ashes on a dresser's top
a candle lit for one
a deck of suns and split are some
stopped in small hands lost

a single boy fell to the floor
the messenger brings news
for few is it a story through
for most worn cards are torn

So many can never find the words, the feelings,
because if they speak, what they know
It becomes a solidified highlight reel,
and not just a spiel, a tale told in the confines of safety to a person with a ticket that transforms them into the audience.

They devour the reel of desperation and despair,
The hurt child deep inside that starts through the mind, and leaks through the pours of your adult body, it paralyses you with fear, ruins your relationships, destroys the peaceful nights and waking moments.

It slaps you with a ghost hand and phantom pain, reaching from the past to remind you in the present that it still lingers,
they are still there  and they always will be, that it is their job to inflict pain.

Just one moment, one semblance of safety, is when the person with the ticket shows up to your screening, reaches for that ghost hand, and instead of twisting and pushing it away like you always beg, plead and scream to do
they grab the hand, hold it and say:

"This trauma is real, not a show, not a highlight reel, I will guide your scenes, your desperate cries and pleas, and I will help your child heal"

mindfulness on nature's needles
see the sky's brightness turned to max over hand prints
planned trips of impromptu gladness exceeds all
of every expectations, I breathe tall
I feel small, but content
the world's beauty just will never relent

it is my perception that ebbs and flows
my imperfections that make me glow
and my intentions that seem to go
in all directions connected expressions
I feel the calm of love and acception
within is lifted, the self-oppression
I'm blissed out this yoga session

I will not exhaust myself for the sake of making ends meet and let my dream wilt away
I refuse to settle, to find myself engrossed in a mundane life
in a town where the people are all pretending to not be miserable
I have spent too many minutes trying to fit the mold of what I thought I had to be
I want to believe I can come back to myself
like an old friend at a corner booth, caught in city winds
a foreign place but a feeling all too familiar
I'll meet her in a coffee shop, writing with ink stained fingers
this is the me I've always liked the most

So I started a bullet journal.
Where is life going honestly

the hands have turned in several circles
and here I am at last
my head between the leveled curtains
behind me, left for past

the future veiled by pleats drawn
undone a twisted cord from imagination
I see a lonely boy growing old
in cubicles and grocery stores
condemnation of pc screens
drifted words become
the only voice stony cold
I see a lonely girl growing old
in tiny houses with empty rooms
and a stuffed closet with nothing used
whipped stirred and done
the bony choice joking folds
a lonely person growing old

tears will well, in weeping fell
but clear eyes see fear lies
because of course beyond the curtains
nothing's forced and nothing's certain
thus all could be reality
it's mostly knowing keeping bold
just wait and see what's next for me
I won't be lonely growing old