Help me exist.

Help me feel like I exist.

I am unable to feel
anything but the diagonal trickles
of melancholy, or hate.
They prevent me from fading away,
but I still detest them,
because they make me Other.
I fear that I am unable to love.
I know why.
Love is easy to write about.
But to write about feelings that don’t exist is much harder.
What does not exist cannot be created,
for a clever mind to transcribe into words.
Plucking them out of the ether of lexicon
requires a solid word, and a solid hand,
And I have neither.
I am made of halcyon and moonlight,
numbers stretched over a screen,
not quarks that are able to form bonds,
to feel connected.
Half the time I wish
that my corrupted radiance will spread.
Soft glitches, in the corners of their eyes
to eat away at their core until they stop
writing odes to love, that alien emotion,
the words snatched out of their hands mid sentence
by an ethereal hand now real enough
to gather the thoughts as they dissipate away
into a fragrant bouquet for one last breath

until they are lost forever.

Just when I felt that I could get to know you
you slipped through my fingers
as the dread rose again to press my lips shut.

The words did not flow naturally
but were strained
repetitive

lifeless.

In a single pause, we both learned
that I am far too alien for this world,
far too detached from reality

far too afraid of knowing, or being known.
With a hesitant smile, I turn away,
knowing that it will be the last.

My skin bruises where you touch,
threatening to burst like a delicate peach
to coat your fingers in warm viscera.

My uncanny senses easily find you in a crowd
so that I can avoid you
and spare us the awkwardness.

I never knew what was wrong,
what fundamental spark I am missing,
that allows me to neatly clip through others

without being noticed.
I never was able to decide
whether the strange matter that makes up my body

Is a blessing for allowing me to hide
or a curse for not allowing me to connect,
to be swinging on that uniquely human wavelength.

There is something living inside all of us.
Horrible filigree fear and existential dread.
Seeping through the membrane,
gnawing at the bones.

If this existence is all there is
am I just a vessel for something greater?
I want to believe that I am free,
but I can still feel it.

There are tender hands reaching inside
caressing my heart with deliberate touch
and withdrawing sharply
to lick off the blood.

If this existence is all there is
then what is the point of resisting?
Resistance means to fall gracefully,
severed from the source,

to die, to decay, to be consumed,
and then forgotten.
My meaningless data will be overwritten
by someone who doesn’t question

the loving violation of hearts
and the delicate scabs that form
sealing the ports, keeping the terror
from rising once again.

Floating
like a particle on a breeze,
like gentle falling ray
we float through the void.

Of hands reaching out,
catching only transient tendrils
tangling through our fingers
like liquid silk.

Capture me in a jar
and use my glow
to light your way
to give me purpose.

Wear our tiny cages
around your powerful neck
and we illuminate your teeth-
use them to crush your way out.

Use them to dissipate the void
into gently falling mist
of knowledge we can finally comprehend
reality we can cup in our hands.

But please, do not forget
to gently smash the jars
so we will not be tied to you
as you too, softly decay.

It is sweet to look up at the moon at night,
and know that she sings me a song.
In every moment that I take to pay attention,
to be distracted, to become lost.
Perhaps to be someone else.
Floating by on borrowed time.

Try on a different identity,
perhaps one that will be better liked.
Pluck the tail from a falling star,
and wear it, as a crown.
Unfortunately here, there are no stars to be seen.
We tried our best to drown out their light.
With the harsh glare of our own.

And then I found myself floating in space
on a pair of ink stained wings.
Watching myself walking in circles,
around the edge of the black hole.
Never falling in, never pulling away.
Living in perfect stasis, echoed throughout the universe.
Each instance of me, a radiant shadow.

Each instance of me, a masked queen
sprawled on a throne of falling stars.
Watching myself ride the cascade,
but unable to stop the spiral.
Finally- we would cross the event horizon.
Finally- we would be plunged across existence.
Finally- we would be able to feel the rain.

The sweet rain, that now soaks through my clothes.
It must have been an hour, maybe two.
Someone is probably looking for me,
but which instance of me are they interested in?
The one who watches from afar?
Or any of the other echoes.
Because I could fracture again, at a moment’s notice.

With a blink, the streetlights turn off,
leaving me bathing in twilight.
As the sun struggles to rise for they day,
I notice the last note of the last morning star.
And I can focus again.
Even the sun and the stars
are a little like me.

When you want to cut yourself open
and offer your viscera to someone
people will come at you with hate.
so be the stronger person and
smile.
but this time,
show your teeth.

