I’m old but still new. Captured you outside a photo. Never so soft. Hardened by fear and anguish. You wanted to be left alone. So now i am. Can’t catch a break. This is what i have. So far fine. So far gone. Meet me later if you dare. I’m so lost. Find my way. Day so dark the clouds cry tears. Shattered here. Broken heart. Work alone can’t find my part. Empty threats left behind some imagery. You found a home. Left me none. Broke your promise. It’s like you’ve won. My time will come. For death or reckoning. Plucked my wings. Smashed my records. Not so nice. Eternal cave like bristling with mayhem and vanity. Rolled up sleeves. Lower morals. Fiendish flames flicker faint. No more stories. Nothing here. Empty ego. Broken springs.

Ghost faction
Batten down the hatches
Four leaves turn green at different degrees
She never loved you
She never will
Turn me on
I’ve been off
Nothing so lapsed
As the life i live daily
Met my fate
Eternal hate
Morbid drippings of a forecast less whimsy
I can’t i can’t
It seems to be over now
Always been under
Before forlorn
Siamese request
Amble drapery left shadows cast
Out back forefront
**** thoughts overgrown
Cheap threat within the palm
Leaflet drawn upon
I’ll use the napkins
Profound misplacement word cued
Up
Left alone
Haunted home

I’m often quiet because i have nothing to say

When i do speak, it’s nothing interesting

I have nothing to do
Nowhere to be
Nobody wants me

Nobody checks in
“Hey, how’s it going”

Guess people have caught on
I’m just no one

Even this writing
Is done in vain

Don’t call me later.
I’d rather you texted

My life is mismanaged
Try to catch up, think fast
Too slow.

I’m so far behind
I just caught a whiff of your ****
Two years late.

You smile, blink your eyes
And turn away
From the rumination

It’s hard to start something new.
It’s even harder
when your past breathes harder
Than your present.

There is nothing poetic about sitting in a dark locker room and crying at work.

There is no redemption in laying on your couch all weekend and watching forensic files.

There is nothing pretty about this place - where suffering means nothing.

Reach farther,
She isn't totally repulsed
by your bald sweaty head
and Sensitive blotchy skin.

May as well hide my face
and starve this desire

You deserve more than my
infantile objectification
I've coveted your beauty,
packed your image away
within this place in my mind.

I'm not the type to let my blood
Drip on others, in fact
I pay special mind to ensure
The poison stays inside.

When you ignore me
it hurts and I lose footing.

You asked to come with me
to get coffee
Of course you can - always.

I'm too ashamed to tell you
how I feel
And how hearing your voice
fills me with excitement and
Anticipation.

Cheers to you
and the longing
In my heart

Last night in bed
I imagined your face
In front of
a setting sun

Surrounded by
The amber sky
Your smile was radiant

I tried separating
The pain in my heart
From the gratitude I feel
for witnessing your existence

forgot your face.
But the tears don't stop. I left
them in the mountains somewhere
over Williamsport when I passed through.

There were even more
trailing through the streets,
Floorboards, walls, parks, monuments, and
hotels of Washington D.C.

Don't mind me because I Am
pushy or aloof - oh, I forgot.

You really don't give a ****.

I sent you
A text

And immediately
Imagined

The screen Of.
Your phone in.

The reflection of
your bright
beautiful eyes.

So this is what it's like.
I figured I would
Know better.

Slipped outside of
Comfort.
Somewhere
In between
Dread and
Complete despair.

All the places
My desires have led me.

I hoped I'd be
More interesting
But instead,
The interest in
The novelty has faded.

After the interests I've
Collected from
Others have vanished,
I'm left with my own.

Too bad
I'm so interested
In my beat up Old couch
And

finding the sweet spot
Is sweeter than
Finding a quarter
Between The cushions.

My heart breaks
A little more
Each time
I hear you
Crying.

Out loud and alone
My breath makes
The only noise
My sunken heart
Allows.

I want to know my value.

