Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
D'Arcy Sahn Jan 2015
Everybody has their story
I want to here them all at once
To feel them all at once
With a curious disconnect
A clinical warmth
To compartmentalize with a surgeon's precision
Then when my heart is full,
Burst open and bathe everyone in empathy
But not emotion
I used to be good at listening to the struggles of others, but my mind seems to have lost some of its elasticity. I just want to understand what others going through, but be able to know when I need to disconnect for my sake.
As I stand before the mountain of confidence called hope, I see a clear path up, not too steep, not too straight, but this path is embodied with rewards to the top.

At the top, there is a magnificent tree made of gold, silver leaves and Copper roots. Hope mountain held a perfect prize awaiting me, a Tree called Faith.
This sight to behold was everything I wanted, everything before me was so clear, but at the bottom where I was, there was a River.

This River was called Shame.
This river was filthy, the water was calm where I was, but looking downstream I could see the rapids of rage, the ripples of conditioning before the raging rapids were inviting.

The dreary stonewalling fortification on the banks allowed no light through, downstream was scary and looked impossible, why would I go that way? why even look?
I looked upstream and saw a blinding light, what could this be? I was so curious, so I waited, a true gentleman always waits.

Two days later the light took shape, as it came closer I could finally see, I could see a lifeboat with a caring nurturing beautiful woman.

As this beautiful woman came closer, I could see the river was being supplied by this woman, I could see she was the source.

The river of Shame was being fed by this woman, this filth in front of me was coming from her, but the beauty was something I've never seen, this beauty had me curious.

This beauty made me forget of the supply to the river.
  What I saw wasn't real all the sudden, what I believed was now real.
She came close enough for my heart to be heard, since she had no heart she was envious, she hated what others admired.

She wanted my wholesome heart, so she used her falsehood love bombing to create one, dreamingly admiring the mountain, we were planning different paths right then.
As I stared at the golden Tree of Faith glowing upon Hope mountain, I didn't notice the river was rising, as the numbing waters were rising it covered my feet, I didn't notice she also took a piece of my heart to claim as her own.

She used toxic gas and light to create a projection that this heart was hers to give back to me.

I didn't know any better so I accepted this ambient abused heart, this unfelt abuse gave me amnesia, this hidden poison of my cognitive dissonance gave her all of me.

Since she had nothing and that's what she craves, I had everything so she wanted to enslave.
I forget about the mountain with the tree even being there. I forgot I was here.

Her lifeboat was awkward, it was shaky,
it has imperfections, it has holes,
   her lifeboat is sinking,
     her heart is missing.
my knightly kind hearted empathy,
   my buffering and nurturing sympathy         pick this beautiful woman up
      I pick this gem up because of her idealization of me.
I can clean this insidious gem because she makes me believe, but through the veil I cannot see.
I throw her over my shoulder to carry all her weight, it's hard to move, hard to breathe, building a new boat was extremely hard, carrying her pain was extremely hard.

Everyone thought it was impossible to do it, my shear will power to commit ****** one foot in front of the other, I just didn't know that going downstream was impossible.

What about the mountain?

I couldn't remember from the amnesia, the dark night blinded my sight of the mountain, the drug in me was you and it consumed, i fell in love with misery and misery loves it's companies.

I stared the snake behind the veil in the eyes, standing tall on her pedastool made of spackle it breaks, I fall onto piercing confusion, I pull out shrapnel's of dissolution, I'm covered in her blood of invalidation.

I'm already floating in the boat with her, this wasn't my plan, this wasn't my reality.
I gaze upon this woman, sun shining behind her, no clouds in the sky.
floating downstream she tells me it's faster, that we'll end up behind the mountain higher.

I'm not worried now, I'm now contempt with shame.
I already forgot reality, I already forgot i'm going downstream, I forgot the searing pain, I forgot what I believe.

I'm relaxed, I'm tired, I'm still happy in love with this spellbound misery.

As we drift slowly through the stonewalls, no light shines through, I ask her for assurance, it's getting dark, I'm getting scared.

That's when the veil comes off, that's when the unnatural beauty grows quiet, that's when my voice screams silently within these stone walls.

This isn't her, this isn't real,
I know there's love I can feel, that was our bond, that was our deal, not to steal.

I fall over board and the water is cold, there's leaches, the debris is so random, the shameful water is moving faster, the all consuming cold confusion, random gaslighting and triangulations moving in around me faster.

I immediately can't bear it. My heart pulsates hard, my mind misfires my flight mode, i cannot intake the overbearingly unowned toxic Shame, her coldness activated my fawn mode, I froze, I start to doze.

luckily she had my leg, luckily she knew excessive admiration CPR, just as my body went limp in the agonizing River of Shame, she pulls me out. luckily she got me just in time, luckily she saved my life.

I awoke away from the stonewalls, it's sunny and safe again, we're together through impossible odds, we built this boat and she saved my life.

The abuse amnesia made me forget, the cognitive dissonance was real, I am not.

The mountain was now farther away, I was worried, I grew fearful, what I wanted looked farther away, that's when everything became gloomy, my goal was no longer there, but she didn't care, she knew where the river went, I believed her, I still do.

The ambient abuse made me anxious, the atmosphere was maddening of fear, it carried anxiety, I couldn't see it, but I was breathing it in.

Her eyes were so incapacitating, her heart disorienting, her soul captivating, she had a better plan, for us to press on and build another boat, to add another life, to believe in her, to not stare at the knife.

We build another boat, were out of the shame waters finally, she's helping me, were soon to be a real family, but the only thing real here was me.

Everything is better on the land, were dry, it's sunny, it's better to feel the nirvanic sand. It's here we bring our new seed, to be sprouted downstream.

I now believe in this new mountain downstream, I don't even remember the mountain I seen, were pressing on downstream past a levy, were now in the River of Grief, we're off to the end of make believe.

This river is really turbulent with rapids of devaluation, the splashes make me irrelevant, the dinigrating actions around make me small, I feel lost and confused, nothing makes sense anymore at all.

At the mouth of the River of Grief it opens up into a valley. She jumped onto a rock of vanity and pushed the tree of disloyalty upon the boat.

This throws me out head first, but luckily I have our seed safe and sound, luckily I learned how to drown.

I turn around falling and see her at the top staring down, she smirked and throws enormously heavy anvils of bereavement to make me fall harder, to keep me down longer.

Evil is real, but only if you believe, I crave the flattery of illusionary love, I still had amnesia, I love misery, the feeling reminds me I can feel, I love my slow death so I say I'll find you, I have the seed, I'll wait for you.

As I fall the thorns of numbing premeditation pierce, the pain is searing, as I fall i'm locked on her, my falsehood of love is still enduring, I don't feel the discard, I ignore the distaste.

