Uncertainty
Is questioning
A part of my growth
Or my demise
Where have I been?
Where am I going?
Where am I now?
What do I do?
Who am I?
How do I live?
Madness
Or clarity
What is this uncertainty?
A bridge to understanding
Or quicksand
I feel so lost
Again...
Always?
Do I always feel this way?
Underneath?
Inside?
Or is there strength somewhere in there
Knowledge
Purpose
Intention
Why can't I grasp
Truth
It slips through my fingers
Like a fistful of sand
It slips from my mind
Like the item I forgot at the grocery store
It slips from my eyes
Just outside of my periphery
So I close my eyes
And search for truth
Fool’s Gold
Pyrite’s luster
& yellow hue
makes sparks
when struck
with steel.
& you?
Whipped cream
on dessert?
Or soap bubbles
on sandpaper?
Let’s not
call it love—
this bogus
emotion
you share.
Fake.
False.
Flirtatious.
Phoney.
Fraudulent.
Pyrite’s luster
& yellow hue
makes sparks
when struck
with steel.
But nobody
thinks
it’s real—
least of all
me.
Black Crows
black crows peck at my corpse
skeletonized remains alone and forgotten
struggling to wash pure with gallons of tears
memories branded and seared into breast
hollow throbbing bones collapsing in ruins
black crows peck at my corpse
dissolving into puddles of rancid death
unfolded particles of grief and sorrow
trudging paths of sharpened pain
digging into wounds, praying you’ll hear
black crows peck at my corpse
my feelings packed beyond last door
unraveled like a threadbare sweater
neglected and held in contempt
erased from deep depths of darkness
black crows peck at my corpse
abandoned and invisible in my corner
fading into grey world of oblivion
tiptoeing on silent padded feet, as I
pull blade of scorn from bleeding chest.
black crows peck at my corpse
“I am still here!” I scream
begging you to blow air into lungs
so I can inhale your essence
but I plod on, lost and alone.
Cancelled
I stared down at him for a second and then rolled my eyes towards the ceiling.
“Yeah,” I said, into the phone. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“But you promised.” My little sister’s voice came through the speaker, a high pitched whine.
“Yeah, I know. Things got a little complicated over here, though. I don’t know if I’ll be back in time for the party.”
“You said that you were going to come. You promised.”
I groaned, letting the noise whistle through my nose. “Yeah, sweetheart, but something came up--”
“It’s for your job?”
“Yeah, it’s--”
“I hate your job.” I could imagine Lexi’s face: her eyebrows drawn low on her forehead, defiantly, her chin jutting out, lips pulled tight, nose in need of a tissue. I imagined her arngrily wiping away a betraying tear and then planting her hand firmly on her hip, the other gripping the phone tightly.
I groaned again. I looked down at Claye and tried not to feel trapped.
“Look, I can’t talk right now, sweetheart.” I tried again.
“Why not?” Her voice took on a sarcastic tone. “Your job again? What do you even do all day?”
I grimaced. “Sorry, I can’t talk right now--”
“Why not?” She repeated.
Hades, she was starting to get on my nerves.
“I, uh, something came up. An emergency,”
“More important than me?”
I fought the urge to scream, swallowing down the sound. “No, sweetheart, but someone needs my help.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“Someone important, alright?”
“Whatever. You promised, I thought you kept your promises.”
I gritted my teeth. My hand wandered down to Claye’s forehead. I brushed my fingers over his clammy skin--he had stopped sweating long ago. His skin was hotter than ever, the fever was rising. I brushed my fingers along his cheek and elicited no response from his cloudy eyes.
Come on, Claye, I thought. You can’t die on me now.
“Sorry,” I snapped, not feeling sorry at all, “I have clingy, feverish assassin on my lap. I’ll call you back when I can convince him that he’s not going to die of a cold.”
It was a lie.
But I wished with all my heart it was true.
I hung up the phone before Lexi could answer.