You say,
"It's up to you"
And

I truly appreciate
My freedom
But

My freedom
has become
A prison
Of uncertainty
And self neglect.

So sad;

To know
You'll be gone
Before I find the time
To understand
How much more
I could have tried
To be part of
Your life.

I don't see a
Future
Without

The continued struggle
To convince myself
That my time here
Is somewhat significant

Although
Everything I do
and everything
I am
Will be forgotten.

I breathe your breath
From the darkness
To the light.

I'm sunk in solitude
But for a picture
That has curled and creased
Underneath the junk in the drawer

Life's little mystery
The path and who's aligned
Meet me elsewhere
Think of me
From out there
Looking solemnly
Toward what's in
And outside of
My Pinhole Universe

By force and energy, changes are made and maintained.

Years go by and I contradict what I know with my actions.

My change purse is light. My value - though never high - continuously sinks lower and lower.

I wanna go with the flow but the flow just won't take me along.

I'm a grown man thrashing within shallow waters. I've tried to cauterize my wounds from my body but my pants are weighed down with **** from the past like a baby with diapers.

I don't want to make living this life all about myself.  
Too late!

Everything and nothing mean everything and nothing at all.

I need a friend to get high with.  

I need a friend to cry with when crying is all I can do.

-----------------------------
Making order of a ****** mass, recovered testicles and shards of bone are filtered through trembling hands alongside the unseen vacancy standing silently - waiting blank and patient. A doctor's notes blown about by force, scatter and lift through the air peacefully moved by music and pain. The air is not thick, it is dry and light. You must suffer to get here but no one believes here is a place to be.

Just ask your neighbor or your bosses friends. These ones have gotten lost within the lies that split the darkness from truth to be hung up in a viewing room for loose bottles of beer with friends Sunday afternoon trying to drown the silent tapping of panic. They won't believe you because what you describe harkens to ghosts and legend.

Be very aware.

We are normal, but I guess the stars don't suppose with a consciousness as thin as ours that they are supposed to be anything else but what they seem to be. In my mind is not our universe but it is mine within that which we share simultaneously - some points are marked out by now, then, and who knows when.

I want to be confident within this mystery and walk amidst the rest with a strong sense of myself or at least secure enough to walk strongly fragmented with acceptance.

I invite you all.

Not you though.

The one inside you.

The one without a body.

Remind me that our experience is not limited to these skin and bones.

My eyes gaze over the table of food through the company and off into the distance beyond the mildew on the walls.

I would feel more comfortable collecting the cobwebs from this basement ceiling.

Instead, I try hard to seem interested in what others are saying while avoiding eye contact, and -

BANG!! It's time to eat. The moment I've been most waiting for. Now I can concentrate on the food and do what I really came for.

Never eat and run though. It's time to act interested in the others once more.

Karaoke. Who doesn't love an overly enthusiastic host hoisting a microphone in their face?

Thanks for the food but I don't feel like singing a Kenny Rogers song or a whoever the **** song of some twit whose been in the top 40 within the past 5 years, or 20 for that matter.

Thank Jupiter they are distracted. Now is my chance to slip out quietly. I make it out the door and find out that someone parked behind me.

what else do you got in that cd case? Any Conway Twitty by chance? Oh really. **** it, I'm next

I haven't written about you until now because I fear the words won't be meaningful enough. It's funny how something so important shines a new perspective on what I considered so important.  

You are...
The most important part of my life and I cry because I love you so much. I cry because I don't love myself enough to give you what you deserve.

I love you so much the world means nothing and everything. This world is not good enough for you.

I'm sorry I'm so broken.

Love,

Your dad

My wings are healing now.
It's been a long sad time for brittle dinosaur bones. I can barely recall the names that ran me through with deceit and malice. I'm feeling content to be average, or something else altogether - more of an outlier really.

It's okay.

I'm okay today.

Good morning again. Wake the **** up! Back to sleep once again in my head. Sway back and forth in front of the mirror until I **** near collapse into the wall with a stream of drool perfectly poised at my mouth before I wipe it off and sit on the toilet.

