh, you’re struggling with something?
I can help with that!”
I say as I accidentally say the wrong things and make you feel worse.

“Oh, you’re struggling with something again…?
I would help with that, but…”
I say as I try my best to help anyway.

Maybe I can’t always help, but I can always try.