Fingernails pull against stomach lining for the words
arrhythmic synchronization with cohesive thought
a pendulum eclipses everything when convenience and preparation overlap
strike now! While there's confidence, before the paralysis
while hovering straws fall from the grasp,
shorter, like sips of a temper

Be at peace, broken silver chain
now suspended, weight eased from the clasp
never worn in vain, never to be worn again
pre-dying era, a fresh breath and a last gasp

Suffocation not felt in the lungs
as though a plastic bag is tied off around the brain
the moist heat where self becomes proxy;
intimate issues become schadenfreude
and insensitivity becomes a matter of cutting through thick skin
where the initial struggle is spun off the back of the mind
so that all these slices of you, handed out for free, butcher you down to raw nerves and take your armor like bacon
hyper-focus and tunnel vision, can sound like good work, but that's where burnout begins
what does a wordcount mean if you hit a wall at fifteen thousand and can't finish a scene?

Going through hell, somehow we tricked ourselves
to say it's just part of living
forgetting that life can be good, we work for it, want it,
why we don't have it when we plead for it, dream of it,
beg and ask for it, fight for it, like we like the struggle more
or we like to resent the care-free, weightless people,
there's no normal in the first place, so who gets to say everything has to be so hard?

Suffering is not the human condition, it's just a condition of being human
just like surviving, living, existing, dying to live and living to die are all separate
there's a balance, no blankets, nothing explains everybody; nobody can
freedom to try and fail is the most important part of making a plan.