“Claye?” I whispered, leaning over and speaking into his ear.
No response.
“Claye?”
His gaze wouldn’t meet mine, they pointed, rigidly at the sky.
“Claye?” I said louder, this time. No response.
It was a second before I noticed that the night had become eerily silent. His ragged breaths no longer filled the air.
My heart seized.
″Claye!”
There was no answer. I had expected none.
Tears wouldn’t come. I felt empty. I couldn’t bring myself to look in his eyes again.
Trembling hands grasped my phone. I dialed Lexi’s number. The ringtone sounded haunting in the empty air.
“Hello?” Lexi said. “Change your mind, did you?”
I shut my eyes and felt like breaking.
“Y-yeah,” I whispered.
“You’re coming?”
“I think I can make it,”
Tears came just then, streaming down my face, silently.
“Really?”
“Yeah, plans got canceled.”
Keep writing
Writing doesn’t have to be for anyone
or anything.
A stream of consciousness where
you can let your heart flow
to your fingertips
and seep into the page.
No second checks.
No deletes.
Because you can’t delete your heart.
No matter how hard you try.
As a writer I am human.
Full of successes and mistakes
(mostly mistakes)
but trying her best
(not always enough).
But overall a way to let loose the aches of the heart that keep
pounding and pounding, rattling against your chest,
pulling you to the ground with the weight of the world.
Because the weight of the world is never on your shoulders;
it’s on your heart.
Writing opens the cages we can’t see.
It can help the writer be free
and ultimately lets them just be
As people compare people,
poets compare poems
and hearts compare hearts.
“Why can’t I be more eloquent?
Why do I use so many statements and paragraphs?
Why don’t I have enough likes?”
As people compare people,
poets compare poems
and hearts compare hearts.
It’s the human nature,
yet with human nature we have been gifted the blessing
of the power of words.
And the power of sharing.
The ability and confidence
to post your heart
onto a screen
and watch it get judged.
Yet, keep writing, hearts.
Because no matter how dark or strange you may seem,
you are beautiful and unique.
Keep writing, hearts,
and let the world know who you
truly are
Save Me
I am submerged
below my flood of tears.
Can’t gaze
through murky vision.
My arms flail
trying to swim
through emotions
impeding my struggle.
I am drowning
I grit my teeth
to stay the flood
from flowing sobs
penetrating my soul.
Perpetual grief
adding to my misery.
My despair darkens
like sky’s sorrow.
Fissures weep
spitting blood of angst.
Chaos speaks
through thunder’s hammer
and lightning’s smite
Please, lend me
your heart
to float on before
deep watered threat
conquers
and takes me under.
Expel my torrents
from body and breath
before I gulp
the cascading torment
and nothing remains
but muck and sludge.
Quench my need
engulf me
immerse me
inundate me
wrap me
in your warmth
quell my pain.
You Killed My Love
I studied the gears, whirring, winding, spinning. My sword sheathed at my side, as I watched the very last mechanical man die. He creaked and groaned, his bits sputtering, many of them visible from the way I had flayed his skin away to find the “off switch”. Peering down, I dropped to a crouch to better look in his eyes.
“I wish you could feel pain” I whispered watching his gears churn, lights blaring and alarms dinging. They would’ve been triggers for other mechanical men to come save him, had there been any left that is. Tears filled my eyes, my hand shot out clenching his throat. Forcing his head up to look into my eyes.
“I know you can’t feel anything.” I murmured listening to the way he ticked beneath my hand. “But somehow this helps.” His arms moved from finding leverage to grasping at my arm. A last ditch effort to kill me as he died. Drawing my sword I sliced through the connection in his arms, the gears in those limbs died instantly as electrical current wires broke. Those wires swiped through the air freed; every now and again one would lash my bare skin. But I could barely feel it. I felt something so much worse.