Perhaps my phone will keep me awake.

Nope.

I'm rocking again and only give up on trying to stay awake bare assed when my phone hitting the floor prompts me up and at em once more to lay in the tub that, once filled, barely covers my **** and ***** that are forcefully tucked underneath my gut flop.

Awake again now
sweatier than before
less refreshed than left over fries after a microwaved cycle.

Them: "look how different your life is."

Me: "new responsibilities - same limitations."

I haven't grown. Life changes. Look back at the pictures and you'll see - less hair on the head that surrounds the same fat face.

At least I wear deodorant, although it is my wife's until I pick up some more of my own.

No use for a bigger screen that my mind can't accommodate. I hear voices in the dark and paint pictures of one color in the corner of my clouded imagination. My thoughts consist of questions. The answers come in the form of blank print plates with damaged lettering.

My smile cracks the moment between naïveté and contempt.  

Can't take a break while breaking. I'm alive somewhere in between, walking on one side of survival and falling apart completely.  

I pray to something outside myself while bleeding from the inside out to echoing laughter - colorful lubricant for the slow death of plastic bags and cellophane.

Hear me now where I feel nothing and meet me where the pain screams out for safety.  

I don't have an ending that is worthy of what is left.

My face pierces the day greater than the beams through my dusty drapes that melt endlessly against the wind.

Neighbors are mowing again - or off elsewhere working.

I see the older lady next door leaving her house. She has a broken down old man who comes out to drive occasionally.

But she walks.

She's got nice **** and I can smell alcohol on her breath at all hours of the day.

I can tell she was the type who gets loud at the party when most other girls had gone home.

I know the type - the type who's presence motivated me to drink more and think less.

Now, I'm just a sad sack peeking out my drapes at the other sad sacks peeking out their windows at me.

I mourn the loss of another unproductive day while drifting off to sleep every night.

I wake up in the morning and grieve for the past few hours of sleep that have ended.

Woefully **** and shower in contempt to the work that diverts whatever shred of energy I have to figure the path of shortcuts I must take to appear worthy of the hourly wage I use to pay my mortgage.  

More days than not, I will find a ghost task to steal away from work to nap heartily between reruns of Star Trek and bowls of cereal - the tomb where my legacy is laid to rest.

The hours seem glorious while I'm distracted from expectations and responsibility. If only I could carry on this way with no interruption.

Regret and shame settles heavily when the expectations and responsibility commence.

Medicine only takes the edge off. I'm in the same line. I read the same magazine covers to avert eye contact with the old folks who wait days or weeks trying to get insurance verification.

So this is what it's like to be a grown up. Late bills, missed appointments, and a disappointed spouse. It's the worlds longest suicide.

Most likely brighter than the moment when trees divide light beams between branches and leaves.

Sea foam mantra chant:
     Like an old song
     Like an old song
     Bring back what I've lost

I forget how to love by the evening.

Love paralyzes me in the morning when I awake.

Master of inaction complete with heightened self inventory, daily beatings, and advanced proclivity.

Machine boots stuck in the mud and walking slowly. Tough trudged - trotting wounds toddling septicity and self inflicted brain damage with battery acid.

Living roach life - keep self image commensurate with meeting low expectations consistently.

Gradually melted down. That which overflows cools outside the cast. A shrunken face with blunt features reveals a repulsive bulk of damaged mass when the light hits it just right.

Is it elegance or ignorance? Subcutaneous subterfuge. Blanketed and varying slightly, insolvent and limited. Bourne amidst a social caste of wealth or not for you.

The reigning victors make the rules. Life is a habit, not a reflex. To learn I must clear my mind of unnecessary clutter and make order within the hoard.

It's a shared pain that shifts weight as denial grows. Each of us has suffered the grief of loyalty unreciprocated.

You held my faith as I held your hand. Your grip loosened and like salvaging a favorite paperback book, pages slipped out individually until an empty shell met back to front.

