Reasons Why

they ask why nothing happy comes from the pen that you wield, why every letter and every rhyme feels like raindrops on tin roofs and gray clouds forked with lightning. they ask why, when you feel no-one's watching, your eyes turn the same shade of dead that gray walls carry. they ask why your lips seem to break when you smile, concrete breaking cracking open. They ask why your silence never comes, why it's always so loud, so noisy ,a million music boxes playing at once.

they don't see. they don't see the misplaced guilt pushed upon you from birth. unspoken curses, unwanted circumstances, regrets denied over and over, but felt deep in your bones, in your heart, in your mind. they don't see that dead was what you were supposed to be. never meant to scream as you exited the darkness, never meant to breathe, never meant to wield such destruction on a forced union, never meant to be the cause of it. they don't see the poison seeping through your pores, running through your blood, dripping from your fangs. poison passed down from feeling, knowing, you are unwanted, unneeded, a mistake. poison from arguments done in dark corners, waking up in the morning feeling like you've walked into a pristine war zone. they don't see the knife in your mind ready, willing, able to slice, to cut, to kill, to bring, finally, the respite you've been craving since you were seven. they don't see that quiet makes you think and thinking lets the voices in. thinking lets in the guilt, makes you feel. silence calls attention to the poison in their words, to the denial in their eyes, the disappointment in the curves of their mouths, and the furrows of their brows. silence makes you hear it: that your existence is an unfortunate gift that has ruined the lives of two people through their union.

They ask why you still keep going. I'm too afraid to end it all.

Is it?

Hearts beat in time with the acoustic guitar in the background. Slow, sad, sweet, and with the knowledge that things aren't the same.

There's a change in the air: in between guitar chords and breaths, in between stolen glances and held hands. In the silence between two hearts unsung melodies take over, creating and recreating different sides of the same beings. Slowly, hands let go and drift further from each other, lips no longer meet for the same kisses, hearts no longer beat to the same tune. 

Is it worth it? To let go only to return disparate, looking for the same hand to hold? Are you the same heart? Do you still have one?

Is this, still, all you ever wanted?

Croissants and Afternoon Tea

In a little bakery in the basement of a local supermarket, surrounded by the most enticing smells of butter, bread, coffee, and sipping iced hibiscus tea, I lost my mind... 

Again.

I inhale the scent of butter, deeply. Letting it fill my lungs, I savor the tea I am drinking, trying not to get lost in the noise of everything and everywhere. Silently and desperately looking for something to anchor me to the present.

Butter, bread, tea, coffee, I recite the scents in my mind over and over, trying to engrave the reality of everything into my rapidly detaching brain. Croissants, I smell croissants. I tell myself to focus on the smell of the pastry. F-O-C-U-S. C-R-O-I-S-S-A-N-T. Remind myself I am here, in this bakery, surrounded by people.

Do not cry. Focus. Tea. Croissant. Focus. Feel something, no, not THAT FEELING. Find something. Do not breakdown. Bakery, supermarket, butter, coffee, cookies. Recite, rewind. But I've already lost it. 

I've already lost my mind.

Fiction 3

You sit beside me on the bench, I am in shock. Where have you been all this time? You look different, and you don't feel the same. Hair is shorter than five years ago, when you literally walked out the door and I never saw you again. Everything is different, but your smile is the same.

“How are you?” you ask, voice calm, steady. Your light gray shirt almost looks white in in the blinding sunlight, denim jeans a little worn at the knees, and white chucks that look like the ones you always used to college.

I don't know how to react. I don't know you anymore. “Dead inside,” I decide to answer after a long pause as the incredulous look fades from my face.

“That sounds familiar,” You grin.

“You don't,” I counter, looking away from a smile I thought I had loved once. Something about the way you look at me makes me think you know your magic has worn off.

“No more pining for a love that never was?” you ask, a sad glint in your usually mischievous eyes. They used to be so full of disdain, and disappointment at the world around you, so full of pain waiting to be passed on to me. I would take it, all of it. I didn't care. I thought I loved you.

I shake my head, “I never loved you,” I say resolutely, knowing you'll see through my lie. You know me too well, you always have.

