mind stands solemnly in the middle,
with logic and emotion on either side
like devoted sentinels guarding a queen.

"don't think about it,"
emotion says, batting her long lashes.
"just do what feels right
and follow your heart."

"but sometimes,"
logic interjects with his sharp eyebrow cocked,
"what feels right will
hurt us in the long run."

"do you want to try, and know, and fail?"
emotion asks with suprisingly honest conviction.
"or do you want to spend the rest of your
life wondering what could have been?"

"would you rather open your heart,"
logic counters thoughtfully and quickly,
"and have a part of it stolen?
or would you rather protect it all?"

as mind wavers in the middle,
she feels herself rip in two.

half of herself stands upright,
stiffly held under logic's watchful eye.
the other half melts into emotion's warm embrace.

her heart aches and she feels sick.
the idea of following logic's advice
would mean to ignore emotion's advice--
and to follow emotion's advice would
mean ignoring the advice of logic.

she looks back and forth pleadingly.
logic's cadaverous stare seems to tell
mind that only logic will solve this problem.
but emotion smiles softly, and her eyes say
that this way, though it may cause pain,
will be the most rewarding.

"neither choice is the right one,"
mind says finally,
with a little bit of logic and
a little bit of emotion.
"but i must choose now, for soon i will
not be able to make a choice at all.

"then whose advice will you follow?"
emotion questions carefully.
"will you open your heart to love?"

"or will you listen to me and protect
yourself from unnecessary pain?"
logic asks, eyebrow cocked again.

"perhaps you are correct, logic,
and i would do well to seal off my
heart and never let anybody in."

at these words, logic smirks knowingly,
but mind continues anyway.

"as for me, i think i would rather
feel true, burning love and have to
live with the scars than to be
lonely, bitter, angry, and old
and die without ever knowing
how to love myself and somebody else."

emotion does not gloat;
she simply nods softly,
encouraging mind to continue.

"after all, is life not a journey of risks?
how could we ever find peace and
contentment without enduring a
few bad decisions and learning from them?"

my heart is pulled to breaking,
and my mind cannot stop swirling,
but your mouth just won't stop screaming,
and my soul can't make it stop.

you tell me that i'm greedy,
you tell me that i'm ugly,
you tell me that stupid,
and you tell me that i'm fat.
you say you hate my guts and
that you wish i would just die,
and your words tattoo upon my
heart a lingering memory scar.

my rage is boiling deep inside,
and the steam will cloud my eyes.
i cannot think straight,
i cannot even breathe,
and now you have gone too far.

the levee breaks, and my anger
is vomited up so quickly i do not
understand the words i speak.
i have to clasp my hands and
shove them into my pockets,
for i fear, of their own will,
they'll break your neck.

someone, please, tell me
how to slay the dragon;
how does one lowly mortal
raise their hands to stop
a hurricane?

the battle wages longer as
i now participate,
and the dragon only grows stronger
as i shrink and shrink and shrink.

and as the glass shatters,
i shatter.
my very own heart,
tattered and battered,
breaks into dust, so
fine and lucid the world
does not even notice.

and then, the bravehearted
prince drops her at the feet
of the dragon-keepers.
they look at her, and they
look at me, cold and dry and sad.
they say we both must pay the
price to atone for our crimes.

and now, i just sit.
i sit and think and cry.
alone and dark and helpless,
i wish i could just die.
i suddenly feel fat,
and ugly, and stupid, and greedy.
her words become my truth as
i sob into my pillow; i wonder
who i have become.

i look into the mirror,
and to my own chagrin,
the pores upon my face have
turned into shiny scales.
my tongue is slowly forking,
and my nostrils billow smoke.
i want to smash the mirror
and tell it 'stop this joke!'
but i cannot change the truth
and i cannot change the past;
the mirror only shows me what
he sees with his own three eyes.

i have become the demon,
and i am now possessed,
for the very dragon i failed to
slay now claws inside my chest.

i used to say:

"i will not inflate my own expectations.
i will not get my hopes up high.
i will expect to receive only nothing.
if something beautiful happens, then
i will simply be pleasantly suprised and
i will enjoy every last fleeting second.
if something too ugly happens, then
i will treat it with little more emotional
diress than the loss of a toothbrush.
if i do not set my heart on any one thing,
then i will never be heartbroken.