That shared pain is called to fill in the empty spaces that naïveté leaves. The weight becomes a burden on those of us who expect more.

There is no resolution for betrayal. I lock my fears up tight and covet the pain.

You can see the ones who shoulder this burden in the warm grave of routine, going through the motions of daily life without a smile or by putting off life's responsibilities for the sake of blissful sleep.

Not just sort of okay. The ice melts and freezes faster the second time.

I've seen it.

Few words mean everything in a world that doesn't shut up. The enemy knows you better than yourself - it's you, with an objective view. I can crumble my tower quicker than any studies conducted have shown, but I like to make my suffering last.

So cheers to my reflexive world shrinking efforts that make my body fatter everyday.

I like to talk **** when I write - so
-
Astro management
Secure the banished talisman
Martyrdom and ice cream
Melt of the establishment.

What's that? You don't recognize this as a style in your text book?
Doesn't fit inside your box, eh?

It's poetry **** face!

I'm not writing for a grade. This isn't meant to fit anywhere other than outside of my head.

Can't relate to me?

Chances are you've fit in with the normalcy of manufactured lies - I admire your blissful ignorance.

Go ahead and cite your work. I do this to get relief from the APA format.

What's it feel like for someone who ***** at living?

Keep reading, you're not alone.

Overtime and overnight my outlook changes drastically and manifests my inner restlessness.

Nothing seems okay.
You don't see the meaning in my words, well,
I hear you loud and clear.

Excuse me for giving a voice to the voiceless.

The message I receive:

If we are to be heard, let your voice fall into silence.

So it does.

They say I'm too old to carry on this way and I agree. I wish I had the grace to look content with life I waste.

Nothing brand new.
Instead, my mind creates the same day heavy chest weight. I'm tired. So are you. I hide away before mine shines through. You have friends with whom you share your plight. I keep none. I desire connection. I run away, walking slowly to bury my mood in solitude.

Hear these words - although its unlikely that you will even read.  This is all I have to show for my time spent alone.

ALL CAPITAL LETTERS ARE BETTER THAN LOWER CASE BY ANY MEASURE

Meanwhile:

Gaure... No, that's not right.
Guaranteed lecture representative melee. Corporate court circ-u-i-tous clever levels hand collapse, clasp, clapped, then - framed vainly.

Containers balanced with lost lids stored no/everywhere. Nothing matches like my socks save for the peepholes that allow my big toes the advantage of unmasked acknowledgement.

Pleasure packed and wrapped drugs bundled for international transport and - who wouldn't pray to get away from the homestead where lack of order piles clothing to be walked over?

Miserably morbid fault lines dwindled to an ending where leaves fall from the sky and off the earth. Spirit spaced out of panic with opalescent vapor. Tier  built fuselage billowing smoke from broken windows. Mad man protecting sadness with a coat of contrived aloofness. Eager solar detection vanishes from cut long and dirt laden fingernails. Paint still drying from the recent attempt to write the letters of a name. Broken branch protruding from the impaled veteran fallen.

Now you will grieve for the time you wasted grieving that was meant for saying goodbye.

Balanced barely - crept up slow. Narrow and steady, my chemical device needs reuptake badly. Bleeding - poorly bandaged wound walking, in memorial of my flight from mothers womb. Pain rainbow, gypsy vantage point through eyes of stained glass. Literally lost, fact facing smothered butterfly sleeping sound under a blanket of pain.

These words read similar to those of an adolescent stuck - questioning nature and the depths of inner hatred.  

I find it hard to believe that my time is best served within a second adolescence.

My dilemma: does my disdain for the excuse of adolescence stem from my belief of a phenomenological experience, or am I protecting a self-perceived inadequacy?

Standing between answers at the narrow tip of truth* is emotionally draining.

Some say knowledge is power, but I know better.

Knowledge is power for those with the strength to grow amidst the plague of humanities decay. For me, it is a reason to shrink further into apathy.