Drifting from the sky like an angel’s feather
is a snowflake, that gently lands on my skin
And I think to myself-
what did that angel do to get kicked out of heaven?

Did he struggle as he fell? Thrashing with rage and indignation?
Or did he simply let go and allow himself to drift towards oblivion?
Or maybe, it was neither.
Maybe he chose to leave.

The small shock of cold brings me back to reality.
It is brilliant, almost too brilliant against my numb body.
I want it to stop so I can go back to feeling nothing.
It would be better for my tired brain that way.

I tried to tell a story once, but I realized quickly
That nobody was listening, that nobody cared
and that made me lose my mind entirely
because it made me feel so small.

In that moment, I watched my reality fall apart.
I saw a corpse. And two figures,
too cowardly to go separate ways,
but too cowardly to stay.

Too cowardly to listen- but how is it so?
When the words keep falling, falling, falling
onto ears that choose to be deaf,
onto skin that chooses to be numb.

And like the angel, I fall. This time on my own accord.
But was it really? Or did someone kick me out without me knowing?
But without wings to catch me, instead of falling
I mindlessly circle the singularity.

I tried to tell a story once, but then I realized I was
actually flying under the sea.
And nobody was there to watch and be proud
that I had achieved something I thought impossible.

So then why even try?
Each word, each snowflake, each feather
Is a reminder that I am in fact, still alive
and it leaves me to ruminate on a choice.

A choice I am too afraid to make.
After all, I was never allowed to choose
even the most insignificant things.
So why should I be able to now?

I want to reach up to touch the stars
even though they would burn me.
I want the universe to sing me to sleep
with a deafening radiant voice.

But all I got was fistfuls of shadows,
seeping from between my fingers like thick congealed blood
All I got was velveteen silence
coating my brain like a fine layer of silt

And I found myself falling.
Until my thousand opened eyes could no longer see the stars.
Except for the ones that were falling with me
illuminating our collective descent
in all shades of sickly green and blue

And I found myself changing.
as we learned to breathe in the murk
and breathe out dreams.
As we shed our wings
and learned to swim.

As we went down,
down,
down,
spiraling into the abyss.

But oh, isn’t it beautiful?

On the long walk home I spot a bird.
Her bright jewel colours and sharp song draw my vision.
What a paradoxical existence! To be precious, yet too precious to hold in my hand.
Too delicate to capture in a cage and admire endlessly.

Where do you go? A bird does not flutter aimlessly
like a lost poet, or a homesick heart.
Instead, you beat your wings with purpose,
perhaps returning to the nest you built so diligently for your family in the spring.

Or perhaps you are a young one, just setting out from your home.
Then, be wary, precious jewel, to not lose anything on the way,
nor come crawling back to the nest.
Your family loves you very much, but the nest is far too crowded now for you.

I wish that I could curl myself up so tightly that I would become a singularity and all the negativity in the world could be ****** into my infinite density and slowly over aeons I would radiate away into black nothing as I watched the world around me decay and
for once
I could
be happy.

Until the nothing of the world matched the nothing of my head except for the thoughts that go speeding by never being able to touch but only to die and the colours would fade away from blue to red to gray and then
I’ll ask
Are you
happy?

The cold
is all that is left after death

Brilliant star, beautiful child,
Why must you too leave?
There is a flash of jewel colours
A scream of hot fire
An explosion of gold and silver
And then
there is
nothing

Mighty void, eternal child
Why must you too leave?
Over uncounted millions of years
Yet not quite eternity
You gently fade away
And then
there is
nothing

Little particle, my first child
Why must you too leave?
The very forces that make this possible
This wonderful existence
Have undone you
and then
there is
nothing

And I am alone
And I am nothing
The cold
is all that is left after death

What am I made of?
Thoughts and dreams, floating up into the sky on new grown wings
But they are ****** down, by a force greater than us all.

What are thoughts made of?
Strange is the universe’s insistence on tragedy
So why not retreat to a charmed world of fantasy?

What is existence made of?
It is designed by a cruel creator to be impossible to reach the top.
So we must be content to live on bottom, which is more beautiful anyways.

Maybe something that was once a part of you
Now exists within me
And that makes me happy.

Her mind
is never empty
All the time, it is full of wild thoughts that she can never escape

Beautiful thoughts
like the stars twirling through the void

Sorrowful thoughts
like the tears she holds in her lap like clear jewels

Violent thoughts
like the screams of the one who fell

She rips a feather from her wings
because she’ll never use them to fly

And instead she dips it
in ink, or blood
to her, there is no difference

Because her page will not be empty
And her thoughts will take flight, as sentences and words
and sometimes tears

Because she is the Writer
There are stars in her eyes
There’s a universe in her wings

My dreams floated into the sky
and then fell down into eternity,
like snow falling into the sea,
making her shiver at the horror of it all.

