Where is the romance?
How to give myself a chance
To experience real love?
Is it really just about "feeling enough"?

Is it all about dopamine?
Adrenaline? Serotonin?
Aren't we overanalyzing
And with that - aren't we paralyzing
Ourselves?

I feel like love lost all sense of romance.
Like nobody ever is Mr. Right
Like I deliberately choose
If I might...

Win or lose -
Doesn't really matter,
I could change partners
According to weather.

Isn't it strange?
Or is it just me?
Wondering about
What love is meant to be?

I'm kind of sick,
Feeling aloof,
Confused, sad, alone,
As though I was sitting on some
Iron throne.

As though all those tales
Are simple creations,
All magic seems lost,
The special vibrations...

The butterflies?
Just cause I am empty inside,
Feeling as though,
I simply needed "a hormonal ride".

I hope there's more
Than addiction to it,
I hope all these things truly exist:
Romance and roses,
Love at first sight,
Being more than a casual delight,
A tender and beautiful touch of a hand
And a soft kiss as though we just met.

I want to believe in marriage even.
I want to be able to choose someone, too.
I long for such special and deep connection,
I want it to stay meaningful until the end.

So do people in marriages simply pretend?
Or are they just used to each other?
Or even a substitute for a father or mother?
It's sad!

My mind is racing
And I realize,
I need to let go
Of this need to know.

The desperate search
Won't take me much farther,
I realize it's a perfect distraction.

There are certain fields in my life
Which wait for my reaction.

But I am rather in my mind,
Wanting to hide
From
Those messages... ... ... ... ... ...
Those steps for my future profession...
And other big decisions,
Which need me to take action.

Distraction after another distraction,
Chasing dopamine but it’s fleeting.
My failure to take any real action,
And patterns go again repeating…

Sitting with it would be better-
Creating space with each exhale-
But instead, I seek quick pleasure,
Can I escape from this mental jail?

With each transient gratification,
Receptors meet a chemical reward.
Producing less natural generation-
I just want my brain restored.

what makes us beautiful? printed notes sanctioned by the government? three layers of plastic that attaches to the skin. electricity that runs in your spines, blue rays invading your lonely night. a night where jasmine’s weep because you’ve lost sight of their existence.what makes us beautiful? pixelated rays emitting diodes of dopamine. colours and colours of chrome attached to screens. what makes us beautiful, then? 360 degree surveillance across borders and borders of human civilisations. what makes us beautiful then? maybe a solitary ray of sun as it wraps around your face at dawn? but how would you know that, as you’re doused from the pixels of yesterday, making you numb enough to make sleep through the morning.

i heard them say it's bad to push away the negativity
under the blanketing embrace of a nice evening drink
but my mind isn't well and my time seems at an end --
do i really have a problem when i worry that i'm the problem?

do i need to abide by the constructs those i do not know
have created for people like me to stand beside and follow
despite the everyday occurrences that warrant the attention
of those who sit and wait and do not listen?

shall i walk my way down this narrow street
under the dimming streetlights as cars pass me by
just because that's what's supposed to help me survive?

or perhaps i should visit the dwindling spaces
occupied by those paid to sit and listen
to the life stories of those they do not know?

shall i trust their intentions and pray for remission
of these symptoms that never seem to fade?

no -- instead, i think i'll bask in this sun
and reach my quivering hand to the right
to pick up my drink tilted on its side
and press it to my lips to taste the bitter embrace
of this warm can of serotonin and dopamine.

Dopamine, dopamine,
serotonin levels high,
need satisfied,
Drug of happiness,
that's what you need!
Love is all around,
passionate dark love,
It ruffles feathers
and tells of the soul,
dopamine flying around
can you believe it? - hmm.

The flash flood of euphoria,
is swallowed by the thirsty ground,
eternally unquenched.
I will smile,
and fix my eyes on the desert sun.
I will grow roots and bloom,
an endogenous cactus,
while envious drifters lick the sand,
desperate for a drop of rain.

“She’s the one that got me addicted”
— you say with a sly smile
I find it funny
that somewhere between those
minty cigarette drags and drunken kisses
and all the memories we’ve made
out of them
I somehow ended up addicted too—
not to the cigarettes— but to you.