Bring the ringing rain drop
Whole lot
Remembrance

Determined turtle vanishing green all my needs manifested scaring caring eyes viciously.  No acceptance can't claim existence willingly my ancestors have closed the blinds shrill speculative variety mixed amorous stenciled template.

Does it get better? It has before but I have no expectation. What I know is weak discovery and blankness. Lack of connection killing me before I'm dead my spirit drained and waning quickly. Stuck to couch cushions and 3 square don't fit there.

My only  hope is that my inability to accept/experience joy and lack of self worth does not inhibit my daughter's love for life.

Structures are built, broken down, and decayed by the hand of humanity.
                  Collateral Damage.
Planning is carried out with the expectation of structural compromise.

Windows grant access into the pit of vulnerability. Scores and scores of people spend the bulk of their short lives inside the pit of an artificial stomach, chasing what cannot be obtained.

Relationships are sacrificed over plastic alters where the blood flows over disposable cups, collected from fast food restaurants and graduation parties.

Waiting for the summer heat to eclipse the somber thread of one day, an old man is gifted a brand new pair of sneakers.

Father, Son, Holy Ghost? The pinnacle of the "y" axis has paralyzed the saltiness of the old man's overcoat.

"Grand dad?" A young boy turns the corner and peeks in while the old man leans over in his chair to reach his feet and lace his sneaks. "You were breathing loudly and I was just making sure you're okay."

The boy continued, "cool sneakers grandpa."
This reminded the boy of a new student in his class who moved here from Scotland, or Ireland - he couldn't remember which. Guess what the new kid in my class calls his sneakers?"

The grandfather looks up and leans back, "he doesn't call them sneakers?" "Nope" the boy replies. "I would imagine he must call them shoes, or something like that."

"Not even close. He calls them 'runners'. He came into class one day with a pair of red sneakers and Miss Kerrington had him stand up in front of class to talk about them. She said that people in England probably call them runners as a nickname for running shoes."

The old man stood up with a groan and said, "That makes sense. It seems a bit odd, but I like it. As a matter of fact, I am gonna start using that to refer to all sneakers. What do you say we go for a walk around the block so I can break these puppies in? We'll stop for some rootbeer on the way home."

The two of them set out on their walk and the old man felt invigorated. As they continued, a light rain began and the old man said, "lets get to the store, this rain'll do damage to my new suedes."

When they finally made it to the store, the old man rushed in the door pushing his grandson out of the way. Upon his entrance his eyes met with the shopkeeper's. The shopkeeper's eyes shifted to the young boy coming in behind the man. At this moment the grandfather realized that he pushed his grandson aside in his haste to get inside the store and out of the rain.

The shopkeeper turned his attention back to the grandfather who shrugged his shoulders before gesturing to his feet with a smile and said, "I'm breaking in a new pair of runners. They're not gonna dry off as easily as he does."

Continued questioning of the unlovable hatred; my life's work is appropriately - indelible. These words are testimony to the conflict between who I am and who I wish I could be---

But...  my understanding of infinite possibility seems to end while considering the black and white world that I create.

This dulling of experience is like the smudged remains of my most interesting work scrawled in pencil between the pages of old notebooks and scraps of paper.

I will chisel my own tombstone with a crayon frozen in dry ice.

A small furry tummy grows with pride and recognition. The day is new like fresh air and baby lungs. The trappings of usual experience have gone unnoticed with each wayward smile and shared glimpse.

Is this a dream?
What is real?

Silence guards haunting stories with latent thoughts streaming uncontested by a busy mind. If there is truth, then what is humanity? Who am I?

Do you feel ashamed too?
I'm not the leader I once believed to be back then.

I'm more machine now then ever before - lacking substance, strange entangled, my very best worst friend.

Polished golden ivy glimmers and shines light on the travelers eyes. What's to be expected of something that was once believed to be unattainable?

Fragile voices crack - birds sing in the distance - dead flowers slumping somewhere in a vase have long withered after the water has evaporated and the love that left them there has gone forever.

