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 May 2014 Patrick Conroy
JJ Elias
Sometimes I spread my hands to the sky certain that they can grasp the stars but they can't, yet I keep reaching anyways.

And there's something beautiful about spinning on a field when the only thing visible is the night sky, and the only thing insignificant is you.

When I was young the thought of the world revolving around the sun intrigued me, and those moments somehow made me feel at one with the world.

Spin, spin, spinning, but then I would stop and my feet could no longer keep up with pace of my head, so I’d go flying in all directions just like disillusioned men when they go stumbling down streets unfamiliar to them.

Sometimes I wonder if the world is the way it is because it is in chaos and no one even knows.

Like somehow everyone is at a disadvantage,

Like no mind is sober because of a natural disposition pinned against us by gravity.

What if that is why men do the things they do, because I always wonder under what spirit do they operate, what demons have they encountered, that cause them to be possessed with this hate that makes *** slaves of the unfortunate, orphans of the unprepared, single mothers of the lovers, victims of our children, and on and on and on and on again.

Life just keeps moving and we just keep making the same mistakes. generations pass, people die but no one understands that we are just animals, caught in a war against ourselves.

Against our greed, our pride, our lust, our security, our beliefs.

We are so full of ourselves that we don't notice what is happening around us, we don't know that the world is spinning at 1000 mph; we have lost touch with the things that matter, lost all connections with the truth in the sky that enlightens anyone who dares to approach it.

always forgetting that it is the beauty of the moon, and the millions of stars that remind us that We Are Insignificant

But instead we are grounded and we have stopped so our feet cannot keep up with the pace of our heads so we have lost our balance.

You know I'm afraid, I'm afraid for my life.

On morbid days I envision myself in my coffin, I see my lifeless body and the pastor walking up to the podium, he says,
"Jal, he was an average man, maybe a bit eccentric, tragedy struck and this young man was taken away from us way too early by the devastating actions of an unidentified person.”

I watch the whole funeral and in curiosity I wonder which belief was it that killed me, or was it something outside my control like the color of my skin.

You see most people pray to be put down while they are sleeping by the famous killer, old age, but I don't know if I'll make it that long.
I've always said I want to be fully aware of the moment I die.

That's why when I was young on family road trips, when the only thing I could see was the 350 ft. ahead of the car illuminated by the headlights, and the determined face of my father, I would fight to stay awake because I couldn't let death take me by surprise.

But now I'm eighteen I occasionally have nightmares of my loved ones dying, but then again I don't really sleep anymore because death threatens to come at any moment.

A terrorist attack could shatter the windows of this house I consider impenetrable, or even a hungry thief thinking irrationally about his rationality.

This is the world we live in.

The world is spinning off its axis and things that used to seem so far have slid closer and closer, until I’m looking right into the eyes of death.

From 9-11, to Westgate, to genocide, things are closing in on me, and the “what ifs” are no longer so improbable and I am afraid.

I'm afraid that the world will never change, that people will stay the same, that I will go insane.

I’m going insane.

Could people just understand, could we just stop for a moment, grab each other’s hands and walk to open fields together at twilight after all traces of the sun have gone, could we whirl around with our heads to the skies, our nature abandoned, and our bodies in sync with the world,

Could we just spin and spin and spin until we once again become what we were made to be.

Could we just be more than animals?
 May 2014 Patrick Conroy
svdgrl
Nice
 May 2014 Patrick Conroy
svdgrl
She said, "Tell me something nice about it."
And I stood there, searching
searching
searching
there had to be something.
Why couldn't I think of it?
"It's...really nice."
 May 2014 Patrick Conroy
gg
5/22/14
 May 2014 Patrick Conroy
gg
I'm still trying to understand the fact that no baby is born hating itself and yet as life goes on people will love you but they might also hurt you or leave you or any number of horrible things, and all you can do is let them leave with pieces of you and try to fill the holes back in with something else or else try to forget that the hole is there (or at least try to forget the person that caused it) and as life goes on all of those holes make us grow in different ways than we were headed (like when people make cuts in trees and manipulate to make them grow knotted together -- people put holes in us and we try to grow around them or away from them) and we just get more and more ****** up each time until there are things we don't like about ourselves and then we expect someone else to love our insecurities when all we do is complain about them and how empty we feel (we're all full of holes) and if someone had just told us to keep loving ourselves from the start and to remember that we're all flawed humans maybe it wouldn't hurt so much when I am lying awake at three in the morning because you didn't text me back when you said you would and I'm starting to see all of the imperfections in my face and my personality and I can't sleep because I'm trying to remember just one reason that I ever thought you could love me.
Sorry, this isn't really a poem, it just kind of started as a thought and then  kept going until I imagined the kind of person who would be thinking about this (if that makes any sense). It's supposed to be a kind of stream of consciousness.
I always fail in expressing how I feel

The closest I can come to a concrete explanation
Is comparing myself to situations
That will somehow make me feel
like I am not alone
in the way I feel
 May 2014 Patrick Conroy
Oyashumi
Some human beings are just rotten flowers in a broken vase.
Though your heart searches on, longing for him,
Hoping he’ll return to you as if on a whim.
The man you loved is now no more

You tell me his eyes had sparks of life and love,
That his smile shone brighter than the stars above.
Well I’m not the man you’re looking for.

I know of whom you speak, he once was a dear friend
But as broken heart drove this man to his end.
Thus the man you loved is now no more

Still something about me make you remember, you chide.
That this rugged, cold face hides his kindness inside
I told you, I’m not the man you’re looking for.

In your quest did you once think that he left for a reason?
That maybe it was neglect that led his heart to treason?
No matter, the man you loved is now no more
And I’ll never again be the man you’re looking for.
Bad attitude is like a flat Tyre
It will leave you stranded*






© Amitav (Radiance)
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