There's something incredibly southing about taking in this frigid air
Its chill flows through me
Dispelling the tired leaves of a long sweltering season
I'm left bare
An opportunity to appreciate the strength of my roots
Admire my branches
Though they be crooked, brimming with knots, and countless broken branches
Will I survive this time of reflection and blossom in time for Spring
Or cower in fear of another snapped limb

Oh sweet love, why do you hide in the shadows of my own self-doubt? Why do you torment me with images of perfection and perseverance when the human conditions stands in contradiction of cinematic flawlessness? How do I look beyond your digital providence when your organic counterpart lacks your provocative nature?
I follow storyline after storyline of heartache and sorrow as my heart fills with every beating note of your symphony of wishful yearning and lust. Oh you are my downfall love. You are my pain. You are all I have to lose and gain when the walls of my own sanity come crumbling down around me.
Love, your bipolar benevolence holds me up and throws me down. I look to the rain for sympathy but find the same disconnect I have with love as it has with the ocean. Your fickle grasp on my nights force me into days of ungodly self-loathing and pity towards my own self-awareness.
How I wish the elixir of forgotten memories and combustion of nullified senses were enough to guide me towards a lifetime of simplicity. But their medicinal and destructive nature hold only a reminder of my own impatience and impotence towards love. Numbing waves of philosophical hypocrisy banging against my brain in the hopes their square pegs and round holes can someday work out a solution to this ever-unsolvable problem.
Why can I not find you love? Why can I not find your ever-elusive shades of grey in the happiness of the common placed world? Why can I not find solace in your warm embrace and southing whispers of reassurance throughout my trying days and nights? Why do I look to you for understanding when it is the very thing I lack when chasing you?
Love, sweet love, I am tired. My boyish ambitions and mature desires are at war with one another. They strip me of sleep and forge images of my dwindling past and uncertain present. Merging forgotten losses and that which I crave in the present, only to show me how much I lack in controlling of my passions. You, my sweet love, are going to be my destruction.
You, my sweet love, are going to be my demise and my rebirth. Hope has no fullness or lessness in this illogical conundrum that has my mind spinning. You have no control over your influence and yet, influence my decisions beyond the scope of my understanding.
Love, my treacherous friend, how can you be unaware of your unpredictable power and remain a foreseeable authority over me?

When I was little,
Behind the backyard of my childhood home,
Separated by a field and a couple of rows of trees,
There was a factory,
Not a big one, just a small one,
That liked to operate at night.
The window of my old bedroom faced out  towards the backyard,
And by extension,
The factory.

I use to lie awake at night,
After I crept over to my window and pushed it as open as it would go,
I'd just listen to the sounds of the factory,
And imagine it were different things,

When I was 6 I'd imagine it was some sort of 100 foot tall beast of mystery,
Maybe walking on 6 legs, each 75 feet long,
Lumbering nearby like a gentle giant,
When I was 10,
It was a spaceship,
Destined to take me to a galaxy far, far away,
When I was 13,
It was a crowd cheering me on as I scored a touchdown.

It was relaxing,
It was southing,
Familiar and safe.

But one day the banging and muffled crashes of steel stopped,
Apparently the city finally cited the factory for noise violations,
And all heavy operations were to be halted by 8 pm.

I suddenly no longer had my monster behind the house,
No spaceship to take me to a galaxy far, far away,
No crowd cheering my name.

From here on out I'd have to go exploring to find monsters,
I'd have to build a spaceship if I wanted to go far, far away,
I'd have to put in the work so people would cheer out my name.