Painted pictures - canvas torn - dusty guitar with broken strings - old newspapers piled by the door and holes in the wall from fits thrown with sobbing tears.

Thoughts gathered through sad and scattered memories - I found your old journal in a box today.

The beginning of a new day, I want to be positive.  I don’t want to think about festering wounds that become overrun with infection due to a lack of self-care and bad hygiene.

I want to change my thoughts. I want to recognize them for what they are, fleeting and neutral before I trap them within the musty wharf of my psyche.

I want to believe in a god.  I want to believe that something is somewhere that can redeem the involuntary nature of existence. Something that balances the horror of ******, starvation, and ****; or the parents of a missing child who are later asked to identify the only remains found – a decapitated body eerily preserved by the abnormally frigid temperatures lingering long after the advent of spring.  

I want to know beauty as much as I know disgust.  What redeems the isolated ending of someone that no one will ever remember?  What justifies the lives of those who knew nothing but defeat, who weren’t heard, or who suffered the rejection of humanity in spite of the deep desire to feel accepted?  Save us from existing without ever knowing the victory of achieving an intended goal with self-will and perseverance.

What about the countless numbers of lives that have been extinguished and buried in mass graves.  How many people die that will never be remembered…  What meaning does life have then?  Were they here to be recalled as an obscure number?  Their whole life of memories – hope, fear, love, hate, despair, dread, loneliness, doubt, guilt, shame, and unique personality traits - all to be remembered as one of the many who are not remembered.  

Why must I fool myself to find contentment? Not everyone is able to see the silver lining. Must I only know the defeat of a man who could not overcome the prison of thoughts in his mind?

Do not mourn me because of a lost familiarity.  If that is all I am then you will forget me soon enough.

Today is governed by the cyclical nature of science and the god that has been created mythically as an axis point to explain our existence.

To what end do we find separation from  a reality formed from consciousness?

The over-mind - what has also been referred to as a god-conscience, spans the digits of numerical structure and maintains an order that is beyond our limited comprehension. Division then, is not separation; it is a change that alters what is divided. Everything falls within our finite infinity - knowledge and the unknown - our minds and its thoughts.

The inhabited earth is a manifestation of thought vibrating throughout the cosmos. Star clusters are fragmented thoughts that gather and gradually grow closer until an idea emerges from the detritus left by the explosion.

Each atom is made up of multiverses that are made up of more atoms.

I'm tempted early to banish recognition. How is it any different than the seasons with organically loose boundaries that allow categorization and names to differentiate?

I don't see anything so impressive about the accomplishments of the recognized few who feed off momentum and the short attention span of the masses.

"Money ain't a thing" In this world we can't afford understanding.

I know - that I don't know **** and that my path to enjoying life is exploitative to others elsewhere.

That's why I sit in old man Charles' backyard. He doesn't see well so I can use the space to gather twigs to stick together with homemade glue made from *****.

Beloved,

Touched and melting cerebellum switched-
on-lever breastplate activated
senselessly on sight

Be my lover

Along the path of life blood
where day lilies grow and water fowl move slowly with their young ones in tow

Meet me in the willows
where the noise of day ends
where our hearts become one
where silence makes sense

I follow you my teacher - my love

Leaping from the wet diaper at my feet
I follow you because
I'm enslaved to the rhythm your heart beats

My world is too dark, with you I see light
You've brought my heart meaning and
saved me from night

And --

though I glow shadows,
stitching wounds that won't mend
You are the only one I want to be with
from now until.......

                            --- ---
                                              For Audrey

Likewise vanished and collapsed to a destructive state – weighted space spreads across unevenly but equally sequential in relevance to the make up of your matter. For the crossing falls closer to that which floats up, or burrows down. Following the line of least resistance when gravity can be considered a burden.

Onward with the dead bodies floating in and out of our solar system. ****** victims with cracked helmets dancing together in an eerily serene motion where they follow sonic waves from this way to that. These are the new beginners whose marrow will travel to worlds yet undiscovered.

