Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
life is a process
and sometimes a cause
can never be known

I have experienced in my heart
that some knowing goes deeper than my intellect

I know with my heart-mind that I am loved,
and it's given me hope to be free of self-hate and self-harm,
and for that I am grateful
Glenn McCrary Sep 2012
A subtle carol echoes of the evening
Upon bended knee I am arrested
Betwixt strange refrains
Shaking the floorboards of Teicu

The evocative moans amplify
The foolish peacemaker of astrologists
The English dream of poetry

Those I coaxed by death
Were the witnesses of the tragedy
And were familiar with its ballad

Crafted the design ‘tis conceptual *******
Eradicated their honor for vanilla threads
As they shimmy and shimmy

They defile elongated hankering
And retreated in the greenhouse of Woodstock
Its language made iconic by efficacious character

Having often been labeled an experiment
Broadening its brilliance along death’s boulevard
‘tis she who was the stunning one

Her language made sacred by her iconic fame
A long time controversial reference
An automaton, an origin of extraterrestrial etiology

The evocative moans ensnares the tourist
Lamb Mar 2014
Nothing* is but an ideology
Created within the midst of terminology
Contemplated inside the realm of human sociology
Excessive thought creates a disease of unknown etiology
Without *nothing
, the purpose of something lacks possibly
Fathoming such perceives speculations of oddities
How can one measure that lacking of qualities
and incomplete of quantity?
Theorization subconsciously
Rationalizing improbably
On the brink of psychopathy
Is it really all but a prophecy?
Distorting my mind in such ferocity?
Encompassing dimension of philosophy
Does the term nothing orbit a sense of despondency?
Interpreting into a form of commodity
But how can I construe what nothing is,
I mean quite honestly?
Read the poem and you can read it backwards as well.
It almost sounds cooler when read backwards!
Perpetual Ecstasy laces up the paper weights waiting easily the sleeves slip down the easel ritual by ritual window by window, fear of the unknown beholding the eye of the throne a pupil's pupil is as only as black as the destitute ashes that the charcoal carpools with as carbon.

A loud boom and my room mates with the environment the wind shook the winds croon the chimney like old saints nicking my fingertips with paper cuts dribbling like second graders yet not knowing really how to absolve anything.

Forgive me for my perpetual agony the ridicule of a two thousand year old initiate willing to dare to the caring rusted usuring raw ions fixated chariots blaring dub step as save the thief ****** but like the one who declares himself the backward ******* of the un-gold lawbringer. I am I am terrorist voted to be bring the third world warring down like a moment of courage steals life one fifth at a time.  An empty cup of Rest and relaxation sits as if an Eagle has landed upon the magic carpet beneath my now housed homeless feet, in defeat I stare grimaced at the plasma screen en-livid to the dessert sedition that lingers five hundred glucose lucid pancreas glowing green as bile, run like the Nile the white hawk head is now red.

Eat a lot of greens, the etiology of my disease is a well-borne cyclic machine. The Sun rose out this morning, my son rises like a glory. make babies the kids on the internet tell me today, last evening I didn't know If the twenty-sixth I needed to ask my manager in regards to my independence day behavior. Who knows why the egg cracks, the earth shakes, bowels quake, rainbows aren't strait, oceans consume no lightning, glass stands static at the edge of a liquid precipice...

My mouth grows less hungry every time i beg for poison, every trait i make justifies the lake that satiates it. poised to know no wonder, I lunge and mumble will i ever run outta thoughts to grumble? Or when my quills ink lacks luster the shine of mine metal will surely face the direction of my father. I here that its nice this time of year in the south, the Bronx zoo contains many types of creatures wishing to fend for themselves like an accident we harbor them from the elements they are designed to withstand despite the treason of nature they instill the greater curiosity of of our wits end freeing our passion to travel as nomads and allowing our children to just go down the block and right around the corner to feel the energy of the most fallen predators that ever roamed a far off land.