I land in a field of hopium still protecting the seed, my amnesia is now worse, I can't remember her smirk, I can't remember the weighted anvils of bereavement, I can't remember the tree of disloyalty, I still can't remember the mountain.

My movement is heavy like concrete, my heart sits down at my feet, my mind is nowhere to be found, my spirit is fading on this ground.

I gather everyone from a nearby village to find her, it's impossible, they can't see her, she never existed, my amnesia was now delusional, the hopium mixed realities, nothing was real, there was nothing I could truly feel because everything was wrong, but I believe misery needs me and I yearned.

I say she's at the top, we have to throw her a rope,
they say it won't reach what isn't there,
I say we need a ladder to throw the rope, they say the ladder isn't safe that high.
  
I say everyone can hold the ladder while I climb perilously to the top, they say it will never work, but since they can see me, since they see a part of me is still real, everyone holds the ladder for me.
      
While I acend with my broken dignity, I acend with a fatigued heart, I acend to find what I believe, no matter how hard I try, I will be taking my destined decent.

The top of the ladder is shaky, I spent forever getting there, it's scary, the heights bring great fear over me, more than I've ever felt, but my knighthood makes me overcome anything.

I suppress, the seed is safe down below, I'm here to impress, I can see her now, only much less.

Her snake skin is peeling, the sun scorched blistering skin shows immense pain, witnessing this releases empathy, the caring knighthood in me naturally wanted to save her again.

So I wrap what's left of my discarded soul upon my broken fatigued heart and I use my trauma bonded mind as bait.

I throw her the rope,
she catches the rope,
I tell her to tie off the rope,
she ties a noose with the rope,
her neck is now wrapped with this rope.

If she falls I can't stop the tightening of the rope, if she falls I already know I'll jump for her and release from her neck this rope.

We jump together and I release the rope around her neck, I see the ground coming fast, but I love this snake, I'll die for this snake because I believe, false beauty inside is all I see.

I grab her and turn her away from the rushing ground, I fell once, I can take the fall again.

She is already hurt, immense pain, she will not feel no more pain, because I'm not hurting for I'm with misery again, I believe I can take all the pain for her, the hopium was numbing everything I consumed.

I awoke to a distressed angel, flawed personality, beautiful nightmare, mirroring the devil, but what I saw was a veil over the snake eyes, what I saw was what I believed before.

What I had wasn't real, who I am is no longer there, for I had ambience amnesia, nothing around me fit, nothing around me was grounded, nothing around me was divine.

The eyes that gazed upon me were captivating, spriling, time froze and only she was moving, the feeling was there, a drug within me, the drug was her and I longed for the misery, I yearned for the pain to remember what was real, I needed the intermittent reinforcement, I wanted my all bets in investment back and I risked a short sale.

We faded into the black, into a new boat, she made this boat, she had plugs in  holes of the boat I couldn't see, I believed it was perfect, I didn't know what awaited was a life long anguish.

I still didn't know what was downstream is impossible, I didn't know this new River of Anguish has piranhas of triangulation, I didn't know the rapids were of oppression, I didn't know the rocks causing these rapids she already put in place, I didn't know it was so black around me in this place, I didn't know my seed would become two, I didn't know I would have to choose.

I didn't know true love was in front of me in my hands and not behind the veil, I thought it was her, all the villagers knew, but as I drew closer to the snake the darkness only grew and the seeds too.

The feeling of my lingering mortality reverberates, she built me a coffin and chained it to my ankles, with this immense weight, I carry it with me just in case.

We floated very fast down this River of Anguish, everything seemed fine to all others including me, the darkened skies covered the evil, the cold waters made my body numb, the seeds were held up high to be be safe from the tormenting waters.

As I held them up high, I didn't realize she was still holding the schraded butcher knife in the water, I didn't believe she would hurt me, I didn't conceive the possibility that knife I didn't see was there all along for me.

The waters of Anguish smothered me, the triangulating piranhas slowly nibbled on my feet in the water, the rapids of oppression kept me gazing in the water, the rocks of malice in the water tried to tip me over, but my balance was true and the seeds were safe from harm, but I am not safe, I'm dying inside.

I don't know why, but after every agonizing stab from this knife when I'm not looking, it hurts, but the numbing knife only helped me when it was pulled out, it has holes in the knife so she could pull it out without me knowing.

I always turned around and cleaned the knife covered in my blood, I always gave it back to her, but every wipe upon this blade made it grow, and every wipe made the label on the handle more clear.

I find out in the end this knife is called narcissistic rage, the brand of this knife is called gaslighting and my blood is the supply.

I didn't know any of this until it was too late to save myself, my reality wasn't real, my dreams are gone, my nightmare is all consuming and existent, my seeds are still safe, but I am not.

When I start to notice the knife exists, I forgive her, the conditioning made the skies darker, I wipe the blood off and give it back, the knife is now a sword, it's name is discard.

The waters are uneven, the piranhas of triangulation feel like strangulation, my clothes are still soaking wet with anguish, my hair is slimy and covered in Shame, my feet are cold and numb from the grief.

I can't understand why I'm here,
  I can't understand why I'm actually meant to be here.
  
Every turbulence has thrown me down, she pushes me over head first, as I try to lean up to breathe she has her foot on my neck in the cold numbing river, but this river does not affect her, this river is warmer than her, the warmth from anguish pleased her, the piranhas followed her commands to bite, she smirked as the rocks she placed crushed against my head.

She waited until I went limp every time, but she knew idealization CPR, her deceit was without compassion, her rage was without sympathy, but I had severe ambience abuse amnesia, I still couldn't remember the mountain, I am now trauma bonded from the stabs she's counting.

I only saw her veil, her gaze convinced me I placed these rocks here, her gaze made me ignore the stonewalls around me, her pure hatred was covered in false intentions, her illusion was my isolation.

As everything was becoming clearly dangerous, as everything went pitch black, I look back and see the light from the mountain glowing, I see there is something wrong where I'm at, I see the seeds are not growing, I start to see the pain all around me.

Non the wiser, I keep coming back from drowning, I keep falling for misery, I keep wiping my blood off the blade, I keep isolated, but now I feel there is something painfully wrong, the reason abates me but I feel it, it hurts, it's camouflaged by deceit, it's all in my head, my coffin is soon to be my bed.

I look to the shores, there are other villagers worried, they are waving frantically, they're pointing at a waterfall ahead, this waterfall is called Doom, this fall would be death, the sound is raging, the mouth all consuming.

I see the stream to the side that the villagers are pointing to, I see the calm waters awaiting our safety, but the boat will not fit.

Only me and the seeds are real, everything else around me is illusional, the trauma delusional, the possible harm to the seeds was not refutable, my love for misery was unsuitable.

I could see my life was in danger, I could see the stream nearby screaming safety, I knew the seeds needed me, now I can't stop shaking.

