I see my friends in new relationships, in bliss
I'm happy for them
I'm also a bit bitter if I'm being honest
And if I'm being honest I'm never really honest
It's a protection plan of mine like
the kind you get when you're at the checkout and the
cashier who's on her
second hour of overtime
says that for thirty extras dollars all your broken parts can be fixed
if you bring it back
There was an asterisk next to the plan
Terms and Conditions apply, please sign here
so when you bring it back with a shattered screen
they say they can't help you because you did it to yourself
And I've done this
thing
to myself
Over and over and over again
Waiting for the time it works
The right formula of time multiplied by distance divided by maturity
But the solution I come up with always equals zero no matter what numbers I move around it stays the same
I don't commit because I've committed too much before
I don't walk on those egg shells anymore
When I love there is an asterisk next to my heart
Terms and Conditions apply, please sign here
Don't get too close because you might see me without my mask
And unmasked me is brutal and burnt out
As frail as thin ice covering the pond of his regrets
I've grown old groaning on about these things
A cold king with a cold crown sitting on a cold throne
alone
And I don't want to be alone but I don't want to change
This is normal for me and it feels safe even if it is killing me slowly
Nobody has been through my shoes
You can sympathize but don't ever say you can empathize
You have not seen through my eyes or felt with my heart
There are parts of me I lost with every step forward I took in absolute fearlessness and faith and it crippled me
So don't act like I have those parts of me, still
There are things I just cannot do anymore
Like an amputee who can't feel his wife's hand in his anymore
Like a paraplegic who can't run a marathon anymore'
Like a young boy who spent his love in fullness and never got any back
Please, just accept that this is who I am and I can't change that
Because it's not in my nature anymore
It just can't happen

it's in the ring now,
but the modern way is reckless.
oblivion is nearing ever closer,
you're just like me:
the greatest magic trick ever seen.
let's disappear together.

break.
nothing's real.
that's just how i feel.
it's all coming on now.
i can't stop listening to the voice
inside my head
telling me not to sleep,
but to go to bed.
shock paralysis dissolves into my mind,
streets walk through the night.
tell me where you are.

oh, what a beautiful hollow part of me
I see.

You are
What you are

Even while carried
To the left, or to the right
Up and down
Even if pivoted
Through each and every angle
Even when you were
And when you will
Forever still

Except

When you reflect
Through right to left
In your perception of the self
You are

Mistaken

So why rely on chiral lie
Deny your mirror form
And celebrate you
That is true
Through other eyes

You are reborn

Dreamy thoughts of the future meander,
Leaving a desire, dare say a fire raging within,
Endeavor to never allow the present the power,
To capture, and smother what presses valiantly forward.

Despite the dreary realities lying before me,
What comes beyond is the enticing peak of the journey,
A bastion of becoming what is so desperately sought,
The person I've endeavored to be.