“Something‘s missing. Something‘s wrong.

I used to know where I belong,

but now each day feels like a fight.

Nothing in my life feels right.

My mom tap-dances on my nerves.

My father has this way with words

that makes me feel like I’m a child.

My credit bill is running wild...

And then there’s the environment...

Let’s not start on the President!

My friends are all so self-obsessed,

and my chihuahua is possessed!

My Facebook posts are massive fails,

I’m terrified of vapor trails...

Oh, I just want the world to stop!”

“... Ma’am, this is a coffee shop.”

#therapy #coffee #chihuahua #whatisthepointofthese #challengeoftheweek

Gray is the day that breaks me out of my Glass Ball existence – breaking, shattering irrevocably the transparent walls that have kept me safe, kept me isolated, kept me whole.

Broken, yet finally aware, I wake up and sort myself out from the shards of my former life. I can’t go back now – can’t put the pieces back together, for they would never hold me now.

I step out, shaking and trembling, as the very filaments of my being for the first time begin to feel what it IS to feel.

I step. I falter. I fall...

Bruised, but determined, I get back up, press on and test my newborn legs.

A thrill of change ripples through me – a river of incongruency and imperfection that in its flaws achieves a beauty far superior to my Glass Ball life.

Yet it brings with it a tinge, a cringe, a twinge of a pain that hides its face and refuses to be named.

Am I lonely? Do I miss my Glass Ball life?

These feelings are new to me, too pristine for me to know how to understand them.

Before, everything was black and white, day and night, darkness and light.

And now?

Now, I don’t know good from bad, glad from sad, sad from mad.

But now I can feel… something.

I have no name for it yet, but it is finally, imperfectly and yet perfectly real.

#lonliness #rebirth #escape

Nobody reads poetry anymore...

Life has gotten far to loud for us to hear above the roar, 

of angry shouting heads and flashing lights and speeding cars

of children who grow up too fast

and self-inflicted scars.

We have lost the word 'contentment'

we've forgotten how to laugh

instead we bathe in our resentment

and we tear our world in half.

we've forgotten all our music,

lost the steps to all our dance

we've got sex and drugs and rock n' roll, 

but lost the sweet romance 

of a beautifully placed word

or a phrase that coaxes tears 

from the hardest-weathered heart

and we are blanketed in fears,

and each day it gets louder

and each second grows more dim

and each day it gets harder just to hear above the din

of the rising mad cacophony, 

the symphony of  strife

we are wrapped in cold technology

and bereft of love of life

yet, it only takes a moment to remember how to live

to shut out the droning chaos and to let ourselves forgive

all the grudges we've been holding 

and let go of all the pain

to seek the beauty of a moment 

and in that second, start again.

“Do you think they feel pain?” quips the wraith casually as it dips its elongated fingertips into the bowl, full to the brim with the quicksilver of a human soul. The wraith sighs contentedly as it brings its dripping fingers to its void of a mouth and pulls the essence of a human being into the gaping blackness as one would inhale a wisp of smoke. The soul makes a piteous moaning sound as it disappears into the depths of the void and then is no more.

“Surely not.” another, even more slender wraith answers in a bored drone with no perceptible hint of sympathy. The slender wraith’s gracile fingers are dripping with silver, and soon the moaning of a consumed soul fills the silence left by the absence of its voice. “That sound they make is caused simply by their passage through the veil and into the world beyond, nothing more.” It intones.

“Fascinating, I never knew that.” The more substantial wraith responds, dipping its fingers and sampling yet again. “This one must have been an old one - they have a more complex flavor than the young ones, but I feel they lack the pungent immediacy of the yearlings.” The table is filled with bowls of silver, a veritable feast for the two wraiths, who have set about to gorge themselves for an epoch or two on the buffet that lay before them.

The slender one offers its bowl to its compatriot. “Try this one - it was a woman who lost her only child - the note of sadness mixed in with the earthy quality of her desperation is intoxicating really.” The more substantial wraith takes the bowl and swirls its silver contents in order to better sense the quality of the spirit contained within. It lets out a contented hum “mmmm what depth” it murmurs dipping its fingers greedily into the the effervescence and consuming the dying soul with gusto.

“Not too much!” The slender wraith protests, “that’s one of my favorites!”

The substantial wraith returns the much lighter bowl to the table and cajoles its companion, “now now, don’t be cross - here, try this one - it’s quite powerful in a sickly-sweet sort of obvious way, but the aftertaste of irony really grows on you. He was an idiot, you see.”

The slender wraith recoils in disgust. “An idiot! Surely you aren’t trying to barter an idiot against my grieving mother!” The substantial wraith laughs - an ominous, throaty sound that would fill any human heart with terror, but that merely irritates his partner. “Of course this was not just ANY idiot. This was a politician.”

@anarosewood (I find this piece works best when one reads the wraiths with a posh British accent).

They say connection is a drug

a buzz that binds the soul anew.

The oxytocin fills his brain

and fuses his heart onto you.

But then connection starts to fail

and desperation makes him fear.

You hide your tears behind the veil

because he always wants you near.

Attachment has become a cell

you’re locked away without a key.

To outside viewers all is well

you’re drowning in your misery.

What once were harsh words now are blows.

You hide your pain behind a wall.

The worst thing is that no one knows

how much you ache, how far you’ll fall.

While he’s afraid he’ll lose his clout,

you are fearing for your life,

but he will never let you out.

You are his victim and his wife.

#fear #attachment #separation #divorce #domesticviolence #connection #violence #lonliness #metoo #addiction #spousalabuse