“You did,” You state, so sure of yourself, you over confident, obnoxious bastard.

I laugh, “I was stupid.” I look up at the tree shading us just like it did when we were in college, “It wasn't real love.”

It's your turn to laugh, “How was it not real?”

“You never loved me back,” I declare, deadpan. I look at you this time, trying to finally see through the facade, the camera filters and the pedestals I put in place for you.

You fidget nervously, the same way you do when you find out you're wrong about something and don't want to ever admit it.

“You don't have to say anything,” I say, still looking at you intently, watching you squirm for once, letting my gaze fall heavily on the guilt I see simmering to the surface, “It's done. I've figured out why you fascinated me so much.”

“Oh?” You raise a condescending eyebrow and I want to rip it off with my bare hands.

“Yes,” I nod, looking at the building we used to call our school, “You made me live with the side of me I never wanted to see. Every single demon and monster in me, you brought them to the surface, you taught me to care for them, to feed them. Then I saw that they were your demons and monsters, too.”

You sit in silence, I don't know if I'm making sense or if you're listening. Maybe you're doing that zoning out thing you're really good at again. But I continue anyway.

“I was afraid,” I admit, “I was so afraid of what I had become, afraid of all this... this darkness you so readily set forth in front of me like a banquet, like a badge I should be proud of. I was so afraid of these monstrosities hidden inside me that your voice was the only thing that could save me. I couldn't save myself, I never tried. Then you left, like that,” I snap my fingers, “And there I was grappling with whatever you had called out, making you the inspiration of my misery, my sadness, my heartbreak... all the things I wrote down. I made you a beacon, and all you did was laugh at me.”

You try to wrap your arm around my shoulder like you used to when you'd break my heart and I'd let you haphazardly stitch it back together. But I shrug you off.

“I'm not letting you fix anything this time,” I stand, “I did that myself. I don't need you or your memory anymore. I never loved you, because real love is returned.”

I walk away, decisively, finally.

I don't look back, not anymore.

You were the horrible boy who made me laugh once. That was it. That is all.

Break

Everything is heavy:

The head, the heart, the body, the soul-- if it's still there.

On the brink of nuclear meltdown,

somewhere, there's a crack that can't be found or fixed.

All that can be done is to sit, wait, hope for the best.

But it's not a nuclear reactor melting,

it's you.

Hugging your knees in the middle of the night,

trying to swallow sobs as everything grips you,

all at once, all too quickly.

The wind is warm, and yet,

you feel like your heart is pumping icicles

into the freezing rivers that are your veins.

There are voices in your head,

telling you it's alright,

everything's fine.

But there are mobs in there,too.

Screaming profanities, infidelities,

injustices, and flaws.

You hear them above all else.

Barely breathing as you try to not drown in your own tears,

as you struggle for a breath,

the staggered kind,

when it feels like your lungs are racing to catch something,

anything, to fill them, to help them move.

Your heart is beating in a staccato beat,

you can barely tell when one beat ends

and another begins.

But there you sit,

knees to your chest, 

tears streaming down your face,

choking back sob after sob,

as you wage war against yourself.

There you sit,

a hollow shell,

an unrecognizable human.

Because the last time you really,

truly looked,

you were still alive.

Mid Youth Crisis

25, and still, stuck in a town I always said I'd leave. 

Is this all there is for me? 
Follow in the footsteps of my parents and just... Be? 

Is this all I'm supposed to amount to? 

A simple breath upon this earth? 

A west wind so faint, no one feels its passing? 

No songs, no prose, no monuments, or fanfare? 

Just a voice that will fade along with the voices of many others who came before me; all the others who left no mark before me. 

I am a line in the sand, trying to become a bay, a pool, even a puddle, before the tide comes back to eradicate everything that I've made, everything that I am.
But here I am struggling and fighting against the rising tides, the waves that will erase me from being. 

Digging deeper and deeper, trying to peave a mark, a memory, a monument; anything except a tombstone and tears.
I am stuck. 

I am stuck trying to move, trying to create a semblance of SOMETHING, trying to touch as many lives as possible, trying to CREATE something that will REMEMBER.
25, and still, in a sea of faces, you wouldn't see me.