searching for the truth
buried inside
buried beneath layers of expectation
apprehension and self-doubt
confidence camouflaged by reality
soul-searching scrutiny
suspicion and speculation
introvert – extrovert
are we who we really are?

I was asking him a question.
He kept a straight face,
Never looking at me,
No response whatsoever,
Or any indication that he heard me.

And I,
Knowing fairly well,
That I EXIST as an individual,
Started questioning my existence.

I'm in need.
My self doubt like a snowball
and it's picking up speed.

I'm in need.
I look like a flower
but I grow like a ****.

I'm in need.
My head trapped in a cage
and it must be freed.

I let the feeling in of loss spread in my chest like a devious seed.
Why do I do these things when they cause me to bleed?

If I just keep pushing
I will never succeed
I will reach too far down this road
Where it is too late to recede
Down into my throat
These false fixes i force feed

reassurance
support
love
honesty

What do I need?

You speak so ill of me.
Yet you live in my head!
Why do you hate on me,
Why do you fill me with dread?!
You always argue with me,
Never let me be right,
I don't understand,
your desperate need to fight?!
Please just let me be happy!!
And for once feel okay,
You don't need to darken me,
Every single day!
Just leave me alone now,
To be my happy self,
Stop placing me,
Apon this dusty old shelf!
Just when I think,
I'm alone with myself,
You creep back in,
Offering your 'help'!
I'm done with you now!
Be gone from my mind,
For once in my life,
To myself ill be kind.
I'll kick you out,
When you show your ugly face,
You've no need to be here,
You don't have a place!!
Everytime you show up,
I'll recite this verse,
And I know now,
I'm strong enough,
Not to let you make it worse!!

I hear voices in my head
I hear them sound like dead
people on Any Given Sunday
an ungracious abundance
of other peoples’ voices

I hear them most
when other people speak
loudness leaks from moving lips
to say words that make no sense
that say something else
the Politics of Experience
unfold me like some geometric inkblot

I see Batman
I see Batman
I see BATMAN

Did you hear that?

It sounded like Batman
like a Batarang
catching some villainous cape
like a car door closing
on a Great Escape

it sounded like
                     two people
competing for head space
the one being said
the one being meant
the silence in between them
speaks volumes to itself
No, please say that again
in a sonorous tone
it snores my inner demon
to groan behind an asinine
slumbering inside each line
wound with reservations grinding
our hero chopped off from loose lips
to fit in the caustic grimoire of actual fact

I am the Bat
I am the Bat
I am the Bat

I hear voices in my head
that sound like conversations
an unwilling participant am I
by virtue of presence, my
lips unlocked never seem
                       to speak enough
though lips move more gratefully
than these feet that just want to leave
this place, to never talk again
sit behind a screen
be pixelated, a thinly
gleaming monitor
of the fun facts lacking
in a lark-full repartee
I check up on myself
look up the words that I doubt
check my bruises
from roundhouse kicks
split lips bloodied with small talk
sweet silence is
to stay home and smoke

I should stop talking

Did you hear that?

and when they play like they don’t know
don’t let them go
make them stay
to tell us what
they meant to say
#againandagain
#againandagain

I hear voices

Did you say something?

I sit in a still, quiet room.
While typing away I begin to grow weary... afraid...
My hands falter, and I pause.
Gazing out the window beside me I wonder,
"What is the point of trying?" "How can I be so presumptuous?"
"Who would possibly care about what I have to say?"

A few stale moments pass,
then I glance down at my notes.
Pages, among pages, and pages of a world,
of a single message...

I smile,
And open my blinds to the dazzling sunlight.
For once I do not bow to what I believe,
That I do not deserve to feel
Happy,
Or proud.

I continue on.
I continue on to tell the story
I want to tell.
I continue on to bring joy to others
That I feel for myself and my work.

And I hope that out there you do too.