I'm no trailer park trash,
you may live
                      forty three stories more than me..

But I'll reach higher than you any day of the week.

I only have to take one step,
                             to tell what is
                        curb crawling around me.

Trying to sell me false hopes,
            selling me bath salt dreams.

But there more like bubble bath,
          popping before I even enjoyed it.

Your hopes and dreams are sky high,
illusions of
           your first steps.
A worthless dime falling from  a great height.


              No one even heard you
                                           plunge...

Cos there only interested what's
                                      happening on the street..

Your just a stain that no one really looked at,

                                                        cares about.


    As there's plenty more chalk outlines
                            that children hopscotch over..

Can you count to ten..


Then there's another gunshot..
          like a storm, they hitting in the distance..

Just another cold breath that falls from ground zero...
                                                  burn stains on the
side-lines
                    that play pause.



                                        No breath... no care.

I'm here at ground zero,
            your up there in your fairy-tale

hanging from your chandelier,

But I'm swinging lower but still breathing.

Look around it seems so quite
Finally, the sound of birds can be heard.
Look around there's no car outside
Rushing to get to the finish line.
Streets are empty, the air is fresh
Breathe in and rest.
.
Everyone is home it feels so nice
Like someone gave you back your childhood Time.
Use this time to catch up with the friend inside. .
Don't go out please stay inside
We can fight only if we stand unite.

I just feel so small and everything else is so huge and it keeps piling up on me, smothering me, until all I can see and breath is this wall of musts and responsibility and endless tasks and emotions that won't stop pressing up in my throat and I can't cry, I just don't take the time to do it, everything else is too demanding that I can't even do that, and I don't remember anymore how to relax my shoulder or unclench my jaw and I just can't see any pause ahead, no oasis of breathing deeply again in the near future, no space for just me to be.

Feelings are on pause..
feeling kind of lost..
don't know where to go..
kind of on my own..
I know I should be strong..
but how am I
supposed to be
calm..
it's overwhelming to feel..
am I going alone
after all..
feelings are fleeting..
why can't I
keep them
under control..

There is no hesitation
to pick up bird feathers
from off the ground,
and heal an angel's
broken wings.
But there is a pause
before we reach a hand
to the broken claw
of a demon.
Tell me now,
Are they both not in need of saving?

let me pause
these daydreams,
and wake up to a reality
where it was never as it seems,
and you were never there to begin

I had grown out of time-outs - those imposed minutes of inward reflection, of self confrontation in wait and ponder. I had forgotten that slowing and pausing could be a productive use of time, and that eternity does indeed wait for all who have the stamina to stop the clocks and drape the mirrors.

I had instead lived for the future, passing abruptly / obliviously through the momentary present, robbing myself of the present time to consider, to discern, to consult, to learn from those like my father who had travelled further through time, having time to use the time-honoured travel method of patience.

And now, in my father's cooling presence, I stalled in an unfamiliar, unexpected hiatus between generations, and was forced to wait for what would come next.

And I paused.

there are some days when it's the headache and you, not you and the headache.

just pound after pound, the core of your brain. the beat you never intended to dance to. and look at us, puppets.

like a ball on a string, our heads rattling around, unaware that heads don't rattle.

trying to push away the push of pain through pills that we pop to pop this pressure point.

but figuring out where to place the pin is the pause.

you don't want to make it worse, but if you can't make it better, best to just...not.

how do normal people function? what is this magical nirvana of blissful calm state? how does one close their eyes and sleep?

when headache likes to play, you can only hope they don't pull the string too hard.