Wednesday, March 28, 2018

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.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

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.