i find myself drowning in murky waters,
an oil spill of equations and metaphors,
quandaries and paradigms.
the sun is a constant overcast even on the most blinding days,
faces are grim even with the brightest smiles.
messily scrawled words read chaos on pristine canvases,
incessant scribbles drill canals into my brain.

one tentative tap away,
always one tentative tap away from reality,
but never quite there,
and so i fall deeper.

thin heels clicking against glossy tiles,
heavy footsteps shuffling into classrooms,
distant chatter stalking my shadows,
actuate stings of dread luring me in.

thread-like strings are attached to my limbs,
a marionette with a feeble attempt of procuring freedom,
i am a victim to disorder.

inundated with scattered pages,
furious streaks of neon hues form riots across my desk.
before me stands a mirror of my very own thoughts,
and my mind takes everything in
only to be left with nothing specific in the end.

i work with a jumbled puzzle set,
consisting of no essential moment
to print itself onto my memory.
yet there remains a fascicle of nerves
screaming,
waiting to be heard,
but it becomes like me—submerged in murky water.

living in chaos is living
where moments are constantly out of focus
and the abundance of simply everything is too overwhelming.

but to wake in the earliest hours of the day
when the sun is still yearning to lie upon a mattress of stars
and neighborhood lights are flickering onto rusty street signs and empty tar roads,
is a blessed refuge from the tumultuous scenes
that plague me daily.

silence slices through the fog of my cognition like a bayonet,
and i blink away my sleep-addled state to take a dip in the tangerine skies.

nascent rays gleam over rooftops,
trees become silhouettes on an oil painting,
and golden clouds blush from the soft caress of the sun.

for some reason,
the experience felt foreign,
like a mirage of all of the images i was never able to grasp.

dawn is a portal to another realm,
a shelter to shield myself from the murky waters,
only there’s still no escape—
i’m just no longer drowning.
instead,
i find that i can breathe.

(chaos is loud but silence is louder;
i wouldn’t mind listening to silence for a day,
because i’ve already been listening to chaos for years.)