you know sometimes i wonder whether i'm capable of feeling - whether there are moments that strike me as more than just a case of black or white. i'm always on separate sides of the dichotomy - right or left, up or down, happy or sad, good or bad. but it just gets so tiring because i wonder when it'll be my turn to reach my peak - my breaking point. but it never comes. it's always here or there and at the moment, i'm nowhere.

I feel ironic
I want to be a free thinker
But I believe in order
Anarchy is the same as fascism
I feel fear
I want to be an activist
But I don't want to lose my job
Protest doesn't pay the bills
I feel agnostic
I don't know how to believe
But I pray everyday
God is something I can't question
I feel love
I want it so badly
But though I know how to be alone
I hope it forces itself on me

I was never one to stay in one place for more than one day.
But I've been sitting on this bench for quite a while.
Rotting out as the seasons change for almost a year. Observing my life, analyzing the world with my pupils not my mind.
Passion,
Compassion,
Inspiration,
Love,
Hate,
Regret,
& memories.
Withered & bloomed inside of me like a garden of suicidal flowers.
I take one last look at this life.
I put the gun in my mouth.
I can taste the hollow steel
& before I could smell the gun powder,
I pulled the trigger on the past.
I awoke in the present
but the future still seems to have it's hands wrapped around my throat.
They say that time waits for no one
but time has been waiting at my front door long enough.

This delight,
To inhale twilight.
Ride the nightlight to the stars.

To kiss a breath within
each moment
Free from introspection,
doubt and regrets.
It is here, I yearn to dwell.

No fear of neglect.
No fear of offense.
No fear of fear.

Yet, ever vigil,
to a slight variance of mood.
Of circumstance.
Of changes that determine
outcomes and future.

Fear of loss.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of fear.

I succomb to this perception.
Live in accordance
within the rules and structure
that appear to maintain order  
to each of my days

Yet I await, with anticipation...
To kiss a breath within
each moment

This delight.
To inhale twilight.
Ride the nightlight to the stars

Mesmerizing eyes anchor me to your soul
I loose myself in those translucent depths
I wonder if your lips were made for me
I wonder if your heart beats for me

When gently on your chest I lay my hand
I hear your heartbeat restrained
Thumping loudly, visibly tensed
Sensing if I'll ever guess

Strangers to unbeknown eyes
Your gaze I've held
How I would want to pretend
But you've deeply affected my rest

Words form freely, in the minds unrest
Silence seals my lips before my story unfolds
Scarcely breathing, surviving, the truth untold
Stranger I am to my own world

I don't want to be a stranger to this feeling
I don't want to be just a keeling
Never want to let you go, hold you to myself.
Bury myself in the depth of your vortex

You'll never understand
The reason of my restraint
Undelivered words and messages unsent
Hiding visibly in broad daylight
When your sweet voice I want to hear daily

The antithesis of my story is laughable
The dissonance of my utterances and intent
Perplexed and fraught between
To be or not to be
My struggle, my dichotomy
Paradoxical my situation
Fake my appearances seem
Inside I am dying my love
Dying for a simple truth from you!

My life constitutes of
a dichotic shift as I
drift
between
a state of self-assuredness
and self loathing.

When I am assured
I am sure
that my eyes are a
golden brown,
my smile whitened and straightened
with perfectly painted lips.
My eyelashes curl upward
as I give you my most intriguing smirk,
inducing you into giving me
those copies for free
and saying "Ay girl"
as I cross the street.
My jeans hug my hourglass figure
like a girl from a video,
and the compliments find themselves
going my way.
My brain swells with
knowledge and an almost-eery insight
as I predict your admiration
and find myself compensating as to
not appear
ostentatious.
I hold myself with the highest regard and
refuse to let a man
make me feel inferior,
to judge me by my exterior because
I am superior to that
treatment.
My wit is quick and
you can bet I'll put a
Slick Rick in his
place if he is even fit to
keep up with my pace.

But then again
I look at him and see
him frowning at my
symmetrical, but overly round
face,
thinking that there might
be other ladies in this place
with a smaller frame,
with a flat stomach and
a tame sense of style,
not a fedora or Timberland boots or a beanie,
not someone who cackles when
she laughs
and talks even more loudly and
obnoxiously than she chuckles.
I'm not smooth enough to
keep your attention as
my obsession with Harry Potter accidentally
gets disclosed,
as I feel my skin-diseased cheeks
bleeding through their concealer and bronzer mask.
A law school degree sounds boring and
braggy as I grasp
at straws, at my only backup source of comfort,
as I attempt to woo you with my brain because
you clearly aren't into a size ten.
You glance out of the sides
of your eyes as you buy me a drink,
or you tell me you aren't
ready for a relationship
even though we've been
sleeping together for a year;
"it's just not you, it's me"
is what I finagle
as a girl named Hailey
posts a picture of you with
your arm around her size two
waist and top-heavey Double D's.
I let down all of my walls and
you forget my birthday,
and I stay devastated over you long
enough for you to
forget my name.

I'm two-in-one;
I'm confidently lacking in confidence and
disapprovingly disapprove of
anyone's opinion of me
but my
own.

I am right, I am wrong
I am Yin, I am Yang
I am a day, I am a dawn
I am the Spring, I am the Fall
I am the sun calling for the moon
I am the wind, I am the storm
I am the past, I am the future
I am right now, I am back then
I am a saint, I am a sinner
I am an angel, I am a devil

I am the faith, I am the fear
I am the good, I am the bad

I am alive, I am dead
I am the sweetest lie, I am the painful truth
I am the unexpected Hello, I am the disappointed goodbye
I am the strings, I am the tuts
I am the unwanted smile, I am the desired tears
I am the love, I am the lust

I am a champion, I am a loser
I am the painter, I am the canvas
I am the happiness, I am the sorrow
I am something, I am nothing
I am the daughter, I am the friend
I am a girl who lost a soul

-Erika C