winter spring summer glazes
taste the same when the cake is isolation

spending time mindlessly in dark caverns
emerging only for sustenance
i barely had time to note the time i wasted

pressure rests heavy on my heart
as i struggle to breathe through it

years go by and then a thought-
                        what if this is just an extension of maybes?
                        is not just more of the same?


regrets sweep away, the moonlight is painted over again and again until it becomes sunlight

failed ambition
reeks of delayed hopes
endless doubts
a subversion of normal
admittedly
but sadness springs
of unrealized dreams

unfounded grandeur
inflated thoughts
and goals

is it a failure of oneself or a letdown of generations?

gaps between reality and aspirations

bottomless chasms

sitting on the sides
dazed new dreams
falling in

Often at night,
I find myself breathless
Windows wide open
Curtains fluttering

Probably not
A lack of oxygen
Right?

Right
I firmly nod
My heart hurts

Pits scraped from
Empty restaurants
Voided relief bills
No handouts from
Mom or Dad

Chest pounds again
Pang of pain
My ribs feel a little
Brittle this
Late in the eve

Off the pills
No thermometer or
Medication

An island
A world
Alone

I dance with you in my heart
But my breath is staggered

Job really nothing much to
Write home about

find myself screaming into the void
a time of calamity and peril
others say i am so blessed
but i say it's just a matter of time

body so stressed
my spine is taut
shoulders so stiff
their edges so thin
it would cut into your presumptions

you don't know my story how dare
you know how i fare

my breaths are staggered drawn out
suffering im stretched always at a
point of tension. someone just snap
and get me out of this my heart hurts
from mediocrity i am going out there
chasing after a world out of ferocity

i know what it is to burn the edges
of my hands and my fingers and i just
just wanted some time to pay attention
to the quell of my heart my blood stream
weakening to the slow death march of my
genes and i wish you

i wish you would take a second and stop
and this world would just let me figure
it out. i want to figure it all out just
please please can you give me a minute?
my heart has not yet caught up, still
hurting from the blows you had dealt
a minute before

please give me time i beg, i am just a
little slow, walking through sludge
living through silence, enacting some
pantomime of desolation a modern dystopia
i smile in the sun for a beat between the
shadows of two buildings

give me a second and a minute, i truly
want to care but my heart and breaths
feel choked up. i just want to perform
better and do more for you. i want to be
more you know. wish i could be brave and
say it out loud.

you know what i say to myself and the walls
the hum of my fridge as it taunts me with
my anxiety-- my fear is not something you
paid for. you did not pay the high price
of defeating me into a ******* corner
ya you risk me and my life.
ya you risk my career and my dreams.
ya you risk everything i love about my life.
ya ya you do.

so come for me *******. come at me world economy.
bring my life crashing down if you must.

i will face you and everyone and everything.

my voice might be small, i might be trembling.
i am definitely crying. if anything happens,
there will be no one left, and no one will be
able to help, but there are wide oceans and rivers,
wider paths, and wilder roads. who knows what
will happen next? life is for the living.

life is for the living.

at least, i will be living.

i burnt
in
time
with the staccato
of the rain
howling
against
bars round
my room

i burnt
in
twisted words
an
unsaid
anger
and
riffing
nerves

i burnt
in
sanctuary
ice
cold
air soothing
frayed
hair

i burnt
in
whispers
echoing
in my
ears

i burnt
to
the ground
in the
heat
ed
words

P. B. J.
Peanut Butter and Jelly
P. B. J.
I eat this everyday
Is this really healthy?
Who cares? We're rats anyway
P. B. J.

Lying back on the scratched bench
I heard the sound of horns approaching
A sign of sorts maybe for me to move
I tempered my urges and looked up at the skies
As kids of the night chased each other
Through streets in dreams that stitched together
Their own world where socks were plentiful
Their cuts were because of paper and
Their houses were free from debt collectors
Flashes of yellow made me pitch forward--
I sat up, my back striped and riddled with
Holes of a dream that did not belong to me.