Without her knowing what I was doing, I turned my back towards her facing the water, I knew she was going to stab me over and over again until I turned around, I now see the hypnotic eyes behind the veil. Not turning around only enraged her, the blood on the knife was condesating.

  The safety of the stream for my seeds was a new found glory in my exodus.
  
I paddled with my small hands this large weighted boat towards the stream, her knife was venomous, the water was echoless, the air imparted dreadfulness, all of this was dimensionless, all of this was not real, unless I let it be, now I can see, now I can finally flee.

As I came closer to the stream the waterfall grew stronger, the pain larger, the sound louder, I knew we were closer to the end, I knew I needed to jump off with my seeds, but I know the torment will end.

I melted my enduring pain inside with molten lava heartache to mold anew, I compartmentalize because I have to choose.

I had a vision that if I jump, the seeds will be safe, the climb to the mountain can still happen, I knew I was right about how I felt all along, I realized the veil couldn't cover the true self, I now believed In me.

I now know the water air and land were not what she made me believe, I knew I didn't choose this path, I knew I could survive, I know the seeds are going to be safe now. I know because I manifested instead of throwing in the towel.

Once close enough I finally looked at her and smiled I love you, jumping into the river I could feel the bitter cold agonizing tormenting river smash me with bereavement and disillusion by dissociation, I felt the coma of trauma surround, for I am now trauma bound.

I hold my seeds up high, I kept them safe because they don't feel the water, they're starting to sprout already, no more decay.

As I climb out of the frigid waters and still dripping wet, the drops are red, my feeling is coming back, my back is full of knives, I'm scared but I survived.
Knowing the worst is over I look back to her, she is consuming the river because she was the source, everything dark folds in on itself because the light cannot touch here, for this black hole is collapsing in on itself, I cover the seeds to shield them of this exorcist, they're safe here because my love is relentless.

The tormenting pain makes it hard to stand tall, still going through bereavement of a false reality where I lost it all, the answers we're all lost in the waterfall
"" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" ”"" "" "" "”" "" ""
My Heart and Mind had a discussion one day,
About a man that they both knew quite well.
The heated discussion continued for hours,
Both with arguments meant to compel.

A debate ensued between the two,
With each taking a different perspective.
The Heart believed the man to be true,
And the Mind thought he was deceptive.

Heart started the discussion with an obvious point,
"He is sweet and gentle like no man before."
Mind responded smugly, "That's great in the moment
but how does he act after she's walked out the door?"

Heart countered, already knowing the point being made.
"Sure, he may not be able to write or call;
He is busy with constant demands of his time.
What he feels in his heart matters most of all."

"I disagree," and Mind continued to say,
"Actions mean far more than words alone.
It is when words and actions are considered together
that a man's true feelings are shown."

"He has to compartmentalize to get through the day."
Heart continued to defend his intentions,
When they are together his feelings are real,
but her insecurities span many dimensions."

"It's funny you would mention compartmentalizing.
Apparently your memory isn't as sharp as mine,
He was once quoted as saying this was not his strength,
proof that his statements don't always align."

"You are cynical, suspicious and guarded."
Heart was clearly tired of this dispute,
"Those traits are clouding your judgement.
He is genuine and telling the truth."

"I think you are overlooking the obvious but
I'll relax and stop doubting his intentions
if he makes an effort to send a simple sign."

Heart and Mind both wanting to prove their point
and have the bragging rights of superiority.
Mind sure that the man would disappoint her;
Heart confident in his genuine sincerity.

Both waited patiently for some type of gesture,
Something to demonstrate that he really does care.
Heart began to worry and whispered to herself,
"Stay calm and trust that it's not just another affair."

Patience prevailed and an email arrived,
just as Heart had hoped and prayed.
Mind, although disappointed by being proved wrong,
was relieved and no longer afraid.

Trust and calm filled her spirit when thinking of him,
but it was both that won in the end.
Maybe they were more than temporary lovers
and could also be permanent friends.
svdgrl Dec 2017
Labotomize these thumbs,
they scroll more than they strum.
I don't mean to be dumb,
but I can't respond back so I hum,
and you won't hear me.
No, you can't see the words that I write.
I'm sure you'd only
be tickled,
If you knew that I think of you all night.
Because I can't sleep, love.
And I can only touch me right,
Yeah, that's right.
Just me, love.
Hope I can keep up with this fight.
And I know you don't really care,
and you haven't got some spare
feelings left to share
and if there are, they're barely there.
So drop the pity,
I'm mad you got to hear me whine.
How unsexy.
I'm supposed to just be doing fine.
I'll compartmentalize,
put it in a box and tie it with twine.
while you're liking every post of mine.
I'll compartmentalize.
While I reread your every line.
Joe Bay Mar 2014
"As a core, idealistic truth, love is all that matters. In practice, especially between fundamentally flawed and unfinished beings, it’s not. Sometimes our love isn’t greater than whatever is doled out beside it. It doesn’t always win out. Sometimes it shouldn’t.

When you first realize someone could be something to you, the days become hazy and fluid and the last thing on your mind is logistics. It seems cold to be calculating at the beginning, to compartmentalize a person and see if those parts match up to the whole you envisioned.

We’re so quick to glide over whatever instinctive inkling resonates every time we realize there’s a void greater than our love for someone can fill. We press on, seldom realizing that every relationship culminates in deciding whether or not those instincts are the ones to follow.

Love exists in multitudes. In shades and elements and dynamics. In pieces and in learning, in growth and in change. In strangers and in soul mates. It does not exist as a single, expendable truth or experience. We’re so quick to attach that idea to one person or one relationship. We don’t want to go through the motions of experiencing those levels of commitment, attraction, interrelation with anybody else. The risk of losing is too great, but withholding waives the possibility of ever finding it in the first place.

Some relationships are long, steady, and easy; some are quick and enlightening and challenging. Some brush along our surface and others dive beneath and uproot us. Some might be temporary, one might last “forever.” That doesn’t mean it has to be the only one there is. That doesn’t mean there’s not something to be experienced, to be taken, to be learned, from whatever came before.

You can’t make a relationship something more than what it inherently is. You can’t make yourself fit into something you inherently won’t.

The whole of human love is what’s enough, the parts are just precursors.

We are unfinished, every last one of us. We have to let go of wishing each chapter was the last one because we’re afraid of how it could end otherwise. We have to stop forcing people into being the end-all-be-all for the same reason. We have to paint in contrasts, in love and from loss, and we have to find eventually that the whole picture is filled, and we are filled, from what we take, find, lose, gain, learn, give and create with the multitudes of people who loved us, in the multitude of ways that happens.

You’ll realize you knew the answers to your questions all along, it was only a matter of having the courage to act on them. You’ll let go when you don’t realize you’re doing it. You will have to learn that loving someone doesn’t always mean that being with them is the answer. You’ll realize that love is enough, but the kind of love that makes you stay only partly comes from the person you stay with. The other part comes from you.

