12:24PM, January 21, 2017. Saturday.
This feeling is like the sweat beads
Dripping down my back
On a sweltering afternoon.
I lay here in remorse,
Feeling and experiencing
Like life awakening from a coma
You were never aware you fell into.

Speaking of falling, have I mentioned that I am?
Questioning the permanency of a foolproof plan
And no one knows who or what
I'm talking about
Not a single thought in their minds
As to what the gears
Behind my eyes are creating.

A concept of solipsism,
The revolution of somnambulism;
It's why we all want to take
A psychology class but confuse
It with philosophy and end up taking both anyway.

I feel like the cotton candy at a carnival,
So many pick and choose the pink or blue
The black and blue on my ankles and chest
Hands gripped around my neck;
Sorting through what particular part of me
Makes it worth sticking through.

They want to taste what it's like
To break me down
But the second I hit the tongue,
I dissolve. I melt away,
And they are satiated,
Left forgetting me and the craving urge forevermore.

When the pen seeps through the paper
I expect to be reminded of how
Every little tear ******* burns my eyes.
They say it's because of dehydration,
The less water you drink the more salty
Your tears become.
But you'd figure after so long,
Your body would become used to the pain.
Then again, that could apply to
Most of the pain this fragmented coffin of a figure
Endures pathetically.

Am I pitiful?
Because even after years
Fighting, struggling, suffering,
Working to better myself any chance I get,
I still feel selfish for crying out.
I've lost too many people
And sometimes I wonder how
Someone so strong could become
So fragile, withered,
Wracked with debilitating illness
That they can barely stifle a single breath.

Sometimes I wonder how in a matter
Of a month, someone could go from
Talking, though strained, walking, though barely,
To completely immobile, paper-thin, codependent
Then ripped away at the seams
From those who are still now learning
Just what exactly death is.

And here you are, standing over their corpse,
Crying in silence so no one detects
The vulnerability seeping out of your pores.
Your hand is stroking their hair again,
But they're cold, stiff, devoid of any sense of future.
No light, no twitch, no remnants of the soul
You'd connected with, the one you'd spoken to
Just the day before.
They don't open their eyes then,
And the more you stare at their chest,
Thinking every couple of seconds that
You swore you saw it rise just that little bit.
You soon enough come to the abrupt realization
That there is such a thing as a permanent marker
Because I'm forever stained with the memory they've
Abandoned me with.
And I don't blame them for leaving,
I don't blame the one who took them.
The time comes and it's inevitable,
And with that notion comes the irrationality
Of being afraid of the one thing we know for certain
Will always happen to each and every one of us.
Not a doubt. No cheating death.

And so begins the process
Of desperately clinging onto the memory
Of someone you never got the chance
To properly meet in the first place.

They tell me they're better off
But not a single **** one of them looks at peace.
Not a single one looks asleep,
And not a single person can fit the lie
Into my head that they went peacefully.
That they never suffered.
That they weren't terrified
Of the door being closed on them.
That they weren't afraid to die.

I know the story, I knew the hope.
I knew the fight.
And they say it's "always darkest just before the dawn",
But I've been walking through this tunnel
So long now that I have familiarized myself
With every single **** crack in the stone,
Every patch of moss,
Fathomed obsessions over every fiber;
Unable to see the stars
While everyone else is at the planetarium.

I've been traveling for so long,
Believing this fact of hope and drive,
That I'm now starting to recognize
That this, this right here, is all a glitch.
This tunnel has no end.
And as a matter of fact, I have yet
To see any flicker of light at the farthest point
To which my eyes can see.
The only small, hopeful, good days experienced
Feel like thousand-year-old stories carved into the cave walls,
Or a smidgen of a hole in the ceiling.
And it hurts.

My feet burn from walking.
Even in my sleep, my soles meet
The cold stone floors, strolling, wandering,
Unable to stop.

I hear the trickling of water now,
Like a small babbling stream
Abandoned in this cave.
Just like me.
But now, sometimes I fear the rush.
Because I know, soon enough,
The water will overflow again,
And I will drown
Because nobody had the time or devotion,
Dedication,
To teach me how to swim.

I feel like I've lived a thousand years onwards.
Occasionally, I lay back and close my eyes,
Feel the chill of the stone wrap itself over my body
As my body temperature drops gradually
Just to listen to the stream lull me.
I'm still trying to figure out if it's because
The stream often symbolizes the foreshadowing
of the Undertaker, and I am accepting defeat;
Or if this is simply the only way that I can
not only drown not just my thoughts,
But myself.

So, I keep falling, in more ways than one
In search of that permanency,
Or at least substitution.
I crave people, because
This cave is so lonely,
And autophobia eats me alive
As people drop like flies.
So, I guess selfishness isn't a lie, after all.

Couple years past, still in a ditch.
Like this is some section to uplift,
More like a fork in the road
Or an alternate ending
When the main character isn't defeated.
But somehow, over time,
I've obtained the process of how
Moss is a life form, perhaps parasitic,
But thriving in the smallest
And most desolate crevices.

So, I've formulated a plan on how
To make rope out of this fiber.
And if this ladder fails me now,
I will come crashing back down
And break my spine.
Hopefully, if it ever were to heal,
Maybe I'll be able to conjure up
The strength of a better backbone
Because these demons glow in the dark,
And I've gotta gather up the guts
To turn on the lights once and for all.

- C.B.C.
Cecil Beau Calcifer

I counted the number of times
you weren't there for me
in tally marks on my wrist.