I crave a cigarette with my whole existence
Like I’ve never craved something before
My body aches, my joints feel heavy
My blood has stopped flowing
My nerves are dormant
My system will cease to exist without nicotine
Why is it that these getaways are all I have?
At the end of the day, I have no internal support system
Other than these fleeting moments of happiness
Why is that I feel as if I might combust?
I might tear apart anyone or anything
Because I don’t feel good about myself
And that statement is old and overused
But it is eternal and never-ending
Is there any other way to be?
I don’t want the things I used to
I have stopped trying to bargain with love
I have edged into the dent in the wall
Of sad guitar solos and sugary coffee
Of books that tell me how to breathe
And transport myself into another reality
Is it okay to be so far away from yourself?
To settle into stories like they’re all I have
Are these illusions all I have to proclaim?
When I’m 50 and they ask me what matters
I’ll tell them about youthful indulgence
And fictional stories, second-hand feelings
I’m trying to live like there’s no other day
But sometimes I feel like I should stop
And look myself in the eye and ask
“Who are you? What are your ideals?
What makes you who you are?
What do you desire?”
Playlists that make me teary
Late night battles with myself
Transcendence into places
I avoid during the day
Viktor E. Frankl said,
“The salvation of man is through love and in love”
How deeply you lived is how deeply you loved
Not just people, but life itself
The opportunities, the frivolities
And yourself
Imagine being stuck in a room
There’s constant knocking at the door
You can unlock the door if you want
But you’re unable to, you just can’t get up
And you hate yourself for it
Year after year, you’re in a war
That you don’t want to be a part of
That is how insecurities feel
Angst and rage swallow your loathing
You consider music
Baking, painting, writing
Make up, old dresses
Long showers, strangers
Mellow afternoons
Scrapbooks full of prose to make you feel alive
Create infinities
Within yourself, around yourself
By yourself
It’s like you’re trying so hard to run
From what? To where?
You don’t know
Just somewhere
Where the bells chime in solace
You drown your anxiety
Into Bailey’s Irish Cream and chug
Sloppy and smiling
Where nothing but the present matters
And you can stop running
The shadows you can’t face
The situations you don’t know how to handle
Are long gone, almost unreal
You look back and say,
“Thank god, I’m not that person anymore.”
Tell me that place exists
Tell me the city lights will feel like stars
Tell me that when I jump off a cliff into water
It will ignite my existence
I will be greater than myself
I will understand what it means
To go all in and not hold back
That even if it’s a bell jar at one point
It’s la vie en rose at another
Is there a philosophy to follow?
Am I doing the right things?
Are knowing and unknowing
Two sides of the same coin?
Can I hold your hand?
I promise I won’t fall in love
I promise I won’t give you my burdens
The phone rings but you don’t pick up
And I survive one more day
Without expecting anything in return
I know you’ll leave one day
And no matter how much I avoid feeling anything
I am not cut out for stoicism
But I sure do aim for it
Rainy evenings and windy days
Yellow flowers that scatter the street in front of my house
I reach out
For what? I don’t know
But sometimes, I feel something reaching back
Escapism and frustration
Bitterness and disconnectedness
Amidst all that
I believe in my absolute freedom
No matter how delusional
There are no circles that enclose me
There are fine lines I tiptoe on
On planes at wildly different angles
Searching for meaning
Distracting myself from the misery
Until it hits me unawares
Dostoevsky said,
“There is only one thing that I dread:
Not to be worthy of my sufferings”
And I feel myself to be of no significance
In the greater scheme of things
But as Lana Del Ray put it,
Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have
But I have it