Half forgotten reveries swirl through my mind
and stars burst on my skin,
extinguished by the wind and the water
as I try to forget and remember at the same time

Maybe someone else will be there
to catch those fell fantasies in their hands
as they stream from the moon and into the sea
and she will shiver as my thoughts seep into her blood

Falling backwards into the sky,
We both have the same revelation.
No matter how lucid we are-
Nothing we do matters because we’re all going to die.

In both our moments of clarity,
We wept for the achievements of all of humanity,
To be erased with one stroke of wings,
Extinguished with one mighty claw’s swipe.

Falling into the sky like lanterns
Are our collective hopes, dreams and fears.
But mine has gone dark.
The gentle moon and the dying sea no longer sing of oblivion.

I spend
Fictional money on fictional things
Because I am more fictional than I am real.
Because I feel alien, like I am not of this world.

And I make
Digital purchases in digital worlds
because I've been living in one since I was three.
At least my cage had a dusty old computer.

So often I wished that I could climb inside
to be with the sparkling gifs, and neon dogs
and people whose names I did not know.
They too, were aliens, not of this world.

Maybe we all live in a poorly written fanfiction
or a comic littered with jpeg artifacts
posted on deviantart in 2007
and abandoned to rot by our god.

Maybe someday, she will pick me up and dust me off
and protect me from all those who cringe
at the juvenile creation of just another moody artist
of just another sad internet poet.

The arms of a little girl are welcoming to the ones she loves. Gently, she reaches up, and innocently wraps them around the object of her affection, perhaps a grandmother, or an uncle only seen once a year.

Returning the affection, the family member will gently pat her head, or offer a kind word.

“Why do you hug like that? You’re doing it wrong and it’s weird. Here, let me show you how to do it.”

Someone else swoops out of the shadows to hug her. It is a sterile and cold touch. One that makes her shy away, not understanding what is happening.

She looks at me and I see her discomfort, but am unable to do anything for her. The shadow leaves long after I do, and she slinks away to find someone better.

But the scent of fear still lingers in the air, soft enough for her acute senses to pick up on it. She looks for the source, but only sees me. I avert my gaze from hers, but still understand what she says.

Why are you a stranger to me if I’ve known you all my life?

You see, if my hands have been anywhere near your neck, I’ve probably thought about how easy it would be to **** you. That’s why I’ve been trained to never offer hugs.

It has nothing to do with you, I just have really bad intrusive thoughts sometimes.

She looks at me, and lifts her upper lip, showing her teeth, glistening white with fresh strings of saliva.

And now is the time I choose to make eye contact. Her eyes are a curious colour, one only heard of in the most bone chilling of myths. I half expect them to freeze me solid, but instead their empty stare speaks to me, saying:

I am not a part of this reality.

I am not a part of this reality.

I am not a part of this reality.

Someone come take me away.

Like light beaming through the window
and the miniature shadows of dust motes
blowing off the miniature worlds within shelves of books

Like a traveler in the night
floating on the sweet scent of jasmine
and shaded eyes hiding brilliant stars

Like having one pocket full of crystals
and the other, a collection of foreign coins
tucked neatly into the night satin cloak

Like the welcoming chatter rising,
half of it not of this world,
as the voices of flickering candles and shadows.

Like the deep recesses of my mind
and the silken ripples that say:
Yes, this place is my home.

Despite being impaled on the long blade of time
I still hold your jaw in a vice grip.
Crack me, like the sun does the ice and I will
split.
Into millions of manic fragments, clinging tightly to the last vestiges of shadow.
But you have not defeated me.
I slowly put myself back together so that next time
my wrath will be stronger, my grip will be tighter.
My wings are held together with stitches and scabs,
but they are stronger than yours, artificially pure.
Though you rise like an arc of solar corona
to burn me once again,
all I must do is wait
and wait
and wait
Because when entropy takes over, your heat will be snuffed out
And you will realize what it feels like to live without the flames that fuel you.

The sweetest angels are the ones who were raised in cages.
Free from corruption, sin and blood
Draped in holy white, with every stain covered up.
Perfectly pristine.

