Ambience...
Lofi brainwashing beats to study and relax to.
A ritual nook, tucked in the back
Of the museum;
A perfectly designed trap
For young 20-somethings with anxiety.
One, two, three
Colorful figures spin across the screen.
Or was it four?
There definitely weren't five.

Something about it was appealing.
Perhaps it felt like a resting place,
To be quiet and breathe.
Or perhaps we simply liked our idea
Of little aliens being under their hats.
In that moment though, I felt a door open in me.
Where the door was, I couldn't exactly tell.
My brain? My heart?
Maybe my pancreas, which is my favorite body part.

At first it opened just a crack,
But a chill draft slowly swung the door.
A light filled that space,
Falling on corners that had never been lit.

What I'm trying to say is that
While sitting there,
Watching the three (four?) men whirl back and forth,
I realized that
I wanted to love you for as long as the universe would allow.
Lo and behold, as if you knew what I was thinking,
You looked straight into me with your radiant eyes
And took my sweaty hand in your own.

Your tongues all taste like cardboard...
Mostly because you are all cardboard,
But that's besides the point.
Even though your kisses can never give me warmth,
I'm still hung up over each and every one of you.

To you, fear kept me from loving you.
As for you, we eventually drifted apart
Across of the sea of remembrance.
Then for you, I had to drop any notion
When you asked "are you gay?"
With a skeptical gaze.
You made it clear that
You yourself were not.

However, I keep dusting you all off
To pull you out of my closet.
Standing on the ***** of my feet,
I'm hanging little beaded necklaces
Around all your necks again.

Three stoic monitors,
Illuminating the room with a blue light glow.
If he squints hard enough, he can almost see
The ghastly spectres that crawl up his walls.
Haunting shadows
Of guilt and inferiority.

Waking up
At twelve o'clock PM sharp.
He was stirred awake by a dull drumming.
The sound of his suprachiasmatic nucleus
Echoing in his ear
Alerted him to consciousness.
He sunk his bare feet into the Texan snow,
Standing naked out in the flurry and
Somehow not getting cold.

He looked back at the footprints he made.
Despite having just stepped outside,
He had a nagging suspicion that
They had been there all along.

We're chewing on pancakes,
And sipping cold coffee from wine glasses.
A record turns as we wistfully gaze outside,
Watching the weeds grow through cracks in the pavement.

A pill for you, a pill for me -
Without them we'd wear ourselves out.
They'll squeeze the norepinephrine and
Dopamine out of our neurons,
Just to keep us stable.
We toss them down the hatch,
Swallowing the chalky and bitter taste
Of uncertainty.

This is how we keep ourselves out of the hospital.
We listen to self indulgent music,
And keep our thoughts safe within these walls.
Dear friend, don't hang your head.
We'll be past this someday,
Maybe.

My psychiatrist promised I'd feel better,
So I'm going to try my best.
I'm sorry that your moods and mental state
Have been swinging like a brass pendulum,
To and fro;
Bleak lows and manic highs.
Let's take a stroll out by your old backyard pool,
With water black as ink.
Breathing in the crisp air
May help us clear our heads.

I'll always love you, you *****.
Call me and I'll come,
And we can wallow in our intrusive thoughts.
Grab my shoulder
So we can stand and fight the tides of life together.

--- TRIGGER WARNING: themes related to ****** trauma ---


I'm sipping you sweet,
Sweetly.
Tangy, sugary, sappy tastes,
All dancing around my tongue
When you kiss me.
The straw is going to hit the bottom soon,
And croak as it scrapes the plastic.

How long is it gonna last?
How long is it gonna take
To find a new and fresh faced gal?
When I've grown boring and dull,
You'll think back
To when you asked if I'd be okay with a third person,
And I said no.
You'll shake your head,
Wondering how youthful passion passed so soon.
Who knew a life with the little trauma *****
Wouldn't always stay happy?

I want to do that for you,
I really do.
I want to give you freedom in love,
And the kind of affection
That you've been craving your entire life.
I can't though - my mind goes back every time.
It circles round and round,
Synapses resonating,
Until my occipital's eye rolls forward
To watch the memory reel yet again.

I'm folded under my loft bed's sheets,
Laying on my back,
And watching my thumbs type myself to my knees.
I'm scared,
But the desperation for affirmation is stronger.
So I do it, even though I don't want to.
I do it because they're telling me to.
I do it because even though I'm not there,
My body is physically responding.
It grieves the death of my innocence.

Performative bisexuality -
Kissing girls in front of men
Who don't give a **** about me.
This is what I associate
With two and one making three.
So that’s why I can’t do that for you.

Due to the aches in my skull,
I'm chaining your wrists to mine.
That's hardly fair though,
And I feel like I'm being cruel.
Seriously, why should you have to care?
Why should you have to care
About the time I was so lonely
That I fed myself to pigs?

Yet I know that you do care,
But I still feel guilty.
I still fear that our summer will eventually end.
We can only share one cup of this sugary stuff
For so long.
What will you drink
When it runs out?

It's a strange thing to feel something
After being dormant for so many years.
At this point, I thought my only emotion was stress.
I guess I was wrong after all.

I haven't gotten used to feeling things.
It's uncomfortable
To admit to having emotions.
I clam up when I want to say "I love you,"
And my hands get clammy when I want to hold your own.
I have so many feelings pressing against my insides,
Trying to break out and get free.
For some reason, it feels like pushing through a brick wall
Just to tell you how I feel.

I don't know why I'm this way with my feelings.
Is it because of past betrayals?
Or maybe anxiety,
Stapling my tongue to the roof of my mouth?
I can't really say,
But whatever it is, I want it to be gone.
I want to stop holding back my love for you,
And let it flourish - unbridled and free.
If anyone deserves to have my love,
It's you.

You, who refuses to leave,
Even when I'm breaking.
You, who holds me in your arms
Even when I've set myself on fire.
You, who has a smile
That brings me back to life.
You,
Whom I cherish with all my heart.

I'm aware
That because of you, I'll get better over time.
You keep finding cracks in my brick wall,
And bodyslam into them enough to create holes.
One day, thankfully, it's going to fall,
But I don't want you to do it all on your own.
I'll take a hammer to it from the other side,
And beat the **** out of my emotional barrier.

My emotions...
I never thought I'd be able
To set the ghastly things free.

I asked you if you would stay with me,
And you said "maybe,"
Before taking out a silver knife.
With a smile, you plunged it into my chest,
And I smiled back.

I continued to smile
When we would walk together.
We watched the people stopping to stare,
As more and more of them would inquire.
I would gladly show off the craftsmanship,
Such as the way the engravings in the handle
Would wind round and round like a supple vine.

Finally the last day came.
I knew it would, but I expected it sooner.
You politely pulled out the knife
And waved your goodbyes.
I waved back,
Happy that I could finally dispose of my corpse.