I knew a girl in my school once who exchanged the water in her bottle for ***** to blur the sadness she felt inside, even if just for a moment.

I knew a boy who I fell in love with but instead of falling in love back he fell into bad habits to fill his empty, dark mind with colourful patterns.

I knew a girl who I became best friends with, she wrote horribly sad stories on her wrists because she couldn't afford pen or paper.

I knew a man once so heavily institutionalised that he'd rather put himself on his own death row then face the cruel world.

I knew a woman in my street, so lonely that she hugged a bottle of wine every night, temporarily comforting herself to sleep until the next morning.

I knew a man, so distant you could see space in his eyes if you looked close enough.

I know a girl. So within everyone that she can't see herself anymore. Blurred, empty, broke, trapped, lonely and distant she lays there, in her own thoughts, motionless, waiting for someone to know her.

Our hearts were at war.
Now my heart has given up on you.
I see nothing more to fight for...
No hope in you.
All this time I was fighting-
Until I just decided I'm not right for you.
And you're no good for me either,
So now what do we do?

I felt stuck for a long time,
but now I see things clearly.
I have nothing more to offer you,
You really did take the best of me.

You used me then expected me to still be the same girl.
I spent too much time debating and I've decided to let go.

For once I'm doing what's best for me
And I know you won't understand.
I hope one day you find peace within
And that love finds you again.

A cricket is steadily chirping at the edges of suburbia,
A rythmic monotony so subtly harmonized by the nearly inaudible pitch of a low buzzing transformer.
An occasional droning of engines and rubber wheels on pavement joins the chorus, while the soft chattering of neighbors descends from a nearby window, mingled with laughter and microwave buttons, and the wind pushing through the leafy branches of backyard trees.
I quietly listen to the sounds that surround me, eyes closed, mind arrested in a state of suspended animation. I search for the sacred place of silence, where thoughts become nothing more than colors and symbols. A place where fear and sorrow and regret cannot exist. Only a sense of being. A place where the cricket and the power lines and the wind blown trees all gather within me, become me, and I become them. No separation. No categorization. No insecurities and no self inflations. Where no space resides 'tween the You's or the I's. Every man has this place, this power inside him. Every man is the Saviour who creates his salvation.

My love. Everything
that you see is imported
from everywhere else;
but you and I, here and now
must know; love comes from within.

You drilled holes on my skin
And peeked at my within.


F.Z.**N

The sea beneath
the sea within
the hollow feelings
from there to then

As the thought breaks
parts the clouds
As the light comes
within allowed

I touch your lips
you gentle thing
you touch my heart
oh hear it sing

The sun beneath
as far as be
the sea within
sets sails on wing

There go no
red day dawnings
there are no
red flag warnings

Only reflections on the iris
of the eye
only purest warmth
over oceans glide

Don't dig too deep,
For the devil may dwell within.