Like a pen in a century that knows no hand, like the apartment complex i science as my cortex my inhibitions fire like phone calls into my cerebellum, but how are the wires are connected. I **** in and out like limbs upon a Madrona, my internet protocol still sings my old phone number: Rest, Sabbath, human; Human, oh-so-serious, undefined, root. Yet the area code stays the same but the pages keep turning to a knew pain, as the numbers change so do the bills, as the money reigns so does the thrills, as the dew settles down so does the chills, as the root, monad, rest; oh-so-serious, rest, undefined, human sits determining a knew limbic to limbo to as he envisions a **** limo un-abbreviated appearing in his driveway one more time. I am just the house i live in, or am I a beast of happiness?
Andrew Guzaldo c Sep 2019
“Immediately a decisive alluring connection from the onset,  
As our ****** accoutrement deceptive lay’s softly on ground,
As the captivation of our present euphoria lays beneath our skin,
Complacency and beatitude with the enticing joy betwixt us,

I had fallen in love with her as the flowers cling to the earth,
Hearts hewed as one beating with powerful acquiescence,
Convivial contentment to us both as eve slowly turns to daybreak,
Reflex of love there is enigmatic elation never before perceived,

Etiology of twinging with euphoria trail of kisses lingering afore,
As in the charisma of a cold chill of that as glacial trails,
Sensed make our blood run cold now as souls entwined,
May she never leave and forestall a broken nature of being,  

I know that deep in the intensity of my heart you triumph,  
There is invariably space for altruism to reside always,
For all the delectation that once were unified of ours,
I not endeavor to conquer my contemplative devotion,  

Your flowering existence sheds invisible petals as I,
Claim them as something I could own should I keep them?
Or scatter them or are they even yours"