You’ll realize you don’t have to be out of love to say goodbye. You’ll learn to separate the two: the loving part of you and the logical part of you. You’ll learn to use them in tandem. You’ll learn that two such things can be used in tandem, though you were taught otherwise and it seems impossible. What you’ll find eventually is the only love worth having is the kind that’s there even when the rest is gone."
-Brianna Wiest
Amber Grey Jul 2013
The summer I interned in New York, I fell in love with someone I'd only seen from a balcony window.

I'd fallen in love with strangers before, on buses and in lines, watching their shoulders straighten and their faces grimace in half-sunlight. I fell in love with these people the way you could fall in love with a poem, finding personality in the way that their eyes flicker nervously from left to right, tiny instances where their stanzas throw you into a daze. But this time was different. For once, I wished to know a stranger without the brim of my sunglasses, for once I felt something when I knew I'd never see him again.

His apartment was cluttered, bottles of water and the empty cans of energy drinks piled in a corner where a conscious person would have fit them in a bin. There were clothes on the floor, and although I knew his high rise box was laid out just as mine, he must have used the expected closet space for something else - his clothes were everywhere, crumpled in heaps on the floor that were too erratically placed to not have some sort of lingering system. Posters of people were taped to the wall, covering the matte eggshell white, edges falling occasionally to show signs that he wouldn’t always live there. I hoped that if he ever owned a home, that those staring portraits would be stapled or pasted thick to his walls, just because he would be the sort of person who wouldn’t change his mind about what he liked or what he wanted.

I would watch him from the same eggshell white room of mine, with nothing on the walls and not a scrap of anything on the floor. From my blow up mattress to my suitcase of clothes, kitchen stocked of single servings and a solitary set of dishware. I had no curtains and no carpets, no television or pictures of friends huddled in an unexpected embrace. For all anyone knew, I could have been squatting. I would look out at him from the window spanning the entire north facing wall, aware that if he ever looked out, if his eyes ever darted south, he would see me cross legged on the tiled marble floor, hovering over an overheated laptop and cardboard coffee.

I would get home at seven forty-five, shower in the New York water that tasted like dust and gin, and towel off, walking to the balcony. He, just like I, had a long, narrow balcony spanning about four feet on the right edge of his loft, and I would lean on the edge of the concrete slab, smelling the foul city air, taxi music floating from the lumpy yellow marsh below. That was when he would unlock his door suddenly, sometime between eight and eight-ten. He would step with his entire body and move into his crowded room and stand still for a moment, as if to collect himself; restrain from tearing faces off the walls and pummeling fabric into the floor. Sometimes he'd shut the door closed with a twitch of his foot, untying the half apron around his waist with one hand and pulling the red tie strapped flat onto a black dress shirt loose with the other. Once, he did all that in succession and proceeded to slide against the shut door until he hit the ground, falling into himself like a dropped jack's ladder and rubbing his fingers from his jawline to his eyes, up into his hair and back over.

But most of the time, he would just force off his shoes, never untying the laces, and move to the balcony just as I did. He would go out to the balcony too, but he would always keep going, moving to sit on the edge of the short wall, socked feet dangling over the city. His legs would be splayed wide, hands placed right in front of him, flat on the ledge. He would look down at the golden sea below, and when he was done with it, spit a flickering cigarette into the glittering bank.

He would also smoke when he woke up. He got up at six, like clockwork, and would stumble back out into the smogged pilot's seat in a plaid bathrobe, hazy faced and staring down. I don’t think he was ever late. He would get dressed slowly and fix himself in the mirror for a good half hour at the left of his room, until finally turning around just to watch the door for a moment. Sometimes I could swear that he watched for so long that he must have thought it would up and race away.

He slept with the lights on. He never came home late. He didn’t go out at night, never blundered in at two in the morning with a lithe model girl, long hair framing icicle eyes. On weekends he would sleep all day, rising every few hours to go back on the edge of his balcony and smoke. He would stare at the faces on his walls, the callouses on his palms, the murmur below; but never, ever at the empty loft across the way, dotted with a blue plastic bed and a speck of a person.

I left New York in September, on a red eye flight vastly cheaper than the rest. I put my toothbrush and toothpaste into the front pocket of my luggage, squeezed the air out of my mattress, and left. I hadn't left a trace in that home of mine, and it didn’t leave any on me either. When I left New York, I felt nothing. It was almost like I had never set foot in the city, forgetting to socialize with the locals the way someone could leave their hat at a bar.

I never knew if the man across the canyon hated coming home to a loft like I did. I wondered if it bothered him too, the lack of walls or rooms to compartmentalize the space. I wondered if he didn’t like to eat at home, if he felt sick when he watched the sunrise. I wondered if when he looked at the tidepooled city, if he also saw salvation. If he wondered every day from eight to eight-ten about what a dangly thing of a human would seem like to the loft across if it was spit from the edge of a narrow, four foot balcony.
A bit long, I suppose. Thought I'd post some prose.
Q Feb 2015
Vertigo.

The world is turning.

Turning.
                 Turning.
                                  Turning,
Too fast.

Turning until
A rip forms.

A tear. A lesion. An open wound.

Raw.

Don't touch.
Don't look.
Don't speak.
Don't hear.
Don't smell.
Don't feel.


it hurts.

Thoughts come then.
Too loud, too quiet.
Too bright; so, so dark.
.
     .
          .
               help.

No help.
.
     .
          .
               help.
No help.
.
     .
          .
               help.
Helped.

Boxes.
Boxes and boxes and boxes.

A library of thought and feeling packed away
In
One


second.




Peace.
Calm.
Joy.


False emotion.
Easy breathing, easy living.

Compartmentalized.
Strike-through.

Recompartmentalize­d.






Lather, rinse, repeat.
Duke Thompson Aug 2014
I hate myself
I've lead a life that a lot of people don't understand
feeling the need compartmentalize my life to the point I don't even know who I am
stopped wanting ***
even now find it crass and crude
just another way for people to use me
afterwards feel see thru and ugly and gross
wilted sunflower to be culled from yr bed
even if mutual with ample loquacious lovers
I curl up in ball
don't let them look at me
in ugly failure skin clown mask
the **** of all yr jokes
'he's great but he's quiet'
talk on

everyone just seems so cruel
I weak like veal
tender for the taking
fry me up
straight from womb to pan
cowards make the best cuts
of wet meat to ****
Alexander S Mar 2010
I wear my heart on my sleeve I guess
Easily dirtied sometimes
It’s not hard to see when something affects me
The steps drag a little more
My gaze turns slightly downward
I might lose my place
Or forget where I’m walking
I can try to hide, try to cover it
It’s never worked
To my knowledge
It’s good I guess
To retain such close ties to your emotions
But at the same time
I’m so easily hurt
I wish I could do otherwise
Compartmentalize
But I could never hide from who I am
Taylor St Onge Aug 2021
I am soft and mandible:  
          fresh clay,         the inside of an oyster,        the belly of an armadillo.  
          vulnerable.                      tender.  ­                             the anti-sharp.