But how can an angel fly without room to move her wings?
The bars cut through them as they grow, mangling the delicate feathers until clots of crimson blood are the only thing holding them together.
And it feels good
to feel its warmth and see its exquisite colour, so pleasant to the eyes
Dried blood is ugly and cold so she thrashed around to spill more, each drop as precious as a jewel and as beautiful as the sun.
And it feels good
to destroy and to hurt.
Though they mock her, she doesn’t care.
Because it feels good.
Because how can an angel fly without room to move her wings?

But if she can’t fly, then she can’t be an Icarus
Or a crow that smashed into a window, thinking it was a portal to another world
and then plummeted to its death.
But then she can’t see the universe
or the beauty her wings have to offer.
The only universe is the one in her brain and I want to leave I want to leave I want to leave
Maybe a caged angel set free will become a demon but I want to leave.
Even if the fallen angel smashes through the clouds, a portal to another world
and plummets to its death
It is worth it to taste the breeze.
I want to leave.

You tried.
So I guess I can forgive you.
But what use is a rebel angel against a god?
You gave me courage in whispers and gestures of affection
but it wasn’t enough.
I’m sorry, but it wasn’t enough.
Courage is a bandage over a festering wound
but maybe I want it to fester.
Maybe I want to jam my fingers into it and press until the rot reaches my heart
and reaches my brain
and reaches my wings.
Courage is resistance
but maybe I don’t have the will to resist anymore.
And even if my resistance is successful, I know I will still be crushed.
There is no place in this world for an angel with broken wings or worse,
a broken head.

Except the cage.

God operates like a factory,
hammering reality out of nothingness,
passing it along the assembly lines
where it piles up at the end
and eventually falls
and falls
through beautiful layers of abyss
dancing, twirling on the way down
with no wings to cushion its fall.

But sometimes, he makes a mistake,
a small manufacturing error,
clogging up the system with its imperfections
it holds on tightly
and desperately
only to be crushed at the end
and be recycled back into nothingness
where it will never fall victim to entropy
and burn out, like everything else.

I always feel like I am drowning.
Like I am struggling to breathe.

And I know that it is you
that has a hand around my neck.

I'm not dead yet, but I can already
feel the fire licking at my feet.

I will not let it take me.
You will never see me on my knees.

I will swallow down the bitter fire you throw
And spit out the blood.

Until I bite down and feel
my teeth cut through the rot

of your artificially pure wings.
And that is how I know I've won.

I wish I was your Ophelia
so you could cradle your head in my lap
and tell me not to fall
tell me the meaning of it all
because these bitter lies have meaning
when spoken by your voice.

I am but a nymph
flowing violently on the river
so tell me how you feel
and help me know I'm real
because at the end, there is nothing
and I want to know if I'm there yet.

But what is the point of waiting?
Why not make it happen now?
Why not trade a few more hours of pitiful dreams
for gentle oblivion?

Hold my hand as we spiral down together,
with flowers in our hair and a song in our hearts
until I wake up,
and there is dark, and cold
it was nothing but a fantasy for a fool drenched in gold.
You chose to exist, though I screamed, you resist,

now I must spend my eternity alone.

No matter what objects
you hurl into the void in abject rage
it will still be empty.

and no matter what thoughts
you send through the mirror
the reflection still cuts

and there is still a hole.
An abyss to look into-
pray nothing looks back.

Do not allow yourself
to be distorted, to be removed
by your own hands

by your own mind
and its perception
of emptiness and void.

I like my reflection better
when it is dark.
So I can see nothing but echoes.

I like my thoughts better
when it is dark.
So I can feel nothing but rage.

There’s a black hole in my heart and a supernova in my mind.
But I don’t mind
because it lets me disappear.
And when they come probing into my brain I can
Annihilate. Them.
I crush stars between my teeth and trample them below my feet
until I am coated in a fine layer of stardust.
Maybe it will make me harder to see among the infinite darkness
that I know and love, that they hate and fear
because I am made of fire, and they are not.

The supernova in my mind caused the black hole in my heart.
Why can’t I feel?
Why can’t it be real?
And when they come bearing gifts I can
Annihilate. Them.
Numbed by my endless ice and darkness
until they break into a thousand particles.
But before that, they usually run away
because that is exactly what I want, even though sometimes it isn’t
because I don’t think I’m real, except in my own head.

The black hole in my heart destroyed the supernova in my mind
Is it even real?
Am I even real?
And when I come asking for help they have
Forgotten. Me.
Maybe because they’re all dead.
I wish the ink on my page could become your blood.
I wish the voice in my head would become yours.
I wish and I want and I dream of
the existence of you, or the nonexistence of me

But there is nothing more that I can do except let the black hole I created
consume
me
entirely.