By Andrew Guzaldo  ©  09/01/2019 #165
By Andrew Guzaldo  ©  09/01/2019 Poem#165 #HelloPoetry
Julian Mar 2020
In the most precise terms accessible to the vast repository of considered lexicon, this passage describes the finifugal destiny of infectious myopia that, when dredged through the rabble and bugaboo of sensationalism that outmodes the modular gravity of vogue chicaneries belonging to the catchpole of the watchtowers that sink into a hibernal abyss by the crafty subversive elegance of the magnetic pull predicated on the prolific disposition of the serenity of nature to overpower the lust for civilization and thereby provide the calm equipoise of the confident desert,even when famished, to overtake those inclined to urbane bustle with the eventual drought of a ****** kitsch world inured to pollution reverting because of an exaggerated hubris embalmed by a composite nurture into the freedom of a leveled compass of moral dignity found in nature, ultimately astounds itself because of peremptory pulchritude. This prophesies a tip-toed dance with extravagance that ultimately humbles even upright civilizations with the magnetism of the elementally pristine to bequeath a licentious freedom of extravagation that philanders on maidan territory--beyond the ******* of the reprisal of peevish cavils of recalcitrant cognomens and the despotic inclinations of civilized but brutish incursion upon the warped reversion of priorities that enthrones serenity above bustle of latitude over the prerogative to jostle the crowded quagmire of inventive but abortive spectacles of tributary happenstances of the newfangled ochlocracy--because the immediate convenience of civilization is destined to crumple by clockwork flaws inherent in machination what nature can carve effortlessly through inseminated rejuvenation.
    It is not because of the rantipole revelry of the noisy cacophony that we are starkly indifferent to the hum of the melliferous agency that leads to ecocentric governance, it is rather because the conflagrations of the crowded humdingers of our times have lapsed into the crevasse of unbounded lewdness of wretched ambsace that purports alienation more fundamental than civilization and thereby provokes a cutthroat collapse predicated on the creamy pettifoggery of saccharine sentiment that creates the rot of urbanity and goads participation in the renewal of the bionomic imperative to cherish the serenity and peace and freedom granted by nature that always conquers nurture by axiomatic consequence because to prepone filigrees of cosmopolitan bravery is contrary to the crass nature of the demur of deferred gravitas accorded not just by ceremony but by rehearsed gallantry that outlasts the sardonic reprisals of flayed anticipation.
      To the reader less lettered than enamored, I intend to remark as a pivotal linchpin of my rudimentary model of the universe that the epigenetic configuration of disorder inherent to the entelechy of physically mandated entropy is an overriding force that, through permutations of our sanitized history ,we discover as the direct autarky of the innate to trounce the willful volition of the artificial because the precedence of nature undermines the imperatives of a filipendulous swing of nurture to destroy itself because the clockwork upbraided thorns of society are more evident and incumbent than the circular irony of the circuitous wiredrawn windlass of feral proclivity to overwhelm the devices of one tragically supererogatory species that undercuts its own virility by sterilizing the future with the noisy cacophony of the epiphenomenal excess of profligate carnality accorded by Original Sin and later expounded and exploited into a titanic hubris that might eventually sink the prerogatives of the metropolis and favor the malingering peace of the remote frontier. I wonder often why aliens congregate in insular proximity to Native American tribes and propinquity to their shibboleths rather than abide by an enigmatic skullduggery to infiltrate lucrative metropolitan tracts and, with delicate entryism, seek to propitiate the inane aspects of population with the delicate poise of interposition and, when I ponder this deeply lugubrious question, I realize it is probably because the aliens themselves are byproducts of an overpolluted society famished eventually by its own adolescent excesses that eventually redound in the fulminations of subsequent dearth and therefore it cherishes the arid propinquity between the natural balance of nature with the composite symmetry of the evolved soluble valence of recycled treasuries of provincial benedictions rather than a global ploy of takeover and turnover because they fear the ultimate destiny of the thronging clangor and obviously prefer the surreptitious entrenchment in tribal allegiance rather than pushful attempts to proselytize an imperious solidarity geared for heroic redhibitions of human defect for ulterior conquest that vouchsafes a degree of ineradicable dominion. Ironically, in the fitful throes of sickness I have convalesced into a singular desultory equipoise with the serenity of pause rather than the drygulch of overmilked tactless celerity that taxes the limitations of even the petty simplicity of the most rudimentary concepts and, through deliberative subroutines, I conquer the articles of subaudition that lurk in remote corridors waiting for the marauding curiosity of unique proclivity to traverse a bypass of directional contingency and summit the immeasurable lengths of the incalculable by measured and sly blettonisms of profound wealth but dramatic appraisal of the rudimentary vineyard for both a pronounced variegation of hypostasized supersolid vagrancies and a selectively culled culinary harvest of slow piggybacks upon even the simplest countenance of endeavor rather than the unkempt rigid sustenance of the formal inculcation and the liberated bailiwick of how an unsung sorrow can elevate the fanfare of the loudest enchantments above the pother of kitsch debauchery.
