in the sweeping sepia tones of my monotonous,
rushed life, my chest aches to be sprung free.

the urge of flight has never been more viscerally real,
more capable of pinning me to the spot
until my very bones burst from this body bag
suffocating my chest. never have i felt
so wickedly sick, so obviously the cliche
broken fragile thing bleeding out all over the page.

never have i felt so devoid of words.

it's like before, i was full -  brimming with half-thought
ideas and plots and characters, thrumming with
elementary concepts and words but at least i was flooded,
at least my soul was alive.

with the pain came a different flood, a tidal wave in the dead of
night, a cool soaking of the wicked flames that etch in
the monster's shadows. with a muse came my best
works, my raging thoughts, my torment and despair
and bloodthirsty butterflies battering my guts. with
the depression came the rawness that they lapped up,
crowed about, choked back tears. with another muse, i found
desire and passion and lust in the sinful tonguelipsteeth,
the bony handshipsframe. with all these things i found
the words and found a freedom, however temporary.

with change, i found an empty cavern.

the bottom of the grand canyon, less spectacular up close than from the top. less than. empty. hollowed out.

there is before the fall, there is during. they don't talk about the after.
or rather, they do, but there's aftermath - there's cracks and broken
bones and heaving chests and blood gushing, rushing
to the surface to see the light of day.

i bled out before i hit the ground. what happens when you get
the perfect ten, when you land with ease? what happens
when the potential is there, but the words dry up?

i feel potential in the moments wasted,
the beauty in all the strangeness,
the agony of existence. i see the people and
i want to be their storytellers, their cartographers,
their artist. i want them all as my muses.
i collect them and name them and tuck them away
in pockets too full of secrets, putting them aside for tomorrow,
another day, when i get back to the room but find
myself drowning out my words in other worlds.

i know the potential like the sailor knows the seas.
i see the beauty like the diamond in the rough.
i feel the agony in every second like the swish of
the guillotine.

swish. swish. swish.
out of time, out of mind
existence was a phase; here is the end
of our glory days.