Twilight Musings

words fail me
i know not how to tell of that i know not how to feel
i cannot explain what i experience
and i do not experience what i do explain
life is contradictory
rhyme and reason are imagined devices
inventions to soothe us
when we think too much
see too much
feel too much
we put things in boxes for fear of not understanding, not knowing
but in so doing
we make it impossible to do those very things
words are such paltry devices
language fails where it is most needed
the things we so desperately need to communicate
are the very things beyond the capacities of communication
in living to capture meaning
we lose it
in trying to simulate feeling
we destroy it
life is not meant to be described or explained
it is meant to be experienced
we get so lost in trying to capture
a moment
that we keep missing it
put down your net
and just watch the moment fly
feel it in your core
take only what is meant to be taken
and then let it go

Disappear

i feel like
a puff of smoke
one breeze away
from fading forever

i feel like
a shadow
should the sun reappear
i'll vanish

i feel like
steam
on a mirror
in the way
waiting
to be erased

i feel like
dust
on a forgotten book
fearing remembrance
knowing
i will be dispersed
and vanish

i feel like
a lipstick smudge
hoping
you don't check the mirror
and wipe me away

Verbal Litter

i taste the bitter in every sweet
no relief
i see the end of every beginning
spinning into despair
too much care
feeling everything and nothing absolutely
resolutely in pin
gain always outweighed by loss
a toss between worth it and pointless
joyless existence
and yet persistence to live
why?
why am i still fighting a battle i know is lost
a cost too dear i keep paying
praying that this time there won't be so much pain
feeling like i'm going insane
how am i still breathing?
still bleeding when i've already spent every tear i could hold
"it gets better" so i'm told
bullshit
there is no "new day"
only a new way to hurt
burnt by hope's empty vow
now crushed with the weight of dreams unfulfilled
instilled with trust
now left to rust
i must be broken for these words i have spoken
are too bitter
verbal litter never meant to be said
instead meant to be buried
carried as an invisible weight
the secret fear of our fate
always present but never addressed
unconfessed fear, hopelessness, and rage
the unwritten on every page
because it's easier to fake a smile than to try and explain tears
years spent creaking a mask
and you ask why i'm quiet?
because i'm afraid the riot in my head
will turn my words to lead
verbal bullets: a bleeding out of the war raging within me
you call it sin in me to be this miserable
call my suffering fictional
call me self-centered
so don't be surprised when i am self-censored
i am already worn from fighting my own guilt and accusations
so i don't have strength left to meet your high expectations

Spilling

emotion

an ocean

constantly rearranging

changing 

fickle

a trickle at times

at others a flood

spilling blood

life's veins torn

worn with time

spilling, filling

simultaneously endless and finite

dark night

changing moon, so many faces

no homeostasis

a constant imbalance

reliance on the enigmatic

charged static

electricity

felicity: an ideal

not real

nothing to feel no point

a truth, forsooth

no such thing as absolute

shades of grey 

no way to know for certain

a curtain

fluttering between reality and dream

a seam ripped

a coin flipped

a choice

a voice in your fate

not too late

to choose

be your own muse

pick up your pen

write a new end 

or a new beginning

winning is not about when you start but how you finish

don't diminish belief in magic

tragic when we decide that fantasy and reality don't coincide

denied the right to make our own way

to stray down the paths that straddle the line between the substantial and the fanciful

radical worlds that they say we cannot coexist in

persist in your belief that flowers are fairies in disguise

surprise yourself with your sensibility

sensitivity to the beauty and the pain around you

Like Ivy

my thoughts are like ivy vines
growing uncontrollably
winding tightly around me
weaving through my rib cage
binding my lungs
slithering through the cracks in my heart
crawling up my throat
wrapping around my tongue so i can't speak
suffocating me
slowly
oh so damned slowly
feeling every slither of every leaf all at once and all the time

Panic

it starts in my chest
a tightness, an ache
like my rib cage has shrunk and there isn't room for my lungs to expand, my heart pounding, bruising against the bones

next it travels to my hands
a jittery, restless feeling
taut like a wire stretched
strained, shaking
tense, locking
tighter and tighter
nails biting palms

my stomach feels as though it has jumped into my throat, leaving my abdomen painfully hollow, thoughts flitting like butterflies from my brain to the empty cavity

my legs are Jenga towers, one wrong move away from crumbling

my thoughts are a tornado, like a rock avalanche drumming, like hail stones pounding, like dead leaves swirling, spinning faster and faster
my heart pounds faster and faster
my breath comes faster and faster

i'm trapped
i can't move
there is a storm screaming inside my head
but i can't move

To My Battered Heart

why are you still beating?
a mass of purple bruises and bloodied scars
cracks widening with each persistent thump

why do you still care?
still bearing others' burdens on top of your own
still feeling pain at another's suffering

why do you still trust?
why do you still let people in 
even after they've already left their mark, their scar

why are you still dreaming?
still reaching for the stars even as they fade away
still taking that leap knowing full well it is always followed by the fall

why are you still holding onto hope?
still looking for love
still believing in some kind of happily ever after

my ribs wrap about you like a cage, trying to crush you
my lungs stretch against you like stifling plastic, trying to steal air
my thoughts swirl like a tsunami storm, trying to drown you

and still
you beat