  On a more relevant note, instinct is often the realm of finicky depredation and libidinous tabanids to oleaginous gimcracks exerted primarily by the geotaxis of regnant pedigree but fathomed more by imperative glorified brawn rather than a self-aware truculence of unalloyed volition exerted by the primitive kinship to violent boorish self-advancement that debases us because of the lurid savagery inherent to many evolved chicaneries ,that remains hidden to even the most glorified ommateum distorted by the glare of distant tantalization, distorts the invictive goals of the ergasia of intrepid lollops of the enantiodromia of entropy. And, because ambition convolutes and flanges the instinctual into importunate articulations that bypass necessity by gouging consequence into redoubled countenance--upon which we all abide to some degree in the maintenance of labile stature that often gets dredged by external impediments to pushful accomplishment to grace--is the stagecraft by histrionic leverage that is a direct byproduct of the ulterior composite of circumstance and precarious fluctuations of character. Essentially, genius manifests when the gluttony of metaphorical siderism that is sejungible from the seismic jostle of the ordinary outweighs the restraint of the ******* to immediacy to traipse above bamboozled tripwires and surmount the restive jealousy of common noemas of subtle verbigerations to heave from a recessive slumber of foothot dreams into the alchemy of inconspicuous levity beyond the admittedly aggrandized and glazed angular momentum of rhetoric to simmer with radiant efflorescence to pay homage to sedimentary notions rather than truckle to the imperial ambitions of predictable leaps to the great fanfare of the proper sabbatical from celerity for the conventicle of the extraordinary plane of the supersensible entelechy of all creation.
        In profound contemplation, what manifests relatively clearly is that the ruinous hesitation provoked by the incumbent din of uproar leads to the whiplash of warbled subliminal tilts in the axis of the chryselephantine machinations--even of the inquisitive--into the free-for-all of the acerbic displacement of the acquisitive to a scalding shipwreck that defies the cordial gravity of demarches of extenuation and further incites a dislodged frenzy of exacerbated priorities becoming jumbled to such a quizzical extent that the dash for jewels becomes the hegira from either afflicted incarcerations of panic or the conflagration of malignant opportunism. In these uncertain financial times, we henpeck—sometimes with extraordinary dalliance and otherwise with bodged exercises in profane self-sabotage—the surface endeavor by the agitprop that congeals, even in the most strident resourcefulness waged against it, to the folly of fulgurant pride in the fruitful bets against prosperity or the ennobled forbearance of the slumbered toil and toll of the taxation of capitalism upon itself that overhangs every specter or prospect for mammon without the overweening clarity of the disclaimer of labile liability because of lapsed conscientiousness. The spread of wizened ripples of the Jehus that dart with provident alacrity towards the myth of catalyzed proliferation without incidental pollution, endanger themselves by the fumes of their own arrogation of mercantile swoopstakes rather than by the contrary coexistence of debased timidity of the rigid priggishness of reluctance which is by far a greater enemy to the financial ecosystem than the outrecuidance of financial temerity because toxicity through accident leads to windfall by precedent because it is a primary mover rather than a flagitious inertia and therefore we should dwell on the immanent accessible treasury of the composite good for invictive truth. Returning to Isaiah, it is proclaimed that justice will dwell in the desert while the fruits of prosperity lurk both in vineyards of conquest and foreign forests of the unknown fertility of grace..because in a sense the vapid lifeless drawl of the beazed comportment of the husbandry of complacent but arid contentment is fashioned in a manner that relies on provident self-containment rather than the industrious bulldozer of calamity that besets dominions of heralded opportunity even when ripe times are precluded by the zeal of the epicurean demands of harvest that eventually famish rather than appease the diet of profane luxuriousness rather than a balance that leans on the notion of balance itself to predicate sustainability that laments its own dearth but never foments the outrage of volatile fortunes won or lost in the casino of opportunism.
    On a highly irrelevant note, the checkered figments of otosis are the ironic endearment of the expected to their expectancy and yet because of wrinkles of iterative doubts roaming the widely spelunked cavern of redoubled demerits subsuming self-contempt, the dregs of the self-important eventually sour into a cynicism that barks loudly at the locked corridor of pride but eventually trespass into the coherence of the incidental that spark the volitions of a self-gaslighted endeavor that creeps incumbent upon most scrutiny but less salient to the otiose obtuseness of the rankled hamshackle of perseverance in sublunary clarity.