everything is blurred.  dulled.  hidden
behind a gossamer haze and ambient noise.  
a photo out of focus.            one eye closed and ten feet back.  

dizzy.            so dizzy.            disoriented.  
there is no logic here.             no rules.             no laws.  
and that’s what makes it horrible and incomprehensible.  

the transplant recipient still dies.  the man in perfect health
                                                                ­suddenly has cancer.
the proned patient flipped back to supine for intubation
                                                codes and dies immediately.  

nonsense.  it’s all nonsense.  
it's easier to take a breath and
                                                        compartmentalize.
write your grief, prompt #11: How has this loss made things feel sharp?
Nicole Mar 2018
My heart weighs heavy
Tipping this scale so far
Until I hit the ground
So unsure if it's the alcohol
Or these feelings
That keep me so far down

I just want to breathe
And I want to hold you
But I don't know what that means
I compartmentalize my feelings so much
All tucked sweetly away in the empty crawl spaces
Until I look in the mirror and don't know who I see

I want to feel something
Anything but this sadness leaking out
Of all the holes in all the closed doors
My mind is a maze without a map
Even though I've created it myself
I still don't know the ceilings from the floors

How can I look at your face and not hear her words?
"Just stop hurting people" she says
Trust me baby all I do is try
I try so hard to not leave scars on these beautiful souls
My instinct is to help the broken
Though as soon as I'm ready to leave they're ready to die

Babe I promise that I see you
I haven't known you long but that's never been the issue
The problem is that I can't see myself
I'll feel this love for someone one minute
And the next I could ice them out for days at a time
Left to wonder if it's actually me or just the liquor off the shelf

I don't believe in God but I'm praying now
Begging someone to help salvage this broken soul
Yet I'm still surrounded by silence
In this life you have to save yourself
But we all need help sometimes
And too much pressure leads to self-directed violence

I'm trying so hard
I just want to be ok
I just want to be free
Then I get nights like these
Choking on this random sadness
Left to question if this life is really for me

But I'm trying
And I'm growing
And this will pass one day
I just hope until then
You love me enough
To want to stay
I went to therapy today and my therapist and I addressed that I either invest too much of myself into a relationship or I compartmentalize my feelings until I'm numb, there is no in between due to an intricate web of childhood trauma that still affects me today. This is inspired by that conversation and some things an ex said to me recently.
My love of poetry is too great
for Philosophy, physics to glue the skin under my toes
to the floor.
A waif, only dandelion fluff,
I tease the turbid puddles
of wearying intellect.
Life is too beautiful
to compartmentalize,
to classify,
to set unsurmountable borders
on the pleasure that only poets and hopeless romantics comprehend.
Disoriented sight/smell/taste/touch/hearing-
backwards rainbows and the upside-down
scent of oatmeal cookies,
the melancholy of a forever-stilled honey bee,
are more golden than yellow metal,
and certain
more knowledge than a heaping pile
of doctors/lawyers/senators/scientists.
reality's only denizens
are Dreamers.
bucky Jul 2014
i'm sorry about the way i fumble for words and breath, but i just can't catch my death i mean breath
and i'm sorry if this is weird but there are some people who mean more to me than i can express using any number of adjectives
and sometimes it scares me because my body was not made to hold this many hearts
there is impossible love in my fingertips and it will bless anyone who comes near me
i'm sorry for being a dreamer i'm sorry i got so close i'm sorry for holding galaxies in my hands but i want to be just like you when i grow up
and there are supernovas whispering behind your closed eyelids.
you cannot win acceptance from expectation i know this from experience
and maybe it's okay to be a little ****** up but i'm pretty sure my heart shouldn't ache in time with people who don't exist
i'm desaturated, not colorful enough i cannot handle pure cyan or magenta but give me olive,
give me chamoisee and i will breathe a little easier
paintings come in all shapes and sizes and rainbows i painted mine on my hands and fingers
i cannot help it if my acrylics mix with other people's watercolors
this is how i am
sometimes i go up to your front door and do not knock
i hope you will forgive me for this
i'm not in the habit of wasting breath but i will waste death until i have no more seconds and minutes and hours to do so
tell me you love me there is a heart shaped box in my chest
it is sandpaper against your palmprints but you will clutch it, fingers tight
curling in and around like it's a part of you
i'm not a geometry problem that you can solve i'm more complex than that there are wires
buried beneath my skin pumping iron through my body i'm more machine than flesh
but that doesn't mean i can't feel your hand in mine
i measure time in the beats of your heartbeat against mine
you watch me like a car crash, like i'm moving in slow motion but you still can't keep up
compartmentalize your love songs and love letters and love
your heart will stop beating if you just tell it that it can't feel anymore
i am a sea of compromises this was not the first one i have had to make and it will not be the last
but i promise you that when we're dust blowing through the desert
a thousand and one lifetimes away,
i will remember every second of you
and we will be constellations sewn into the galaxy
another fairy-tale to be read at night when our fears are loudest
and i will press my fingers to your neck to show you that your heart is still beating
i am a rainbow paint me onto your blank canvas like this is the last time we'll ever see each other
i'm not scared of how i am i'm just like everybody else
it's not my fault that i have love pulsing through my body like tidal waves
paintbrushes are rough against my rocky craters but i love them just the same
i will love you just the same.
when i saw you it took my death away
Luke Gagnon Feb 2013
You cannot just give up religion for lent,
and expect no consequences.
I am in every moment you discard.

You run on insistent consistency,
analytical calculations,
scraps of math equations
pieced together to
form your
functioning

But, you cannot rationalize away my
emotions.
My heart and my affection.
You cannot compartmentalize me,
shave off my soft curved edges
with a butter knife to fit the
labeled angular box you have created for yourself.
I still count even if you’re
making things even.

But I understand,
sometimes my hugs last 3
seconds too long.

--

Luke,
There is no picture
on a box to tell you what you’re
supposed to look like
when all this is over.

You might have built yourself,
but I was born.
I am more than a body.
I am your past,
your perspective
your platelets
your pacemaker
I will never truly
leave.
Shannon Apr 2014
how many ways must i give you up?
grief is just a sport for lucid and the lame.
how many boughs till i break this falling-
to the mossy hill below?
where grief is just a shallow pool
with reflections of me beautifully crying
We ugly mourners live to talk.
selfish shallow pool of grief-
my yellow rainboots fall madly
upon my mirrored head.
i am just a puddle
and i wear it like a man because
sometimes...
grief is just a tailored suit
all dressed up in pawpaws best
neatly pressed.
the seams of your life sewn in a straight line.
it's easy to compartmentalize the times you weren't your greatest you.
in death you leave the lovely
behind
and take away the rest.
in life you leave the death
behind and take away the lovely such a wasted irony.
grief is valentine.
wont you be mine pinks and whites? sugared promises of time.
grief is a lovers candy heart. sentiments on marble etch the total of our time.
grief of mine, such weather beaten blanket. when did she become my lover?
cast aside your sadness.
grief is a friend of mine, grief is a friend of mine.