"i will live my life through a filter, a veil;
i will live my life behind a solid wall,
and i will bide my time."

now i say:

"i will expect to recieve only nothing, but
i will cup the promise of something
beatiful within my own trembling hands.
i will guard my precious pumping heart,
but i will not put it away behind lock and key.
i will take cautious steps through life, but
i will still walk the path underneath my feet.
i will laugh heartily, and i will cry miserably.
i will end friendships, and begin new ones in their stead.
i will acknowledge every single breath, and
i will count each one as a precious gem.

"i will step from behind my filter, my veil;
i will open my heart to life,
and i will live."

each day,
or afternoon,
as a fresh start
flutters at my eyelids,
my mind begins to race,
and i am presented
with a choice--
split right down
the middle of my
consciousness.

one half of me,
growling and snarling,
sees only the bad.
he hears the demons
in my home.
he wears my insecurities
as his own.
he watches the fears
i replay, they increase.
he encourages my sadness,
becomes my self-loathe.
and as his arms encapture
my own soul,
i feel the melancholy
press down,
overwhelming me
as i surrender.

the other half,
shy but bright,
sees only the good.
she is the soundwaves
that always wash away
my tears.
she shows me the
first days of autumn.
she laughs at the bad,
and shows me the
overwhelming good;
waits for me to come
to her,
and then embraces
my soul lovingly.

as these two halves
battle in my brain,
i must choose--
to be happy,
or to be sad.

the sun rises,
and the sun sets.

the tree of life,
her branches heavy
with tantalizing fruit,
stands solidly in the
garden.
she mirrors my
unfaltering gaze,
and she begs me
to choose.
but each fruit is so
ripe and so unique
that i cannot bear
to pick only one,
and leave the others
to rot.

you are my booming clap of thunder during summer rain,
my inconvenient papercut placed conspicuously on a knuckle;
my stringent alcohol spilled into a pulsing, gaping wound,
and my burning bee sting on a painfully humid afternoon.
your ugly fangs spew venom more toxic than any poison,
and you hiss and growl and spit dauntingly.
with words so harsh and grating they are impossible to ignore,
you raise your head, poised for attack, and you shreik and wail
until the sound echoes throughout my whole being,
shaking me from the core and eliciting curious emotions.
my feeble defence is no match for your well-trained
and perfectly executed attack, and i crumble.
it's a poisonous cycle, inevitable and futil, that drains
every ounce of moral fiber and happiness from my soul.
suddenly, my fingers entrap your small little throat,
and they squeeze as hard as they possibly can,
until the blood bursts into your eyes.
it's only a dream, but my fingers can't help but remember...

the black night is stiflingly humid, eliciting
a glistening sheen of beaded sweat on the
tanned faces of any being who dares to
enter the boiling summer evening.
a thick smattering of clouds create a
downy blanket, the foreground to
hundreds of intermittent stars and
the round, glowing face of the full moon.
i seat myself on the stair closest to the ground,
and as it is passed around between us four,
i light one long, chemical cigarette and place
it carefully between my lips, cracked
by the harsh rays of the summer sun.
jagged, angular faces grin and laugh
at us, formed by the gaps and holes in
the beautiful, intricate cloud cover.

suddenly, a summer breeze softer than
than the winged seeds of a dandelion
caresses frizzy hairs and cools the dew
drops upon our moist foreheads.
a split-second shift in the clouds creates
the most resplendent sight my eyeballs have
ever encountered in their twenty-one years.
like an imposing rock formation, or the
billows of smoke from a great forest fire,
the fluffed gray structures have aligned
themselves with the radiant orb in the sky,
and her face casts beams of light through
them, projecting long, fragile arms of
brilliance through the dull backyard.

with our four faces stretched upward as
far as our craning necks will allow, we
absorb the sublime, pure moonlight.
i lock this picture in my mind, certain
that this moment, trapped in infinity like
a mosquito trapped in amber, could be
the refreshing breeze or the hurried gulp
of ice-cold oxygen imperative to survival.
as she shines her vibrant headlight through
the cloudy fog, i breathe slowly and allow my
cigarette to extinguish itself, and i think that
this must be how it feels to really, truly be alive.