   In the etiology of reiterative and normative catastrophe, the morale that severs the parturition of spunky audacity in favor of complacent staples of buoyant regimented alacrity vitiate the trim slaver of the luxuriant grovel into the alcoves of restive libido into the hegiras that hurdle over the conflations between necessity and want and transmute the furor of fitful windlass into a transcendent indelible ethos of ineradicable and endangered regalia of the swamp that, with bricolages of vigor, resorts to lopsided scrutiny of outcroppings of the profane rather than the self-aware poise of scacchic prevenance of ulterior action to the proper congruence of action to the composite reaction of the synectically impaired. In this vein, we must concede that a foundering vessel is often scuttled by self-infliction but ultimately salvaged by the modesty of resistance to plenipotentiary fictions of noisome crotaline tabanids and the recognition of the ramshackle facts of tentative triage in a wilderness vitiated by the alarming abundance of careworn exercises in hubris and overstated alacrity to the dimples of regress ultimately scars the geopolitics of specter and prospect to the extent that pernicious anomalies dart into prominence without castigation or that tremendous serendipities sink beneath the RADAR of the otherwise sturdy panopticon
   Thus, the polity of interwoven statesmanship by prospectus leads eventually to a culminated crux that is retrofugal more than finifugal and, in the absenteeism to the precedent that eventually provokes the unprecedented, we witness the folly of irrevocable design that, when sufficiently abridged by compendium, leads to a swift clarity that ponders vague traces of the superficially coherent into a suboptimal engrenage with contingent stipulations that often backfire because of the crude boorishness of statesmanship ratcheting into a vertiginous dance with instinctual donnism rather than appointing dignified salience the proctor of uncertain but sizable dubiety acknowledged and commanded into clairvoyant action rather than resigned acatalepsy.
  In the resulting vacuum of moral conundrum, it is not enough to predicate our bedrock on flourishing jackals in the wild nor the often lambasted sematic entrenchment of fixated designs of the impending perfidy inherent to every quagmire of bugaboo or foofaraw livid by smoldering embers of combustible and often deliberate begrudgement because the thriving industry of constative vacillations of pandered controversy are in itself ribald albatrosses of coarse conformity that derelicts the penumbra of consensus because of the firebrands of invictive bulldozing vigor to solve rather than to acknowledge the unsolvable to the extent that gridlock becomes an ayurnamat. This is why we witness a floundered perspective of slugabed deliberation contending with peremptory decisiveness verging on a saturnalia of syntax of cotqueans borrowing odium from plucky viragos because the snailed uncial crackjaw dynamics of the unfettered cyanotype for the dashpots of brittle absolution of the slowpoke substance of elevated debate provoke the ornery miscegenation of a hyped fluidity that stagnates rather than prolongs the integral linchpins of the maieutic capacity rather than the redress of incontinence only valorous by the ommateum of the owners of folly. So if outpaced by the cyprian flourish of cursory rhetoric carping on melodies of transparent rapture personified in an intellectual composite, I retain the art of flayed delamination clavigerous--only because of the heist of smoldered efflorescence—because the centered pivot of demegorics is a travesty of monument men relaying variable scaldabancos against modish artifice itself (often without even realizing the circular irony of such endeavors) because the fervor of snappy sizzle disembrangles the intorted ego from reckoning the drollery of the obtuse only to the mutiny of superlative acuity by surgical strokes to convalesce on dittology to reprove even the deftest articulations because of the prerogatives of the uncharted game that is never the behest of lifeless taxidermies of regelation.
    Ultimately the summit of the calculus of all human endeavor is outfoxed by the rapacity of erratic successive spurts of upheaval which can be forestalled by degrees of institutional prescience formed by cryptodynamic enigmas lurking in the troves of myth but the financial calamities we are witnessing are but the byproduct  of rabid scavengers feasting on restive panic rather than the inevitable degringolade of swollen tribunes steamy with an upbeat verve becoming vitiated by programmed incontinence. So what should we do with this crafty rejoinder to a variety of modern checkered quandaries and the skeumorphs of speculation? We should inquire to the utmost capacity to outlast the overhang of aleatory vicissitude and await optimal conditions stipulated by the constellation of veridical information rather than lean on inclement windlass of instinctive gambles predicated on specious fatalism or the contingent backfire of the ruinous roulette of exotic fanfare that shepherds the purblind into mundane degrees of perdition while the chary parlay their Ten Minas into a bonanza by decisive grit.
E K Weber Mar 2018
An early spring morning-
Fog hangs on the river.
Dawn's light again born king,
Dances with the shadows,
A lovely scene beheld.
Great beauty, yet simple,
Nature alone is here.
I should be lifted up,
By this perfect sunrise,
Yet I am struck instead,
With an aching torment.