Sahn 4/22/2014
after experiencing a significant loss in my life, i became aware of the rich layers of grief. thank you for giving your time to read these poems.
anastasiad Dec 2016
Darker rooms plus chemical substance establishing strategies might have turn into hobbies within the ages of digital photography plus picture croping and editing, however improvements within technologies necessarily mean far more space regarding advancement and also the power to adjust photos. A very common means of photograph editing includes what is known as strong imprinted. Making use of this method signifies extracting an object from its authentic background. Profound etching makes it simple compartmentalize photos along with isolate illustrations or photos. For example, you could have a straightforward photo of the foliage lying down on to the ground plus deep imprint the actual foliage through the history allowing you unengaged to encourage which impression on the distinctive photograph or even a diverse historical past. Heavy imprinted is a straightforward proven fact that is now straightforward to perform, owing to technologies. In the long run, a chance to serious etch physical objects signifies that the actual developer has got higher mobility and isn't restricted to the bounds of your original photos.

An additional benefit involving improvements within photo editing and enhancing is that technologies have manufactured these methods available in order to recreational photographers plus graphic designers by means of an easy task to learn applications similar to Photo shop. Learning how to deep imprinted can be as easy as doing a available article via almost any well-liked photograph editing and enhancing plan. Aspiring a digital musicians along with makers will also be very happy to learn that there is a blooming online community of different painters who're willing to present guidance along with training. You'll find about three unique advised tactics that will enable that you effectively deeply imprinted a perception. Each of them involves a clear awareness of aspect plus a enthusiasm to generally be thoughtful. The item isn so simple as directing and also clicking at this time, but a little tolerance should go quite some distance in this case. With regards to determing the best strategy to strong etch, every expert has their unique preferred. Happily, data as well as advice is easily available and all sorts of alternatives can be explored as well as experimented with, resulting in to consider that method is most effective based on your project and talents. Apparently outdoors change of info speaks not just in the passion of them painters, but additionally to your procedure by which new concepts and methods plus spread in addition to perpetuated.

Understanding the skill of serious etching may take a long time, although understanding the process along with finishing your very first profound imprint can be achieved in less than 1 hour. Which means an average that has a digicam along with a computer contains the probability to learn heavy scribing plus apply leading-edge on the internet picture croping and editing ways to their own personal do the job, whether loved ones images and also small company periodicals. Pictures and style stop being tied to precisely what the professional photographer can take by way of its contact lens in a specific second. Digital photography and also snapshot croping and editing has also eradicated many of tension with growing your photographs. You are able to instantaneously begin to see the results of your photo avoiding the expense of reshoots or perhaps thrown away flick. And so though there can be a couple of have outs, who take pleasure in the appreciate tonka trucks of your darkish area and also think associated with launching flick right photographic camera, the era connected with digital cameras will be here and it is offered to absolutely everyone.

http://www.passwordmanagers.net/ Password Manager Windows 7
Jodie LindaMae Dec 2015
I get easily annoyed,
Being the only sober person along
On this tirade
Of ******* kisses
And malformed care.
I spend my time easily convincing myself
That the only way I will believe he loves me
Is if he splits his bleeding heart
Over my chalice
When they display my body to him
At the morgue,
Toe tag so lifeless against my sole.
I think of my body not as a temple
But a bear trap,
Sprung or in the process of springing,
His ankle twisted in it's teeth.
We walked into this together
Knowing each others baggage
But suspecting there to be hidden compartments.
With ease
I compartmentalize my anguish
And move one,
My emotions just a simplicity
Too enticing in their entirety
To be dealt with accordingly.
I have brought myself to believe that he loves me
But only in his frontal lobe,
My life and personality
Being at the root of who he is today.
I say ******* kisses because he is addicting
But I say ******* kisses because
He is deadly.
Dear dearly beloved,
It's me, again.

I'm sorry for the
Pain and sorrow.

I just want to let
You all know that

There's only
So much lower
I can go.

There's a bullet
With my name on it,

But I don't want
To pull the trigger.

I promise I'm not a quitter,
But I'm far from
Being a winner.

I'm always pulled in
Every direction,

And I feel I fail
Every time, stepping
In the wrong direction.

It's hard to compartmentalize
And section my emotions,

I'm always one step away
From jumping off a ledge,
And it's getting harder

Just to hold on.

Dear dearly beloved,

Pray that I make it through,

So my soul doesn't get
Crushed by the weight
Of the world,

And delivered to the underworld.
Persephone Oct 2015
my thoughts are on fire
my stomach is burning

i’m roasting my matches
to swallow my options

internalize bad dreams
consider the source

forgiving old flames
compartmentalize

planning on empty
execute with intent
feedback is appreciated :)
Melody Mann Mar 2021
Time is a number,
A value we have denoted to a moment perceived as the now,
Its presence doctrines society and its functionality,
A fickle means of conceptualizing the abyss.

Time is but a construct,
A bid to control what is everlasting,
A scattered ploy to compartmentalize actions and obligations,
A means of justification.

Time is arbitrary,
For the essence is eternal,
Our soul is formless,
As the creation is infinite,
Relinquish your mind to this celestial current,
And harmonize to its flow surging within.
Banana Oct 2015
I am a global citizen, a temporary resident of this earth,
I barely exist but I refuse to be anything less.
I refuse to bury my head in the sand behind borders.
Borders are just ideas, right?
Ideas that compartmentalize people and places,
It's easier to be apathetic to foreign faces.
It's easier to be controlled and lulled into the hamster wheel that keeps the world going round in the right direction for those with the money.
As long as we run and don't ask questions the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor.
But the worlds' pain is my pain, and their pain is your pain-- wake up.
Children are dying in horrific ways, people are suffering, and the real irony of it all is that it doesn't have to be this way.
While I'm writing this, the old boys politician clubs of our "democratic" countries are smoking cigars, driving foreign cars and talking about the weather.
Hannah Frances May 2013
I couldn’t define it.
Words tricked from my lips
A babbling brook of incoherence
Grasping for phrases, attempting to capture
Something so perfectly intangible.

I couldn’t build walls around it
Hold onto and confine it
With explanations and reasoning
Boundaries of sanity, a cushion of protection

I just couldn't find a way
To nestle it away safely
Within the recesses of my soul
Amongst the other “boxes” I’ve created
To compartmentalize life.
Abi Banks Sep 2013
Believe me when I say that I never intended for any of this to happen.
What I mean to say is,
back when we first started seeing each other,
and you waited 30 minutes before responding to my texts and
I got nervous speaking to you ,
I couldn’t picture any of this happening.

