STRAIN is pressure on the muscle,
Stress is pressure on the brain,
A culmination of anxieties,
Hard to bear, hard to explain,
It's a stressful world we live in ...

PRESSURE on the muscle, is called strain,
Pressure on the brain, is called stress,
Over exertion of the grey matter,
Cerebral tiredness, mental duress,
It's a stressful world we live in ...

STRESS is pressure on the brain,
Strain is pressure on the muscle,
Symptoms of life's hectic pace,
Attempts to cope, with life's hustle and bustle,
It's a stressful world we live in ...

PRESSURE on the brain, is called stress,
Pressure on the muscle, is called strain,
Perhaps trying too hard to compete,
A desire too strong to attain,
It's a stressful world we live in ...

Don't expect too much from life,
While still always trying your best,
Put your shoulder against the wheel,
The strain in your muscle is real,
But leave all the stress for the rest!

if i remember correctly,
you wrote a manual on how to swim
in this sea of disappointments

wading my way on above-me water *****
the energy, the life, the sureness out of me
**** this pressure everyone puts around me

i am naked under currents; don't peak
the water had been dyed pitch black now
the color of doubts

in their eyes they stitch words on my skin
capital letters p, e, r, f, e, c, and t
they decorate me like a diy existence

if i remember correctly,
you wrote a manual on how to drown suffocating-deep into one's sweetest dream
give it to me now

Hold it together, hold it in
They won't know where to find you
If they don't know where you've been
Let the pressure build up
'Til you're feeling stuck
'Til you feel you might drown
And then swim further down

When the flood gates finally open
And it all comes rushing out
You'll find pieces of yourself
You'd forgotten all about
But they won't fit anymore
So the tide carries them out
And what is left on the shore
Is something broken and impure

If I were to be a believer
I would believe not only in god
But in the devil
And believe me when I say,
I would choose the latter.
Pray, that I do not believe.

From everyone. Everywhere.
Why do they not see the good in what I have done?
By choice they label me, persecute me.
The pressure.
                 Pushing
                 me
                 down.
So heavy.
I’m strong but it seems as if this battle was designed for me to lose.
I cannot lose!
There was something inside me that I couldn’t let die.

Why are they doing this to me?
Are they scared? They fear what they cannot control?

                 ‘Yes’  My soul whispered.
         ‘but so are you’  he continued.

I faced them, all of them. Alone!
They buried me in the earth that day.
In a dead and lifeless landscape.

The earth, warm. Held me.

                  ‘Why have you taken so long’  she whispered

I couldn’t answer.
She collected my tears with caution and precision.
The more I cried, the more the landscape flourished.
Life sprouted, excitedly.

I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore.
My tears ran out.
Under pressure to maintain the new life.

I turned to her, already knowing what I was going to say…
                
She answered;
                    ‘Be still my child, your time of tears is over,
                     there is another, like you, who will be here soon.’

One word and we pause,
        Hanging suspended in space.
        Limbs the very picture of elegant restraint.
Two heartbeats before release.
        The tension is shattered.
        Feet once more on the ground.
Three bodies moving together,
        En pointe, flying as one.
        Somewhere, I became the tulle of my skirt.
Four limbs is all we have.
        Our limbs and our hearts,
        And the dance already owns them.
Five positions we move through,
        Having already etched them
        On the pillars of our memory ages ago.
Six minutes the music endures
        And we along with it,
        Transfixed in time by tradition and passion.
Seven criticisms we each weather,
        Holding our breath,
        Grace comes with a hefty price.
Eight beats and we move once more
        -Folding and unfolding-
        Balanced on a knife's edge, we can breathe again.