There are a lucky few of us, who benefit from the paltry services of the mental healthcare system.
The rest of us, well, we are the ones who walk naked down the street with absent faces.
We are the ones who sit alone and ***** on the street corners of your small town America.
Your America.
We mutter nonsense to ourselves, for the sake of a sanity that was denied us.
Denied us, yes, as we sought and sought a solution to our degradation, but we never could grasp that golden ring.

Mrs. Murphy trims her hedges.
And we walk obtrusively through the park
on your warm, sunny, sky blue happy day,
seeking love and connection with our own humanity in the garbage receptacles
that are scattered down the paths of our solitary confinement.

And in your eyes?  Yes, yours!
We seek our solace, our redemption.
If only a single soul would glance up,
and connect with the eyes of our soul starved, 'yes, here I am, friend!'

We seek the self same recognition that you do.
We seek that opportunity to be.
That opportunity to be loved.

they hang as banner flags in a sinning room

peace

purification

compassion

prosperity

knowledge

all but reminders,

all but suggestions.



surely, purification is out of the question,

sitting unquestionably in a college dorm.



compassion is seldom met,  

as tests land, obtrusively on the same Friday.

a Friday.  



prosperity in which we are striving to be,

losing sleep,  

losing time.

all for it.



knowledge tries to be a friend,

tries to take time to nourish the alcohol flooded brain  



the flags continue to flutter, eyeing all those who pass,

reaching out sewn up fingers and cloth covered mouths.

maybe they should be listened to, devoted to, prayed to,



or perhaps, they should be ripped down

feelings that stick to the roof of my rib cage
like stubborn peanut butter
I attempt to loosen with distractions from you
I go running or maybe more walking
I try to run to dislodge these thoughts
maybe I run to become something new
something unknown to you
distant and foreign, unfamiliar

what I really need is to learn a new language
so that it can take up all the space in my brain
cramp you out
I need some time reading a confusing book
so I have less time to remember

these days you're everywhere obtrusively
I am trying to shut you out and forget
I fail and I remember, hopelessly.

all but one recurring hope, I keep.
I hope you think of me -
because I am always thinking of you.

He listens--
Like a priest to confession,
Like a perfectionist to praise,
Like a child to the jingle of an ice cream truck.

And as waves of nearly psychotic personal reflection come spilling out of my mouth in the form of an attempted conversation,
I find that I am searching in his eyes,
Pleading for his rescue from my own awkwardness and stupidity,
And the self-loathing that accompanies identifying such qualities within yourself.

And I know,
By the look he returns,
That one of two things must be true;

Either he has no idea how just how deep my stream of random and obtrusively odd curiosities and ponderings really is...

Or he does know,
And he just loves me.

And then, I wonder what kind of idiot he must be to fall for someone so grossly imperfect,
So terribly undeserving of adoration and devotion.

And I supposed, he must be my kind of idiot.

Because in a mind filled with ambitions and information and drive and intrigue,
He always makes room for me.

And as it turns out, I like myself more for him loving me.
Because memories of him increase my value infinitely.

I cannot buy them or remake them.
If I let them go, they are gone forever.
Unforgettable memories are the currency of love.

I want to let go
But I don't
I can't stop doing this
There's help when I'm a victim
But not when I'm a perpetrator
I don't love you or anything
I just want you
I want to feel you wrap around me
And within me
Obtrusively
But you don't
Which is good for both of us
Still when I think of you
I burn and
I want you to burn in me