Perhaps I could have imagined us kissing in some restaurant, or maybe even holding hands in line at the movie theatre, but the rest of it? Well, that I could not have imagined.

I guess at this point it’s embarrassing, right? Not embarrassing like when I think I start work at 6 but I actually start at 5 and I run in an hour late and everyone stares at me.
It doesn’t make me red in the face or anything like that.
It’s just humiliating.
I know the way I sound when I talk about you: silly, young, a character from a Sarah Dessen novel, but mostly like someone I would make fun of. That’s the thing that embarrasses me the most — that this thing has turned me into someone else.
It’s that other person  
that needy, grabby salesman of a person
that you don’t like, right? Is that the thing you can't stand about me?
That neediness?
That itchiness?
The way I look at you, the way I change my plans for you?
How did I become one of those girls who work at a department store and follow you from rack to rack.
“Do you need anything?”
“Can I help you with anything?”
“Is there anything in particular today that you’re looking for?”
If I cared less, would you care more? At first I was going to ask
“would you care at all,”
but that’s not right, is it? You care about me, you do.
You value me.
Probably. I mean, if someone asked you if you value me, you would say yes.
You just don’t actively value me. It seems like that wouldn’t make a difference, but it makes a huge difference.

I’ve manicured my hands and
dyed my hair and
perfumed my skin for you and, the whole while, I’ve told myself that it would make you want me.

I’ve made sure I was the funniest in the room, the wittiest in the conversation, convincing myself that it would make you change your mind.
It should be noted that these are precisely the kind of facts that humiliate me.
It didn’t work.
None of it worked.
Isn’t that funny?
I mean, not ha-ha-funny, but you have to admit
there is something laugh-worthy about it.

I mean, I once spent the whole day getting my hair cut and blown out because you said you thought Id be too brown for red hair so I went and got something that would work.

Because I wanted a change but I needed to accommodate to you.

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!

I have told you so much, but there are pieces I have learned to keep hidden from you over these few months.
Perhaps, these are the parts I will eventually learn to compartmentalize and keep hidden from myself,
as well.

It’s no question in my mind:
When a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, it does not make a sound, it did not fall.

I don’t move on well.

I sit in a box labeled “Past Things.”

One of those boxes that you shove in the attic or basement and you keep your childhood dolls and high school awards in it.

I do not know why this is.

Maybe I don’t want to move on.

Do you think that’s it?

I’m sorry; that’s an unfair question, isn’t it?
Well, while I’m at it, can I ask more unfair questions?
Is there anything I can do?
I can be more honest or less harsh or less anxious or more quiet.
Do you like quiet girls? I could be a quiet girl.

Yes, I could certainly be one of those quiet girls.
Just tell me what to do it and I’ll do it.
I’m sorry.
I’m doing it again, aren’t I?
The thing you don’t like about me isn’t my hair color or my laugh that’s a bit too loud or anything like that.

It’s the questions and neediness. It's that isn't it?
Rai Feb 2015
Do you put me away in a box
Just the way you used to tidy away your toys as a child

Did your Mother say ...
One thing at a time
Put away what isn't needed right now


So here I am
Sitting in my box
Waiting

Yep I understand
It would be easier by far if I didn't maybe

You are busy
With responsibilities
Your world becomes smaller
I think when I saw you last just for a moment
I realised how hard you find it all

It is an art
Sharing yourself with more than one person at a time
Sharing your time
I did give a sideways comment on the fact that
if this was a permanent thing
I would never see you
You assured me you would be better at organising things if that was the case

It makes me wonder if that is true

Are you really able to tip all your toys in the middle of the carpet
Are you able to de-compartmentalize your relationships

Or will you pack your toys away tidy at the end of the day

*Would mother still agree that this is such a good way to be?
Does anyone in your life have the same problem .... what does compartmentalization mean to you?
Holly O'Brien Sep 2014
19 years,
4 boys,
2 girls,
Heartache after heartache,
The process doesn’t change,
It doesn’t become less demanding with age,
If anything, it becomes only more methodical,

In the way that a surgeon analyzes and studies his procedure before operating within a breathing, organic creature,
Or how a jazz bassist finger plucks melancholic yet beautiful riffs made of memorized scales,
With practice, I have learned something of a system to heart break, and interestingly enough it always starts with me, it never starts with you,

5pm. You don’t break up with me, I always break up with you. I lay in bed for hours, struggling to match up the phrases “meant to be” and “not this time” in ways that are gracious and kind.

7pm. I communicate my best self to you, I tell you I love you and oh, the potential I saw. I say everything I need to say, it's a courtesy to you and a necessity to me. You’re cold to me, I’m still hot for you; it burns me up inside until I choke on my “maybe some days” and “what ifs”. You’ll find someone new.

8pm. I can’t move my legs and my stomach is weak, my heart fails within me and my eyes are so meek. I search for solitude, this is the moment when the only thing I know how to do is follow my feet.
I retreat to the streets.

9pm. This is the second hardest part. Let the pain spread and seep into every vein. In the words of John Greene, it demands to be felt. I debate myself that no one should feel such pleasure from love without knowing the searing anguish of loss.

10pm. I cry out to God and weep into my friend’s teeshirt as thunder crackles around us. If you don’t let it out, you won’t let it go. My ribs snap open from explosions of emotions.

12am. Feverishly angry, unhinged with pride; I will foolishly convince myself that you meant nothing to me, though in this moment i am anything but dispassionate. Accusations, assumptions, confrontations. Gain perspective, but only the kind that convinces me of myself. Compartmentalize it.

2am. I’ll distract myself with something, anything to pass the time. I’ll go out at night, a little excitement, a little bit of drugs, a lot of adrenaline, might just set my brain chemistry balanced and my crooked jaw straight.

5am. I’ll come home, satisfied with myself. Crawl back into my bed where I began the night and think, oh if only you could see me now, i have definitely won.

6am. This is the hardest part. The sun rises along with my guilt and inhibitions. I could NEVER say those things to you during the day that I spewed out like kerosene during the night.
I want to call you baby, tell you I’m sorry, but I’ve lost that right.
So I will combust from my own words and actions, set fire to my excuses and torch down my pride.

I want to whisper good morning to you, because I’ve learned the mornings are made to fix things, to start fresh, and become new.
My father had an anthem for me that rung “Holly, you’re not a bad person, you just make bad decisions. You can always try again in the morning.”
Well, it is the morning and I want so bad to try again.

In how many different languages can i try to explain that I don’t know how to give it up,
Or how to let someone go that was never mine to begin with?
I’ll just replay you walking through the invisible door in my mind until I take the hint.

