glossy eyes
locked in a
downward gaze,
counting each
passing crack
i step over.

a raging war
in my mind,
a battleground
upon sidewalks,
just trying
somehow
to take cover.

i’ve always been the third wheel,
the pity friend,
the background character.
i’ve always been another body-
just to make the group an even number,
another voice-
just to make the laughter slightly louder,
another wallet-
just to make the split cost a little cheaper.

Each morning I rise,
I awaken to a present,
neatly wrapped in sunlight,
and gently laid upon my lap,
awaiting its grand opening.

A parcel of intangibility,
a package of inherent promise,
bound by ribbons of time,
and bestowed to me
upon each new dawn unfolding.

It is the gift I loathe,
its unwrapping I deeply scorn,
never failing to haunt me,
as each morning I’m presented
with the gift I cannot reject.

when the emptiness pervades
when the fog does not clear
when the incessant doubts
pound like drums in my ear
when the heart is chained
when the shackles are too heavy
when the ground underneath
no longer feels steady
when none of me feels real
when all of me feels contrite
when the feelings i can’t bear…
these are the times i write.

i like to believe each soul is its own special color
toned by our own unique palette of experiences
and tinted through the unique medley of our hearts.
some colors very similar, most very different, and no two exactly the same.
every color existing as innate necessity within the rainbow of humanity.

sifting through old clothes,
i enter a museum of self.
costumes of my past
hung up on display.
as i touch every fabric,
i’m reminded of each story:
the character,
the cast,
the script,
the stage.
it is the wardrobe of
a washed up actor who was
ever yearning for the applause
of her audience and
the praise of her critics.
all those years she wasted
losing herself in roles,
in the demands of characters,
now collecting dust within a dark closet.

it is called a breaking point because
every cell, every fiber of one’s being
has been gripping so tightly onto
the thread of what it knows to be true.
and when that thread snaps,
the entirety of the person becomes unraveled
in an instant.
a thread that sewed one together over many years:
every moment of experience, a stitch
every belief about oneself, a knot.
its breaking point tears apart the very fabric of one’s identity.
and what, at first, feels unfamiliar & uncomfortable,
is only a return to the very beginning of oneself;
the unentangled person.

reaching out
palm to a holographic hope
dissipating like fog
as my fingers linger
in the air it once permeated.

maybe fantasy only serves its purpose
by not being touched.

only when she finally laid down everything
that she had been carrying
between her two hands-
this was when she was able to finally see
the tattered skin
of her palms and
the aching tendons
of her fingers.
only when she finally released the sore grip
that she had molded into
part of her identity-
this was when she was able to finally feel
the freedom she held
within her bones and
the power she held
within her hands.

the beautiful play of life
is that i am all i will ever truly know and understand,
and everything else that i experience
is an expression of a separate experience,
of which i try to understand
only through the ways in which
i understand my own experience.
so that if i can experience myself and understand myself
in as many ways as possible,
i might become ever closer
to understanding every other expression of experience.
ever seeking to merge myself with the universe at large
and expand myself through infinite understanding.

i handed a piece of glass
to someone holding a hammer
behind their back

humor me
with an unknown.
and i will find freedom
in understanding that
a known
must emerge.

i am in a waiting room.
for weeks i have lived inside these four walls of expectation.
hoping that one day, my name be called.
that one day a stranger might open that door, hook me up to some clunky beeping machine,
and tell me that i am alive.

and sometimes it comes a point
where i am laying under a night sky,
staring into a blackness mounting
a million different twinkles of hope
upon a canvas above,
waiting for some kind of movement
to happen suddenly among
the million glimmering miracles,
to catch me by surprise
so that i might wish upon it
some other kind of miracle to happen
upon a canvas below.

take my words
for what you see
as they float down
a stream of propensity.
your mind is the potter
my words are the clay
the artwork you create
is not the message i relay.
it is up to you
to make this choice:
what will you hear?
of which voice?