This inconsistency that rumbles
Churning within the recesses of my ribs
I down a pill of self pity with a swig of pride
And tell the pain to go away
Tell myself it was never there
That I'm fine I'm good smooth it over
Put a baggy shirt on so you can't see
The holes behind the recesses of my ribs

Loving you is easy in theory
And most of the time in reality too
But sometimes when you ask me to do that little task or tell you that little thing
Something within me threatens to snap
Because I perceive that you see the satisfaction of your need to be more important than my current occupation
And I feel unseen
Even though I know you see me best
And I feel victimized even though I know your request is perfectly reasonable

And so the contradiction of awareness
When I see the inconsistency in me blaring crimson red and midnight blue
And I don't know what to do with these colors
I don't know what image to paint or what brush to use
I don't even know who I'd give the painting to
Or if I'd keep it for myself

I yearn to exist in a space where the stars all but blaze
Where stars aren't celebrities
Where they bask in the night sky unpolluted
And just exist
I crave truly being in an environment that does not depend upon phone screens
Where my peers and myself do not walk through life in an addicted daze
Unaware of the haze that descends as an effect of such technological dependence
We are walking around with our eyes unconsciously searching for the stimulus that society constantly feeds us
These electronic signals flashing upon thin panels of glass
And This is what we call Living
The dopamine flooding our brain when that text vibration brings our popularity to attention
Capturing our attention holding it captive
We are prisoners of our own purchases
Rusting our humanity away enchained
In a web of unsocial media and notifications
We never have any silence

When was the last time you just sat silent doing nothing

When was the last time you allowed your mind even a sliver of space to just exist

I sometimes write
Of stories and fantasies
And these words spill from my fingers
Frighteningly effortlessly as they tell
Of passionate romances and crushing heart shatters and death of innocence
But I've never felt these things and
I feel fraudulent and cruel
Claiming feelings to which I have no right
And I wonder where these words come from that
Spill so easily from my finger tips
Because they aren't from experience
And they aren't true
Rereading them only embarrasses and confuses me
So should I validate them at all?
Mom peers at me worriedly as I try to convince her that I only used first person for form purposes
As I try to prove to her that this was (some bizarre) imagination and not some reality she wasn't aware of

I don't know how a kiss would feel on my lips.
Love and infatuation are strangers to my heart and mind.
I don't know how it hurts to be truly rejected or hated by someone I love.
To be so enraptured in someone else that the lines between us fade: a foreign and unfamiliar concept to my soul.
I don't know how hard it is to make mistakes in romances.
I've never come home giddy and unable to stop smiling because of a boy.
I don't know.
There's so very much I do not know.
And the absence of that knowledge feels like an object I don't have a place for inside my home of a mind.
Awkward and in the way and too obvious
But I don't know if I want to get rid of it yet.
It's oddity has become a part of me,
And it's absence would mean grieving a change
I'm not prepared for.

I broke last night
Last night the tears cascaded down the worn wet tracks from my eyes down the valleys of my face to my tucked chin
My body convulsed and shook
And my breath could not find itself
It heaved and hoved and sputtered and shattered
And it could not find itself
My mind pulled away from its head and stretched and snapped in pain
I decided not to care that I felt drips pour from my nostrils over my shaking lips
I stared into the black abyss of grain and spattering absence of closed eyes and clenched lids
My fingers ran miles through my strained strips of hair curled and knotted around my hands
I was a very small ball of angry sadness in a very large world of conflicting beauty and pain and love and ignorance. And I broke to feel it all.

These arches have spanned the country
The architecture of my bare feet has adorned the city streets
And spanned the rushing rivers.
These arches have framed national monuments  
And soared over blanket clouded skies
These arches have leapt and danced and ached and blistered
These arches have traveled well and far
And yet have farther still to go

I pressed my ear against the chest of the world
And felt it's life today
The slow, drowsy beginning of a late sunrise
Creeping seeping over dewy hills
A patient inhale
The tight suspension in the air as the sky grew black and grey
The explosive exhale as the winds blew thick and heavy and sheets of rain whipped the trees
Then the peace after
Between breaths the exhausted calm
The air was spent
The emotions felt
And the sun began to set
Like tired eyes closing
The layer clouds adorned it's decent
In radiant and floating colors
I felt the breath of the world today