You say that
"finding yourself" is
a stupid phrase and idea,
that you are yourself,
and if you don't make
yourself as you go,
what are you doing?

I guess that makes sense.

But have you ever lost yourself?
Maybe not, just lost sight
of your reflection,
and when you see you in a shop window
you're startled with the reminder that
you are a vessel.

But what about that vessel?
Is that you or is the inside you?
Are they the same?
One?

What about the outside?
How much of what you experience
is you? Does it blur together?

And can you separate your experiences
from your judgements, expectations?

What if you don't know?

I know that I'm-
No.
I know that I believe-
I don't.

Questions
over
Questions.
No one to answer them.
No one but me.

And what am I doing?
Searching, searching for answers
in me.
Staring into a candle flame
that flails and lashes out,
swiping at answers,
my answers.

I blow it out
and go to bed
lost,
in a dream I haven't had yet.

Nothing worth it.
Nothing, worth it.

Square, plastic, bitter,
how is the void overwhelming?

I could be gone
too, you know.
No you would never know,
but you would wonder.
We all wonder.
I wonder

I can't scream here, that's the problem.
Actually, it's the crying,
I'm not right now.
I deserve to be inconsolable,
I don't feel honest otherwise,
and I'm not.
I'm not.

I want to see you,
and you're dead,
and all that implies.
I want to bleed,
for it's own sake.

I can't stop thinking
the thought
that it wasn't mean to
be like this.
We were meant to be,
but not like this.

That's it.
No revival,
no redemption,
no last line of hope,
just
so sad I'm angry.

Some cold comfort
Wants it cold
Keeps it handy
For- shadows lengthen
For- dry hearts
For some keep sake
Remembers still water
Still water dies in the cold
Makes it honest
Wants it like bitter fruit
Because it's true
As a dying soul
In a mirror
Or still water
Rehearsing the truth
It comes more regular
And less honest
But less
Stinging
Cold

This fever won't break
its self.
I need--
I need
to break
away.
You are all ghosts,
slights of my psychosis,
but
it's not you.
I have to escape what I've become:
very little of my self.
I always cared what you thought of me
more than I cared what I thought--
very little of my self,
other than my hunger,
and it is that hunger,
dispassionate and weightless,
that has wounded me so.
So I must crawl into a cave,
somewhere across the continent,
to find myself to be -
tepid and sober, covered in scabs, cold-sweating -
awake, when I thought I never would be again,
if I had not left when I did.
(This is to say)
No goodbyes, you'll never see me again.

I
heed, first person,
the bones of surrender
burning in my eyes.
Agitated breathe
seeking
silt
in my lungs,
where saplings
will age into
a place for birds
to sing
"The sun is down, come home!"
for a day and a night,
before falling
like tears
fall.

Presence is inexorable.
How nature makes
three legged spiders,
made for a grave in the
dust of a window sill.
How civilization makes
light pollution.
Soon the Moon will be
the only Old God left.
How my hands are so empty...
And the subtext is--
Oh the things I wish I could cry for:
I know them like the back of my mind.