Retreat into silence
Into noise, cacophony
So loud that one disappears
Into oblivion
Sinking deeply
Screaming silently
No one hears
“You’ve got this”
Head in hands
Who hears
lost
We only have freedom to choose when we are not in danger
When we speak from a position of strength, we forget that not everyone has the same privilege. Without a calm place to stand, without stability, there is no safe place to strike out from. It is the most fundamental human need.
Safety and security is more than a good neighborhood or a job. It is the sure thought that tomorrow and for the foreseeable future, there will be enough to eat, there will be a home that does not itself contain dangers, and despite what problems may be thrown at us, we will have a support system of people and seeable graspable opportunities which insure our continued lives and futures.
Most of us don’t have that. At best we have 2 of the 3 and hope that in some far off unknowable future we will be able to start planning for more than today. Most of us won’t make it to that future.
We are stuck on a ferris wheel which we stepped onto, all naive and full of dreams, hoping and thinking that tomorrow will be better. And that’s the best case, many were forced into darker alleys and worse choices by main circumstances.
How do we make it out? As a people, as humanity, how do we stop breaking the hearts and minds of our people just to perpetuate systems which promote the continuous devolution to barbarism.
I don’t know. And it’s hard to think of how to do so. I’m not safe. And it’s only because my broken heart and mind won’t allow me to sleep, that I’m able to get out even these words. All the while, wracked by doubt and worry and fear, thinking about the morning. When it all starts up again.
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In our silences, we must all find our own reasons to stay
In the depths
In the dark
Pressure pulling down
Feet covered in muck
Lungs slowly empty
No panic
Accepted endings
Dying by inches
Unseen in the dark
Faces peer down
Passing by
Looking into the water
Seeing only reflection
Smiling
Pushing free
Swimming up
Breaking surface
Breathing in
Forgoing dissolution
…and maybe peace
To spit in their eyes and stand defiant
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Resonant on the frequency of attenuation
Listening to the background hum
Silence an impenetrable barrier
Hear the rush of blood
Muted cotton closing in
Numb
One too many traumas
Like shock but with less bemusement
Everything normal saying it’s anything but
Something shattered can be mended
Something broken can be healed
Gilt gold edges fixing cracks
But missing,
Or dust and shadows
Complicated makes one long for false rainbows of simpler times
False memories easier than this sound
Of nothing
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The Sky crys the tears I am unable to
To justify my love
having been told so often that it can’t be
that it’s too soon
I find myself in a constant war of justification where I say “I love you…”
waiting for the rejection
waiting for the no
waiting for the hesitation that says your love is scary
and I say
in that forced brittle cheer of the beaten
and all flinches “…but I love everybody.”
which is sorta true
I love all the people I love and have ever loved
but I diminish my words
scrunch down to make them fit
this too small container of what is acceptable
I’m the broken one for my love
I’m the tragic fool for my open heart
it’s always too soon
until it’s too late
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Train Whistle
So I have two simultaneous tracks of thoughts running right now and they go like this
Shouts, “Fuck!”
But with different inflections
On the one hand the job I thought I had is vanishing faster than sand in a windstorm. I might as well be standing on the tarmac as it goes flying by while the pilot Shouts, “No really, I have nothing to hide.” Which, as we all know is code for, I have things to hide. And the more it’s repeated, the more we know that the thing you’re hiding is deep and dark.
And on the other hand, I’m excited and anticipatory but apprehensive too. Because, I know it’ll go OK but I also know that I tend to go silent when I’m nervous and when there’s nothing to lose, I’m on top of the world but then I start thinking, and that churn begins. That overthinking and the litany of failure and all my friends saying that’s great but I don’t want you to get hurt and I smile and say I understand when I just want to say too late.
But
It’ll be fine right?
My life isn’t a pointless series of days where people I love leave me and I’m way too much for anyone, everyone else. My dad’s fine and it’s probably not cancer and even though he’s gotten more conservative than sane Republicans, I’m not ready to lose him.
Did I say 2 tracks?
I must have lost count.
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Stress dreams
Waking up sleepy
Sleep brings dreams
Dreams that feel real
Real like a life not being lived
Living in ways that I’m not
Not happy with what is happening
What happens when you wake without
Without that connection to someone
Someone you thought
Thought was forever
More than a friend
Friendship led deeper
Deep into companionship
Companions who loved
Love doesn’t mean together
Together romantically at least
Least among equals
Equality of choices
Choices I made hoping for you at my side
Side by side in companionship
I never thought we’d end up together
But I did think that we would be more
Than the past heights
Echoing forward
Losing coherence
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If we wake, let us wake together
I am thirst spent in moments spellbound
Hunger grows without regard
Desirous of your touch
But more your words
Come softly away
Embrace in person
Forever
Know words spilled out
For silver truth
Match action
Clasp hands
Know me for truth
You are mine forever
As I am yours
Let us join
and become heirs
to our own Joy
Let what was once buried
Break newly sprung
Come my dear goddess
Let us rejoice
Clasp hands and become whole
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Melancholic musings
I feel old. Like time and chance have passed me by and now I am just marking time. That I’m just waiting for my last hopes and dreams to die. I think about the things I’ve done and the fortune I pissed away by living way higher than I should. I think about the double lives and lies of my youth and the requisite silence that surround those years. About how there are none now alive who I can talk with about those times. I think about the memories that haunt me. The failures most of all. My failure to protect those in my care before I even formed the philosophy that makes their care a mandate. My failure to see the wrecking ball coming and the last remnants of a life wiped away when the soft beep of the heart monitor drones out the long flat noise off all days fled.
My failure to fly to your side when you needed me. My failure to anticipate the need to take things a little further.
I’ve had triumphs. But they only serve to highlight what I could do if I were on top of my problems. That’s probably too harsh but it’s what I feel right now. I often think that if you dare to love me, that is the worst mistake you could make. Because all who’ve loved me either die or see their lives thrown into chaos. Not by my hand but still, it always seems to happen.
And I find myself deeply, hopelessly in love and loved and I watch as, helpless, things continue to contrive to keep us apart. Is the universe that much of a bastard? All I know is that I won’t walk away from you and that I will do all that I can to get to you.
For the first time in a long time, I am bending all I have to a task. Let’s hope that it works out.
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Muscle memory
My heart rips it’s way out of my chest
It flies away east, looking for her
It’s filled with the dark loving of her
Too heavy to make the journey
But Hope’s foolish song
Pulls it forward
I watch it wing away
Stuck rooted to the ground by the sure knowledge
That it won’t work
That there’s no ending that starts with sweeping her off her feet
But all I can do is watch
Blood patters to the thirsty earth
Chest hollow
No longer filled with even the wanting
I watch
And pray
Though I don’t pray
But hope loudly
To whatever power
Laughs it’s way through my life
I pray
That my heart will find her
And be safe
Or else
Die on the journey
Pelgris 