I cried silently as I watched this thing slowly die. He was studying me now too, my hand clenched harder around his throat feeling the mechanical pits bite into my palm. Yet just as the electrical currents had not awaken me from this hysterical slumber I was caught in, they barely stirred me.
Deep within me a voice rumbled. I never felt myself speak, but somehow I did through the crushing pain, weighing me down deeper into the earth, deeper than this compound, deeper than everything. Until I was in the center of the core, burning alive yet not dying. This pain could not kill me, even though I wanted to die.
“You killed my love. My true love. The love of my life. You ripped the life from the one person I adored more than anything on this planet. But you don’t understand what that means do you? You cannot feel anything, you are nothing more than gears wires and goo.”
I paused looking for word that could describe what I had felt. Love.
“What you did is the most grievous fault. For when you stole a life, you stole a Force from this world as well. You thought you had the right to intervene with Something so much more than you. Something that burns hotter and brighter than any star I have ever seen, or ever will see. It burns you just like the sun as you let It in. Leaving a mark on your soul as indelible as a birthmark, Something that will never leave, though It may possibly fade. It can make you feel as though you are drowning, from how immense It is. You strive to reach oxygen for one moment where you can think clearly, but you cannot for while your brain should be what guides you, your heart pulls you in an entirely other direction: deeper into the water. Because now It runs the show. You are never without It, but you never want to be.
Because just as everything within you calls for you to kill, you mechanical man, everything within me calls to It. I was drowning, voluntarily. I was sinking deeper and deeper into Its ocean, letting go everything that was me for them, for It. I may as well be dead without It, for It was what made me—me. For It, I would’ve cut my own beating heart from my chest. Because of It, I was the most powerful person on this planet. No harm could touch me, no matter how many times you and your brethren attacked me it didn’t matter. My skin can grow back, I could’ve learned to live without sight, or without a limb, but I have no idea where to begin without It.
With every slice of your claws on my arm, I felt nothing. In my veins was a blocker, put in place by It. And when you would cut me the pain would be stopped by how amazing It was. And I knew I would be ok. Now, It is gone, and I cannot feel anything—just like you. For what is the point of swimming in a kiddie pool, after living in the ocean for ten years? Anything you could do to me now would send no alarms, for I simply do not care. Without It, what is the point. It was a once in a lifetime thing, like certain comets streaking across the sky. It was more beautiful than that, more awe inspiring, and more dangerous. For had the world unanimously voted for their death, I would have burned the entire world to the ground. To save them, I would’ve burned myself with it. Had I been killed before someone killed them? I would drag myself from the pits of hell to seek revenge on the person who thought they had the right. Or in your case, the machine.
You took my light, my life, my soul, my everything. You took the best thing in the world, for no one else had It more deeply in tune with them than us. If I were you, It would’ve been inscribed in every gear. But because I am me, It was whispered with every beat of my heart. It was coded in every strand of DNA in every cell pulsing through me. It was carved in my bones. And any action involving It was muscle memory, even if I had never done the action before.
Because It was everything to me. It was me. It is me, but you took It. And now I am empty, as if someone scooped out my innards with a hot spoon. I’m alive, but is surviving after writing the best story in your life only to have the “the end” come on the tenth chapter with seventy more to go... really living? I may as well be you.” I spat out the final insult. Returning my eyes to him.
During the monologue, my eyes had closed, but now they were open. And the mechanical man looked different—somehow. He was still sputtering and ticking. Yet there was something softer to him. And in the reflection of his eyes I saw something. A bunch of zeros and ones were running across them, binary code, again and again. After watching it awhile I made out the message. With a gasp of shock my sword flew from my side and I sliced his head away, finally the whole machine went dead silent.
Shakily I stood, the tears still flowing, but quite like white noise now. With purpose I left the last remains of any mechanical man behind. His final words, defying all we had ever known about his kind, spun through my brain. But they didn’t change anything. He had relocated me from an ocean to a plastic kiddie pool.
A fucking kiddie pool.