It is the equivalence of the ***** that makes the journey into the birth canal to fertilize the egg. The once living, now dead, finding a new reason for meaning where the marrow finds placement on a mass of fertile dust.

New planets are made with a sickness. Spores and mold grow into rage for the betrayal that laid the god body to rest. Their concept of creation has no meaning.  Hatred fed by existence considered bad luck at best.

Abysmal.  
Like the pond in the center of a forest. Deeper than the height of humanity stacked foot to shoulder.

It is too dark to see and too obvious to avoid. The world that I know revolves around my observations, created obstacles, and daily mental state.

I am not welcomed to the outside areas where the fringe lives. Nor do I welcome what is threatening for fear that it might expose my pettiness. My lies are easily justified for my secret life to thrive.

In the end...

I'm stuck inside myself looking out.

The draw of your body deprived me of my will and better judgment. Your eyes and ambivalence called me back two days and $ 280 later.

You weren't happy when I met you at first and I realized a pain in your heart and head that wanted to work its way out in words/gestures that were superficially meaningless but painfully loud to anyone with nothing to gain.

And I stood slouching with a childlike nervousness and feigned ignorance to your world that was unspoken yet obviously evident despite the fog of compulsion draped over my awareness.

I wanted what you were given. My behavior was already condemned the minute I picked up the phone to dial your number. I might as well finish the act so that I can continue beating my head against the wall to finally resemble the dark mass of human mess I strive so vigilantly to become.

You gave in with all my effort and the only thing I could say was that I'm sorry for taking advantage of the situation "I hope you have a good day".

Handled in a manner if care. Legions rising and falling with the tides. A mean and standard deviation of 0.07% calculated for access to the colored butterfly bones.

No longer allowed access to greater plains, the majestic overview became a barren landscape. Gravity became non-existent and the field  collapsed into the skies every night until it no longer resembled itself.

In memory, the sad clown traded in his wig for a hat, his nose for a map, and his shoes for boots. He kept the jacket as a reminder. Greater laws existed that were at once unknown/unseen. The laughter he heard no longer included him, instead it was generated by the sorry figure he had become.

Grim outlook and cave outreach for shelter needed. This man walked among the many backdrops in a dogged manner hanging on to the last bit of survival instinct that remained.

It:::::just:::::::so:::::::happens

-that a door to another world opened today. I caught a glimpse but my attention is so consistently drawn to the weight of what I carry; it is gently cradled while I rearrange the tattered wraps that keep it bundled. 



-Such a man as this committed to remain stuck in this world while crying for a change; the royal cynic shadow king, lazily draped upon a throne of ***** matter.

-If not the others who make up this world, who can I look to for the feeling of worth that I cannot find?

-I've decided to sit this one out a long time ago, you know? I keep the expectations low enough to match the efforts but my thoughts are too many to regard this as victory. 



-It just so happens that I live my life in a constant state of grief. I mourn the naïveté that once provided escape. I mourn the loss of hope, no longer comforted by the story of a distant day feeling worthy of life and just being enough.

-What I seek cannot be provided from the world I see outside. This feeling of worth is not attached or enhanced by lovers, friends, or family. No experience, accomplishment, object, or victory will satisfy my soul.

-In the end, I can only rely on myself.



-This realization is a new door and the first steps wandering through begin the path of holding oneself accountable for decision and action.

-Empty, unapologetic, and all consuming

-A discovery that all days painted in an unfavorable way have been set to the theme I've created.

-This path is not chosen by everyone, some never meet this realization. I run only to end up right where I started. Others deny and hide from the ugliness that resides within. The once empty pleasures of activity without substance will no longer do, but the rewards along the way are many.


-Some days I really can’t find my value. Some days all that I create turns out like sh*t. Some days I cry about my imperfections and those reflected by my family. Some days I don't want to wake. Most days I crave more connection while hiding away. Some days just don't seem worth the effort it takes to make it through to the next. 



Still sad – partly mad
Am I worthy of this life? 

If I wasn’t this would not exist.