There's two cups on the table
Still with some tea in the bottom of them
Leftovers from when there were two of us

The rest of your things are gone though
And it's not bad being alone, I make do
The hard part is going to sleep, dreaming of you

You grow up watching romance on TV

You hear its stories in dusted books during bedtime

On the playground your games are centered around it,
whole groups of you playing to figure out what love might feel like

All of a sudden you're on your own with this girl you didn't think about yesterday but you'd swear that she's practically glowing today

You go through puberty with its awkward changes and now the attraction is for real

Your attraction changes but the stories stay the same, you know that she'll be there someday

She's the one prophesied to make everything ok

With her you can take on anything, with her life will be real good

But which one is it?

You stumble through your friends and new acquaintances with the sole goal always in mind

And isn't she kind of cute? You've never noticed it before but today you swear that you can see it, she's practically glowing

You go through a few more of those
Most reject you
Some feel right but don't work out
Some feel wrong but work for too long

You grow tired of the stories
You need to settle down
If the one doesn't come to you, you will come to her

So you go to bars, make accounts and download apps

She doesn't have to be glowing she just has to be there

Then one day you get to her

She's there and it's good and it works

You can finally settle down to live as you should, do as you're told


But the stories linger

They're showing them on TV

You read them to your children from dusted books

And you do love her but your love wasn't like the stories

And you feel happy you're sure, but what if it's not right?

Maybe it needs to be like the stories

So you divorce and split the household in two

The kids spend one week here and one week there

There are other women but they're not like the stories either

You try it all to escape the stories

Your career skyrockets

You go traveling and you meet new people

But you've never felt so lonely before

No matter where you go,
you see it on TV
And you read about it in books

Then the mother of your children stands there once again
And you didn't think about her yesterday
But you'd swear she's practically glowing today

There is a man making his way through a moonlit field of sugarcanes
He is weilding a machete that clears the way for him
He slashes viciously and clears an impressive area with each swing

The sweat is running down his forehead now
His breath and his heartbeat is all he can hear
Thanks to his tunnelvision a stray swing slashes through the canes-
and into his left leg

The dark stream is pooling in his boots now
He can't quite feel the pain, but panics none the less
The slashes grow more ferocious, a distinct twang sounds with each swing

The man inflicts more wounds upon himself
Each wound strenghtens his resolve in turn
Every swing greater than the last, every step more ******



There is a man laying in a moonlit field of sugarcanes
At first he curses the venture, what a sorry mess!
After that he weeps without sound, what else can he do?

Lastly he looks back at the whole thing
Sliced up vegetation and pools of dark blood
Everything will be ok.

As Icarus ascended towards the endless sky
He must've felt himself brighter than the sun

As I test my wings
I'm afraid I'll never know what it means to fly

I'm just angry for some reason
At me, at her or anybody
It's this unshakable feeling that something is wrong and I don't know who the culprit is
I don't even know if I can trust that there really is anything wrong
But it's not the first time I've felt this way with her
Am I lonely in her company?
Is there a jealousy in me causing me to wither?
Is it her fault, or someone else's?
I don't understand my own questions and every person I've talked to gives me the wrong answers

All I know is that I'm sitting in the bathroom, writing some dumb text

Just so that I can avoid
asking those questions out loud

Your kisses have grown stale
Our *** a played out record

We hold eachother tight, close together
The spaces between us widen in defiance

Things feel empty after she's left
Although I struggle to remember her name

Is it her touch I miss?
Her lips against mine?
Was she someone special after all?

Or, simply, that her back was easily fantasised as another's

I don't have my thing
I don't have something I'm good at
A cornerstone in the foundation of my character

I don't have that

When I grew up I guess I was told that everyone needed that something
Person A is good at this thing, but person B shouldn't feel sad because person B is good at that other thing

But what if person C really isn't good at anything?

Now that I reflect upon it, I think I really wanted to find my thing when I grew up
I really did.
I didn't give up because of laziness

But with every thing, I realised that I wasn't good enough
I had some promising starts but I never quite made it the whole way

I guess that I had this idea that when you have your thing it sort of just comes to you
You can't struggle with one of your cornerstones, you struggle with things that aren't your thing

So I never actually got good at anything
And in my pursuit to find my flair
I may just have become the blandest person alive

Once I read about a student.
I think it was in Afghanistan,
who hugged a suicide bomber;
so that they died together.
And no one else had to die.

Sometimes I think that I'd like to do something similar.
To go out in an act of selfless glory.

But I only think that for selfish reasons;
for the undoubtable validation,
that perhaps I was a good person after all.

Today, I read an old letter from an old friend.
I haven't seen her in over two years and we haven't spoken in about just as long.

I have other people that I talk to everyday now, but as things have gotten harder they've felt distant.

My old friend knew what I needed though, she knew how to make me feel better;
she was a good writer.