Dealt with my feelings by not dealing with it
Ignored it
Discarded it
Suppressed it so deep within me
that it slowly disappeared to everyone else

Whatever happened
the deeper I hid it

I appeared heartless, untouched
didnt care what I did to others
compared to how i felt
they meant nothing

but alone, with just my thoughts

I was a scared little girl
hiding in a corner
clutching my knees to my chest
afraid that if I lifted my head
and acknowledged it
it would eat me alive

If I reached out and touched it
it would burn my fingertips

It grew within me
and became too much to deal with

It started manifesting itself
in everything I did
the choices I made
the way I approached life

Writing became its way of escape

bleeding onto pages

now its banished to die.

Dear Cristina
my friend Cristina
The wisp of March wind
could not have come sooner
I just walked down the road
in the purple hour
through an unearthly tropical mist
that swirled around my body
like the ocean swirls around a dancing mermaid
like the snow that encircles your body in a snowstorm
like floating on the enchanting breeze of a love song
I don't go to bed until dawn these days
when the earth is blue and sad
and echoes the emptiness of the desert with no stars
it makes me happy
it makes a strange sensation overcome my cheeks
as my teeth are exposed to the air
and my mouth stretches
into a smile
it feels a bit like pain
but it's not pain
and it feels a bit like acting
except it's real
a smile from the dawn of man
a caveman monkey smile of vague origin and strange ceremony
a smile that might disturb and perplex
even closest friends
but it is not my intention to frighten
so it's for the best that I am mostly in solitude
and that the few remaining friends I had
are all gone now
I bounce around from place to place
5 places in 5 months
I'd forgotten what it was like not to have a home
it's nice
I was spoiled
but I can tell you for a fact
I know
I am alive now
no questions asked
no doubts
I'm sitting in a ramshackle old beach house that's haunted
with a ghost made of mold
surrounded by a clutter of bizarre and beautiful paraphernalia
dusty antiques that haven't been touched in years
and little statues in corners hidden by five hundred green plants
dinosaur plants
here and there my clothes scattered about
my open suitcases in a corner
my new acid wash jeans bunched up on the floor
The kind you've been searching for
for a year now
I spent my last 5 bucks on them yesterday
I haven't much in the fridge this week
so I eat potatoes
I'm still on Steinbeck's "Cup of Gold"
sipping it slowly like a fine wine
the March break kids are in town this week
shooting off firecrackers outside my window
and stealing all the cool sweaters at Goodwill
We should go to Paris
on our way to India this fall
we're gonna paint that town
literally
until then
read some books
and go to the movies at night
and when you put on your first shorts
with still-prickly untanned winter legs
think of me

Rock, paper scissors
Which one is it?
It's your decision

And no matter what you choose

You're goin' to live it

Maybe the song is saying
We all have a path to choose
Decisions to make

No matter what we choose
We are going to live it

True words
Life is full of decisions

Once the positive trending tags
outweigh the negatives,
we’ll find continuity
within our contemplation,
our emotional state,
and our existence.
But as the negative trending tags
outweigh the positives,
our continuity will be conflicted.

© Matthew Harlovic