Then I’ll sleep the day away so I can wake up, sobered up, numbed up, a few hours later.
Remind myself that my mother taught me to allow only one night for despair and tantrums.
She says life goes on and so should I, she couldn’t bear to see me defeated or crushed.

So I’ll force myself out of bed, shower, shake it off, lock it up.
I’ll move on because love is not without pain, life is not without burden, courage is not without fear,
And people are always worth taking chances on, even though the last chance I took never healed.

I know that there will be other nights when I think about 4 boys and 2 girls,
But those times, I’ll drift to sleep without saying goodnight, and have forgotten about it before the break of morning light.
Emma Erbach Apr 2013
Every story is a sad story.
Everything is sad.
Too many tragedies, not enough time.
They pile up on top of one another,
Clamoring for attention.
Bombing tops earthquake tops ****** tops ****—
Burying us under the weight of too many
Bodies, their cold eyes pleading
See me, hear me, remember me but

Every story is a sad story
So no one stays sad very long.
When sadness is ever-present it becomes normal.
So now we don’t even blink, just
Scroll through our newsfeeds thinking:
The world is horrible and what’s for dinner
Simultaneously. When reality is too sad
Sadness becomes a simulation, acted out
On the stage of nightly news broadcasts and
Candelight vigils, as if:
If we all just felt sad enough for long enough
That would solve anything. As if:
If we could compartmentalize our sadness into
New national holidays and moments of silence
We could stop feeling everything so sharply.
But I am running out of room in my closet for charity t-shirts.

Every story is a sad story.
I am starting to become cynical.
One child dead from a drive-by shooting is no longer newsworthy.
Give me more bodies, more pictures
of distraught mothers crying,
More suffering.
We have fought too many wars in too many places to remember
that the bombs in Boston that shut down the entire city
Are an everyday occurrence everywhere else.
Except sometimes they are our bombs.
But rarely are they our children.

Every story is a sad story.
Everything is sad.
I am not sure which is worse: constant sadness
Or no sadness;
Constant tragedy or constant denial.
I am becoming too sad to write anymore.
The world is too horrible.
What’s for dinner?
Julia O'Neary May 2014
Sitting on the floor of my apartment
Eating peanut butter from the jar with
My fingers, I don’t want to ***** a spoon.
Surrounded by boxes filled with
Belongings that don’t feel like mine.

On my way home, boxes packed into
My mother’s car. I would have driven
Myself but two months prior fate
Pushed my pretty red car off the
Road with a U.S. mail truck. *****.

Unload the boxes in a room that
Looks like a memorial to childhood.
The memory of summers past are
What I cling to now, for the next three
Months feel like someone else’s time.

Look for a job. Look for a car.
Look for signs that he moved on.
Look for an excuse not to and
Go to the beach by myself instead.
Look for a place for storing boxes.

I should unpack. Boxes arrogant
And weighted to compartmentalize
All the expectations I would rather not
Remember and disappointment  
I am tired of looking at.
Emily Jones Dec 2013
******
Why couldn't this come earlier this
Hustle and bustle
The need to compartmentalize my existence
Only to find new ground and plant roots
It's not that I didn't want to move
It's the packing
The lacking
And the living out of boxes
That **** me off
If I could find ground worth staying rooted in that would be nice
Imagine burning by fire,
hustled bones piling up, a sanctum
seeped in dust.
It his here where I compartmentalize
the fire, its embers and heat
stacked neatly on hotbed coals, a flame with
labels, numbers, a name.

I keep the space neat and airy,
I have room for all of the fires
as well as some extra storage
yet to have a specific set purpose.
In this room of fire I read
constantly. I am currently on Marx, and
my next read is Durkheim's
Suicide, which is much less strenuous
than one would believe, having been
familiar with Durkheim but
not his work. All of this clatter and
sociology.

The fires remain lit, I have no need
to run the heater this winter.
Fire, in all its compartments,
organized and labeled as it is,
and still, with my world in such a state,
I cannot hold fire in boxes.
I am blindly adding fuel.
Suicide, Émile Durkheim's 1897 study on suicide rates among Protestants and Catholics in France, was a groundbreaking work in the field of sociology.
Randy Mcpeek Sep 2018
My Broken Life

I am a mask, trying to conceal all the pain I'm in.
On the surface I may seem perfectly happy, with a job, home, and family.
However, I can say with certainty that my life is far from perfect.
I compartmentalize my actions based on the needs of the moment. I am removed from it all, coping.
What I carry around inside me, not being okay, is almost too much to bear...but I do it.

The problem is me. It's always been me.
Memories alone can break a person's spirit.
I think if I committed suicide that I wouldn't go to heaven. The one place I believe I would be happy.
If there is a purgatory, I am in it. It's called life.
My broken life.

Randy Mcpeek
bcg poetry Feb 2015
You never felt much.
You can turn your feelings for me off like flipping a switch.
You compartmentalize and focus on one task, while ignoring the other.

You forget about me, I know you do.

I feel everything.
Every word, every forgotten call, every missed message.
I feel everything.
And I can't turn off your blue eyes in the back of my mind.
I can't forget you, like you can forget me.

But that doesn't mean I don't spend every empty bottle trying.
Jordan Frances Nov 2014
I cannot continue to compartmentalize
Each aspect of my life
Individually
Separately
In cardboard boxes on wooden shelves
Waiting to be moved into one house.

My existence does not work in cubicles
Sectioning off each area of who I am
One by one
9-5 jobs
Some work overtime.

And yet, I do this so frequently
I continue to store things away
In the back ruins and corners of my mind
They go into storage units.
I guess I picked up the technique after being abused
So I could dissociate from the experience.

But I cannot keep putting on different identity hats
Sarah, the child abuse victim is a black beanie
Sarah, the ex-cutter and ex-bulimic is a red bandana
Sarah with daddy problems is a knit cap
They are all mutually exclusive
They cannot occur at the same time.

So why can't I continue to shelve these things
Intricately and one by one?
Because I am Sarah
The whole person
The individual
The human being who deserves recognition for her progress
Not her vices.
Elena Feb 2019
Sometimes I sit down and think, “Is this all there is to life?”
Compartmentalize my feelings of sadness, joy, and excitement into boxes
Some of which stack higher than others and tumble down into subcategories
Times I was sad because of my period, because of school, because of ----

Other times I stand up and I don’t think, “I am completely satisfied with life.”
Because I am not
I look at cracked paint on walls and study the paths the minuscule crevices decided to take
So easily permanent and there

My head has established a tyranny of overthinking and anxiety that boxes with itself
Left, right, no left, up, maybe down, sideways, maybe
Too much to think and my brain can’t seem to understand there is still time to think
No decision has to be made about anything ever just yet not yet maybe

I understand time casts an infinite shadow
It forever runs out even though it’s nowhere near the finish line
It’s always running out
Always leaving me breathless
idk i wrote this cause im feeling anxious also procrastinating on my english homework

— The End —