Unable I, to speak,
Its etiology,
Nor put to words the pain.
I cannot comprehend,
Why a scene picturesque,
Should cause such emptiness.
My soul pines for beauty,
Always, unrelenting,
In anticipation,
Of a heaven on earth.

Thus when a glimpse I view,
Expecting paradise,
No words can near explain,
The downcast turn of soul,
Realizing what exists,
And what shall never come-
A beautiful abode,
Free of pain, hurt, and death,
Is so far from this day.
Far from reality,
What is longed for greatly,
Expectations unmet.

Reunited by a view,
On a gay spring morning,
Of paradise hoped for.
My soul aches in knowing,
That nothing will appear,
Resembling that full grace.
No form nor shape given,
Ever to my dream place.
CJ Sutherland Dec 2023
Do we Ask The Silence Questions?

What is an acceptable quality of life?
Birth Defects;
Conjoined twins
Cerebral palsy
Down syndrome
Blind, Deft
Cleft palate
Childhood Cancer

At what point do we ask?
Are we Humans playing god?
Test tube baby acceptable
Just because we can
does it mean we should?

We are looking for the answers!

We need to see our way clear
Corrective lenses, Glasses
Cataract surgery
Retinal detachment,
Blind

Listening for hard truth, what will we find?

Hearing aids
Ringing in your ears
Deft

People speaking without hearing a sound


At what point do we ask?
What constitutes Contributing to life?

When is a person a Burden to society?

When limited Movement is painful;We Stop
Arthritis
Tingling, Numbness
Neuropathy
Degenerative disc disease
Fused vertebrae surgery
Paralyzed from the neck down
Bedridden

We Elect Surgery to regain mobility

Our desire for a better quality of life

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Total Knee Replacements
Hip Replacements
Physical Therapy
Walkers, wheelchairs, braces,

Losing Control, Fighting for your life!

Alzheimer’s
Schizophrenic
Bipolar
INSANE
At what point do we ask?

Who determines when a person is
Unable to comprehend life?

CANCER The “C Word “

At what point do we ask?
When the pain is unbearable?
Hang on, orLet Go!
Chemo therapy
Body rejecting medication
Breast Cancer, cervical cancer
Reconstructive augmentation

Allergies, coughing, asthma, COPD
Oxygen therapy  
Ventilator assisted breathing

At what point do we ask?
When Health Situations Demands Actions !

Taking stock Emotionally
Get your Affairs in order

Heart Attack
Pace maker, regulator, stent
Dialysis
Kidney failure
Kidney transplant
***** transplant
Metal plate in your head
Artificial limbs

At what point do we ask?
When do you pull the plug?
Coma
Brain dead
life support
Resuscitate
DNR do not resuscitate

At what point Do we ask
Are we NO LONGER  HUMAN
Are we creating A new species?

Where in your body does your Soul reside?

At what point do we ask?
When is this action acceptable?
Assisted suicide, Dr. Kevorkian
Hospice care is not life Care
Giving Up, Choosing to Die

At what point do we ask?
Is this acceptable?
  Even if we were healthy our entire life, the world is stacked against us!
Breathing, eating ingesting poison!

GMO, Genetically modified food
What are they doing to our body?
Chlorine 200+ chemicals in our water
Poisonous gases chemicals (chem) trails
at what point do we ask?
WHY?
Dr’s treat the symptoms But
Rarely look for The medical condition
Etiology unknown
Pill's that ****, ineffective treatment
The side affects are worse than the cure
Untested not approved Shots
Fake plan-demic Human  ginny pigs

At what point do we ask?
Will we ever know the long term effects.
The damage done To our bodies
Human experiments Without our Consent full understanding ,knowledge
Are Eugenic at play.?

