Discovering
Energy
Empathy
Prefer

Intimacy
Need
Spark
Infatuation
Do it
******

all i have ever wanted
is to be
unmoored
alone
a ship
cast off
from the populated shores
into a sea of stars
to sail among cotton clouds
into fantasy beyonds
to need never look
on the world i leave below
and never glance back
on my body which my mind
leaves behind
on the lapping shores of the living

Brown hair drip
drops down onto
black squishy flip flops
and
seamless white plastic shower floor.

Then it is tan sand
and saltwater spray;
and the great gray-blue ocean
lies before bare burrowing toes
and air vent breaths
are washing tides
and the shushing breeze.

She is naked and young and alone
tan, svelte and smooth
squeezing sea from dark tangled hair
on a beach
where air smells sweet
salt, not stinking seaweed
and everything the temperature of her body.
The sun burns not too hot or bright
in pastel-streaked sky
rays not of needle glares but cotton.

The standing,
quiet calm
no chatter but seagulls
air enough to fill both lungs:


a world that is plush and halcyon
and needs no reason

I don’t like it.
I hate that I love it.

I hate that I love obsessing
over something that isn’t real.
I hate that the reason I love it
is because it’s not real.

Because it’s a fantasy.
They are a fantasy.
They are my daydreams.

I am stuck inside my own mind
A reality created by the fabric of my imagination
And I love it
And I dread who it’s made me become.

I no longer exist.
I am a shell of a person.
In my right arm is his love interest.
In my heart is his other.
My leg holds his best friend.
And he has snuck his way into
the deepest crevices of my mind.

Now, in my soul, or,
the remainder of it
Is her.
The self insert.

The one who holds my anxieties
My fears
My denial.
She is who I am not
She is who I hate
She is the me who will never exist.
Because I don’t want her to
Because I long for her to.

I’m so thankful for each one of them
I’m thankful that when I no longer care to exist
They are right there with a petty argument waiting to be had
Or a date night that needs planning
Or the exact words I need to calm myself down.

I also hate them with my entire being.
I hate that they love the food that I don’t
so I owe them a cheesecake or green apple candy,
and after one bite I’m sick of it.
I hate that when I’m doing something important
my mind drifts off to live their life, their fantasies.
I hate that even when they’re miserable,
at least they have each other.
And I don’t.

I hate that I speak of them constantly.
I hate that I’m not just me.
I hate that one day they’ll be gone
and I’ll just be an empty shell
With all but the absence of a soul.

I gazed at her, the warrior woman,
standing on the hill
where crum'bling stones of castles made their home.
Her form against the solemn sky stood noble, tall and fierce;
tenacity bespake her ev'ry stride.

The clouds before her only served
to frame her fairer still;
through richly dark, they parted just enough
to filter drops of sunlight to where she stood like the moon;
an argent gleam shone in her mane and eyes.

I frowned at her from where I hunched,
longed for her iron will,
clawed my lackluster hair and tore my heart.
The flat grey fog above the hole where I shrank in the dust
had only seen me cower, curse, and cry.

As we prepared to march again
I struggled up the hill
in hopes that I could find what grace she knew.
I didn't know she was still there, her back against a rock;
I caught her eye and realized

she had been crying too.

it's sad
how it's all true
it's no dream, no fantasy
it's the reality
and it doesn't matter
how bad you want it
to be a dream
it is
and it will always be
nothing but the truth