My mind has become lost within the abyss of societal conformity. Falling prey to the routine of the worker bee. A slave to my new life. I no longer hold balance within for everything has fallen to a swirling spectacle of chaos. I'm trying to make sense of it all, to see the light inside the dark. My heart it feels is my only salvation for my humanity, my hopes and dreams hanging on a single stranded thread. A thread from which I've been bound since birth. Fragile it is. The delicate balance that life requires. With each off setting adversity the thread frays just a little bit more. I need to regain my calm, to reflect upon myself and find my flame.

It was many years ago back when I was a child with the most vividly colorful imagination. It was as if there was someone in my ear whispering stories to me, whispering names, places, lives that I could create merely with words. Shadonn was one such name. I can't remember when it came to me, only that when it did it rung true in my ears. The name came to symbolize a character, an alternate version of self with all the qualities I lacked.

I am a machine

Built by sin and fueled by the fires of gasoline

I am the son of no man

Someone cast out, the bastard child of some protocol design.

All these wires inside tare through my humanity; who will wake me when I've lost all sanity?

They say my programming was built to exceed but all the demons I have buried within are starting to win are causing me to recede

Of this to you I woefully plea

Find me and fucking set me free!

I'm as numb as a machine, I don't think I want to be me...

Is it the machine or just another system error?

Bleed me dry and all you'll find is wires

Turning to ash surrounded by the fires.

My program has got me all caught up in between

My humanity and my machine

The man in me and all that's yet to be seen

This I tell you is the pain of the heart upon it's wearer.

Is it the machine or just another system error?

They push another production line

Just to make more slaves of the same twisted design

I'm just another one of the unclean.

Turning into another faceless machine.

Silent just as I was sold I'm programmed to do as I'm told.

Obedient till I rust, a slave till I'm dust.

Is it the machine or just another system error?

Bleed me dry and all you'll find is wires

Turning to ash surrounded by the fires.

My program has got me all caught up in between

My humanity and my machine

The man in me and all that's yet to be seen

This I tell you is the pain of the heart upon it's wearer.

Is it the machine or just another system error?

Starting to disconnect from all that's been left unchecked.

Fought this machine my whole life but to no avail.

Computing is failing and my mind is stuck in fucking hell.

We're all tormented by the terror that all this might just be another system

Error....

April 8th 2014 Nicholas Daniel

As a child I had no conceivable idea of what life would be like on my own. I imagined it as a freeing experience, that I'd travel the world and create my own adventures. My own legend. Yet in today's modern day and age, dreams like those are far beyond reach. Though like any dream one must believe to achieve. Life throws you through radical changes, revolutionizing the very idea of what one's idea of life was. My life is consistently being revolutionized, my heart beating it's tireless rhythm, keeping me alive, making me endure all the sorrows, and all the glories life has given me. I've spent so much time with just me and my solitary heart that it feels almost foreign to be so in love as I am. So convinced I was that the weight of the world had to rest on my shoulders and mine alone. I knew love once before, yet I was the only one who knew it, my emotions toyed with by a child. Yet now I find an unrequited joy to know the love I know now. With someone who's heart has tread along an equally if not more arduous journey than mine. When her beautiful brilliantly blue eyes stare into mine I see an understanding. Such a mature understanding of the complexity of life, the painful sorrows and the joyous intermittent moments we all share. And in those eyes I see a reflection of the same yearning. The need to be loved, to be sacred in the eyes of another. If she only knew just how sacred she really was to me. When we lay together my heart becomes overwhelmed by the sheer volume of divinity I feel laying next to her. Each breath I take, I take a little deeper when I'm with her, each sorrow fades away as she kisses me, and every dream I've ever had...comes alive when she's by my side. Together she and I journey, growing with one another; changing one another.