We engage in conversations considering
the best possible solutions
However
There are Definitely more
Questions then answers!

At What Point Do we ask?
Where do we go from here?
DElizabeth Feb 2022
i sit up breathing slow and deep..

aware of the slight, still trembling of my limbs..

careful to part my lips slightly while exhaling.

it left a bad taste on my tongue.. that sensation i dreaded..

i noticed every detail of everything surrounding me in my little room..

on my nightstand, all of the essentials..

the empty copper cup my stepfather had handed me, full, now empty of water..
replace lost fluids..

my nearly empty baby blue glass water bottle..

a cold pack, now lukewarm to room temperature from being pressed against my feverishly warm skin.. alternating.. forehead..stomach..neck..forehead..stomach..neck..
filled with hundreds of those micro gel beads..baby blue.

a recently opened crinkly bag of Saltine crackers my mother had given me to settle my stomach that was either not favoring something i had eaten several hours before..or not favoring the lack of the food that i should have eaten..

my alarm clock, reminding me that i have to wake up soon.. work.. i thought i was sure i didn't feel like going..
my stomach turned at the thought when i entertained it..

"You think you won't feel better by then?"
my mother had asked me..
i knew that i would..

i had 2 hours to recover..to sleep...
but the 2 hours had come and gone within a slow blink..
no sleep...
but recovery and comfort had become mine at least...

sleep, recently, had never come as easily as it always had before..

the warm and comforting rain would commence soon..

my book..a quarter of the way read..my great escape..
newly discovering a gift of narration, and simultaneously hoping it wouldn't cease with finishing the book..

and my retainer that i had comically and seemingly unconsciously swiped off before the incident so that they wouldn't get ruined..
only now it had occurred to me that i hadn't removed them in attempt to protect them from stomach acids.. but to alleviate the nauseating taste lingering on my tongue..

had i been selfish?

no...now was not the time to be ******* myself..
it hardly ever was..

focusing harder..

a massage bar strong with fragrant peppermint and cinnamon, pushed as far away from my nose as possible..
placed atop my vanity just on the other side of my nightstand..

my auburn hair, disheveled yet perfectly placed amidst..

a thick, extra blanket tossed aside at the foot of my bed..
reduce the fever
i had intended..

my poorly folded shorts and socks i had removed..

my electronics in disarray beneath my writing desk..
laptop charger plugged into the wall yet unplugged from the laptop itself..
my earbuds still attached, carelessly dangling to the floor..
the DSM-5 ever-so-gently placed atop my laptop..

i was always aware of the tremendous amount of books in my room..those lived in..and those awaiting their turn to have their pages grazed and loved..

and my little dog, cozied and nestled into her reciprocally little round bed in the corner of the room..
sleeping soundly with one eye open, always protecting us both..

my bedroom door open, i could hear the distant and gentle sound of dishes clattering and soft, running water..
pots and plates and plastic cups...

my mother must have decided to wash some dishes instead of trying to rejoin my stepfather in slumber..

or had he been awake, getting ready for work?

one thing i was sure of..

i suddenly frowned, corners of my mouth turned downward..

i suddenly felt bad and sorry for waking them..

ashamed..
thought this shame had not come from an external source..
irrational..
i am getting better at this..

but i realized then that had they not cared for me, they both would not have come running up the stairs at 3:50 a.m.

they showed me during my darkest moments..mostly.

my stepfather in his warm gentle temperature-checking hand grazing across my forehead as i sat, weak on the bathroom floor..
furrow between my brows, a tear gliding down my cheek.

my mother, in the way she stayed..sat with me for an hour after
as we ruled out the etiology..
in the way her strong hands massaged my feet, for comfort..

asking for help is okay..
i reminded myself..

being vulnerable
and allowing others..
the ones with pure intentions
to see me at my best..worst..and ugliest..
and looking for the moments they show me they even still love me..

courage..
in a NEW way..
something i had to get used to..

— The End —