Unmask
Behind her mask is a web of lies,
a story pushed around and made to disquise.
A million questions but nothing for sure.
A trial and tribulation of a life unpure.
A destiny hatched from a rotten egg.
A successor living that supposed to be dead.
But for as long as she wears the mask on her face,
all her lies are then erased.
The Blank Page
How many of you struggle with the "blank page”?
I feel like I’m looking at an opponent who’s challenging me, sword extended. My enemy beckons me to find the right words, to somehow manage to pen them in such a way that they make at least some sense, having at minimum a modicum of entertainment value. I accept that invitation to fight every day. Writing’s a part of me, and as much as I’d like to forget about it, and deny it, I can’t get away from it.
Writing is like a lover you can never leave, but get rebuffed from time to time. There’s always something in the back of your mind that tugs at you, trying to force you back into old habits, to keep trying, to never give up, with a feeling never tires or ages.
Maybe my mind’s just too chaotic to try and make sense of what I’m trying to say, because I called writing an “enemy," but now I am going to say it is also my friend. When I have too much to say, and don’t feel like socializing, I have the comfort of the blank page, where I can say whatever I want.
There is a level of acceptance in solitude that I haven’t been able to find anywhere else, where thoughts in my head are like forces of nature, only they are locked away in my head, begging to be released. I am the keeper of the blank page, the place where all these thoughts and words want to be.
Writing is not a person and will never be worth more than one, but the craft is a passion of mine, and I know I can never be happy without it. I believe in a divine hand that is guiding me towards fulfillment, even if I am at a point in life where I feel like either everybody’s laughing at me, or they are ignoring me altogether.
Welcome to my mind, a place full of contradictions and abstract metaphors. One idea jumps right to the next, but for me, for some reason, it all makes perfect, ordered sense.
Imagine a seed, then sticking it in the dirt. At first there’s nothing to be seen . . . then growth appears. That’s what I want. I want to be better. I want to know I’ve improved!
My quality of life is enriched by my goals and desires, both characterized by relentless persistence, all tools I have laid out before the austere deity presiding over the written word, and how its nature is never satisfied, yet is also a gift brimming with love and encouragement.
When the time comes that I breathe my last, I hope I will feel peaceful knowing I spent my time doing things that helped augment me as a person, dismissing any superficial endeavors I abandoned once I knew they’d only come to naught.
Bring it on, blank page. We’re not through just yet.
Addiction
Anonymous it is said to be.
Defined as a problem by those who fail to see
Dependence is a comfort that we all seek.
Influenced by society telling us who and how we are supposed to be.
Causing a commotion from within.
Temporary escapes are turning against us.
Ironic that a written prescription can put you in the deep end.
Open your eyes to the reality
No one is immune, not even me.
My Word
If I had a Secret
I reckon I’d keep it...
I’d have to search out
old books on how best
to feed and to treat it...
I’d build an elaborate
wired bird like cage to
house it, with special
padlocks of gold, and
chains, all around it...
ornamental so that
if anyone found it
there’d be no doubt
it was a thing on the
brink of extinction...
and they’d just have-to
have-to have it...
just because of how
it’d sparkles so from
without and within...
I guess I’d do well
to grow a maze
to surround it...
like nerves and
veins or sinews...
sure to baffle and
confuse any idiot
foolish enough to
intrude upon it and
as an alarm, so I would
feel it I’d grow some
barbarous hedges...
to catch and tear what
ever predator would
dare venture near...
For myself I’d need
to then make a map...
and key to decode
what it was about...
cause in vain memory
shrouded remembrance
of its preciousness
might become clouded...
Of course not to be
cruel I’d let out the
poor dude to ramble
about once in a while...
in this well penned yard
as an extension of its
cage to stretch itself
and enjoy our days....
I’m not a jailer or reaper
of what I’ve chanced
to find just an old-fashioned
word keeper...
#Week LXXXIX #ProseChallenge #Secret
Cowards
I convince you to drink because I like when you laugh. I like how it reaches your eyes before it reaches my ears. I watch the smoke hit your lungs through your deep inhale and then wait for it to catch in my own on your exhale. It’s heavy, but it smells like you, so I hold onto it. I savor it. Your eyes are tired as you turn the lighter over in your hand. My fingertips close around it and your left hand as your right tugs at my waist. My eyes avoid yours, scared of what they will find. Scared that I might not catch my breath. And for a second I wasn’t lost. For a second I held on too long. Your fingertips throwing too much pressure on my rib cage. Too much pressure on my heart. Too much pressure on my mouth and my eyes. So I hold them both sealed up tight. My eyes and my mouth, closed. Because things were too clear. And I was scared. It was a kind of clarity that would have destroyed us both. I needed your hand in my hair, and I wanted to bite down on your skin. I wanted to open my mouth and close it on your clavicle. I wanted to steal what was left in your lungs and keep it for myself. And I needed you to push just a little harder. And now it’s cloudy. But for a second your hand on my hip was blindingly clear. For a second my eyes were wide open and filled with the light from the darkness.
Pull String In Case of Emergency
I’m a mass grave of a million parts, none of them mine. I am a strangled skeleton of angst and scars. And once. I think I was mine. Then they scrawled their ink across my bones. Used as the well to pour their stories into. Used as the paperweight to hold down their pain. The halfway house that keeps them warmed and fed. I’m the undertaker, cleaning the mess out of their insides. I’m the wrists they cut when the darkness insisted it be bled. And I’m the leech that sucked out the emotions that were bursting from their straight jacket bodies. The veins where they stuck their needles, dirty and diseased, once the sharps box had been filled. And the carpet that soaked up the inside of all the broken bottles. I’m the gutter that helps the flood down off the roof just before it jumps. And the ladder they used to climb back to the top. They asked me to carry it all. And suddenly it was mine. Or maybe I was theirs. But once. I think I was mine.