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sonder

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is beautiful
I whispered
I love you
As I cried hot tears onto my keyboard
But it doesn't matter
we can never **be
Don't you realize*
The label *"cutter"
hurts more than the razor
When you sum all of me, him, her, them in one word
It's as though whips of ice squeeze
Insisting you fit in the confines of that label
And I know
It's hard when that's all we know
Everything is labeled so we understand, but I still hate it
I ask you
What did he look like?
black, brown hair, glasses
If he were a white man, you'd describe his eyes and hair before you'd think of mentioning race
It's not your fault (only)
We name the different to get it under our grasp
A snug bottle in which we can keep the errant genie
But even the words I love are just labels
I don't know how long we've been kissing
The sun went down long ago, sad to say goodbye
You and I can't remember when we stopped breathing air separately
want can't describe the tsunami in me
Hearts beating so fast until they explode
Hands roaming because we never want to
I scratch you and the pain is insanely alluring
You are the fever I never want to sweat out
Now it's that turning moment
And as we kiss
Finally feeling alive
You tell me you've never tasted anything better
and suddenly I can't stop it
the words I haven't said come pouring out
lies, empty pillbottles, razor blades, desperate letters, so many failed ends
All come pouring into your mouth through mine
make love to me
(please)
You made me the sweetest bird of paper
Written on it were lovely memories
Of times when you and I didn't feel so alone
We mistook that time for happiness,
For love.
I took it and as it nestled into my palms,
palms which had felt every bit of your skin
As I thought of hot nights and cool lies,
And the moment you realize
Love had long since become a nighttime activity,
The bird caught on fire in my hands
But didn't burn my red palms

(we didn't know it was a phoenix)
stars* crisscrossed paths to destruction
for the observant
                                                                   the body of Hu m a n i t y
                                                                     and millions of glittering stars
destined to rot in the tomb of Time
The desperate line traced a design only to space
The occupants: a motley array of the same humanity
Some bled crimson that fell forever
Some held the vital limbs in their hands causing their limp
Some depended upon the charitable kick of another to propel them forward
All ghastly sights
But the worst
The worst were the unmarred, unscarred
Who'd travelled so very far
To buy what was sold
The vender: an unsettling figure free of gender
Invisible to the customers
The haze surrounding the vender's face
Was made of suppressed memories
Each customer approached, stinking of need
And laid something valuable upon the stained table:
A dripping *****, a wisp of soul, a carefully folded memory
The vender's tip bucket contained halves of human hearts
Bleeding out regret
A face of money not concealing the truth of the transaction
Endless bodies in line to buy
Emotions
Stolen from the grateful dead
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