We’ve been staring at screens instead of faces
Sending ‘meaningful’ words through entangled wires
To find something to fill all the cold vacant spaces
But relying on monitors to fulfill our desires

We’ve found ourselves trapped in this civilization
Where young girls learn to turn heads before hearts
Where our worth is determined by online admiration
Our innocence is a board and this culture the dart.

You paint me up with colors
That don’t speak to all my flaws
You airbrush bits of who I am
And look at me in awe

I am your prized possession
Your trophy and your muse
Within me rests your vanity
and things you cannot lose

I used to want a love like this
To shower me in praise
Your flattery is dreary now-
It lacks the warmth I crave

This love it leaves me empty
Like I’m only halfway living
How could you ever be my vessel
If you can’t touch my inner being?

If you can’t trace the patterns of my soul
To the creases in my brow
How could you love me one day
If you can’t truly love me now

See, all I ever wanted
Was someone who would say
“I see through all your brokenness
And still, I choose to stay”

Look at the beautiful stars in this room
With their shimmery skirts and inquisitive eyes
Inhale the scent of the heavy perfume
Let it whisk you along through their curious lives

Drink more of the stuff in the passed around bottle
Until everything's vibrant and your words start to slur
Exhale all your worries and embrace the exposure
You’re invincible now it all is a blur

Those stars lose their brilliance when the music dims down
Their mouths move- shouting words but not saying a thing
They’re all caught in the moment with their eyes not their souls
They came looking for passion and left with a fling

Here’s to the nights that we won’t remember
With the people who couldn’t care less if we did
You capture these moments to keep them forever
But weren’t things much simpler when you were a kid?

You were electrically happy, not just in a picture
You were happy with laying outside in the grass
You laughed without end and your love was authentic
Now you're looking for love with a bottle of glass

I wanted to find Him so I decided
To rid myself of all the things
that held me back like puppet strings
and made a solemn effort to be silent

I wanted inspiration so I started
To read stories of courageous lives
where people learned to train their eyes
to chase their wild dreams and the Divine
inside them

I wanted company till I discovered
That there were worlds inside of me
Of endless possibility
That I, and only I, could see

With clarity, alone.

Lately I’ve been afraid of failing.
I realize that my gifts could be propelled in eons of directions that would make my heart soar-
and shake the framework of the world around me
but my problem lies in an inability to take the second step towards my wildest dreams.

See, I’m a catalyst of beautiful ideas but the child in me can’t commit to them.
so I return to my shell of comfort in the ordinary and practical corners of life.

Here I find dark clouds like no other
masked in conformity i sink into their expectations
I become mechanical like all the others on the outside
-and bury those curious dreams that lift me above the others

But the comfortable places never fill me with music
and the comfortable people within them can never keep up with my mental waltz
The pathways they suggest are simple
but my soul cries for chaos and nuance

And so i must persistently fail
because without failure I will always stay the same.

Some days I felt I was drowning.
The memories covered me like waves and I felt like I was surrounded by a sea of things I had forgotten.
They lay in driftwood pieces, close enough to feel their presence but floating further each time I tried to understand them.
Never steady enough to keep me above water
Always hinting at the boat they came from.