oh how I rejoice

me, my love, and the sea

the caves in which I whispered

secrets between shallow breaths

the nights I curled into you

my dreams your dreams

with no boundary between

oh how I rejoice

to dance above the waves

crashing onto the shore

to have someone

my great love to be

oh how beautiful

when you broke me

and how happily

I cracked, slid down,

disappeared with a terrific splash

dancing on the side of a cliff

oh how I rejoice

to have loved someone

enough

to bring me down

oh my hypertonic heart

my sunken sea legs

my arms still wrapped

around everything you gave me

my dreams turned ghost

oh how I rejoice

me, the rocks, and the sea

Real men cry in broad daylight.

With nightfall, solitude tags along,

and in the moon's arrival,

some find the time to cry.

But why wait for nightfall?

Why wait for solitude?

Why hold back on your tears

when you know they are ready to flow?

We are told to choke all emotion,

put a stopper on all weakness.

So we do as we're told

and soon enough,

we forget how to feel properly.

But to those whose manhood

isn't bound to them as a facade:

you are the men with the strength to cry

in broad daylight.

After a long day of futile lectures and taxing quizzes, I find that there is nothing more therapeutic than watching a film. The idea that you can abandon all the facets of everyday life and submerge yourself into a fictional world without any consequence is the most appealing thing I can imagine. The mere glow of the illuminated screen is the only high I need.

Dark

Light

Right in between

Pale

Brown

What does it matter?

If you're darker,

does that mean

you don't have feelings?

Does it make you better?

Cause you've got different pigmentation?

What does it matter?

If you're paler,

does it make you

more violent?

Does it make you dumber?

To a blind person, we are the same

Why should sight cause wars

when differences are what make us

human?

School is terrible

It's boring and I hate it

The only good part of my day

Is over by 9:15am

Wish I only had 2 classes

So I could just run

And write lists

That that won't happen

Cause school is a bitch

It was the way he looked at her.

Like he knew she was the answer to all his problems, the missing puzzle piece, the one who could decipher the key.

It was the way he pressed his lips against her heavenly features.

Ever so gently, one on the tip of her button nose, and one on her forehead as he caressed the nape of her neck with one hand and her cheek in his other. Skin to skin contact made his soul jump.

It was the way he cackled when she was around.

The adolescent boy in him came out to play whenever she told her charismatic jokes. The carefree and relaxed side of him would seep through his introvert shell.

It was the way she made him feel tranquil.

World War III may have been in the works at his parents, and he may have been "in between jobs", and he even may be neglecting his school work so much that it effected his future. He may not have a plan on what to do with his life, but when he was with her all of it seemed acute. All he saw was her in this beautiful universe. Not even the biggest most prettiest star could compare.

It was the way he loved her.

The fiery pit in his stomach only grew stronger everyday. Hearing himself speak those words to her made him want to collapse.

"3 words.. 8 letters.. say it and I'm yours."

But it was the way she said it's over that affected him the most.

Tell me what's worse, not being able to eat a solid meal because of the wrenching pain that's stuck like tar on your heart making it feel like you're suffocating or not being able to sleep because you can't find a section of your pillow that isn't damp from your tears and snot?

The night is gifted with that grace that so few possess. Though the world is asleep, there is no sense of foreboding to be found in the late hour. The sky's soft darkness is textured by clouds oddly bright and silvery, stealing away the moonlight for their own contours. You watch them pass with a specter's idleness, roaming along and towards another horizon as stars wink down at you between them.

Your curiosity is piqued by its allure. There is something indelibly innocent and very nearly wondrous about this feeling in your chest as you look up at the midnight stars. There are some secrets here, some whispers of inspiration untainted by others, previously touched but never truly realized. But it's not soothing; it's too enchanting to be peaceful, this sensation. 

As you gaze at it from your window, you hear a noise. No, not only noise. A faint hymn? A melody, rather. A piano, a voice? An accompaniment of sorts, and more complex than you thought. The longer you strain to hear, the more instruments you pick out, the more you make sense of their soft intricacies weaving together, rising louder, more ambitious, more compelling and excited. 

You remove yourself from your desk, at first unsettled, but more so intrigued. The music is coming from outside, and you were going there anyways ... to get a better look at the sky.

There is no denying it as you walk up the stairs: the music is coming from outside, just beyond your house. A tinkling of piano notes, of strings in the background, a girl's voice intermittently singing wordless harmony and other times speaking in chime-like words you cannot discern. It is so very nearly terrifying, but too mystifying and captivating to feel that fear. It's drowned beneath your curiosity, the possibility of something unimaginable.

As you unlock your door, a shiver seems to extend from the mechanism to your entire body. You don't need to pull the knob, because you now see rich, violet and emerald lights flowing against the walls of your home, reaching through the windowpanes, almost too timid to reach into that place of normality, but just bold enough to show you their color. But more importantly, you don't need to pull the knob because ...

The door has opened for you.

And the music has rushed in with it. In fact, their sounds have become more chaotic, yet more beautiful, as if incited by your entrance into their presence. 

A whole cast of characters are decorating your driveway as you step out in stupefaction. Dozens of performers are dressed in grand, bizarre costumes you would only recognize at a theater or a circus, but even then, that wouldn't quite be doing them justice. They're not from here; that's all you decide.

There is no fear, not as the music swells from the instruments, not as the lights shine brighter from the caravan of carriages that have lined your driveway, not as you watch a juggler cascade a quintuplet of knives into the air, not as an illusionist ascends by seemingly no effort at all into the air, accompanied by a trio of acrobats darting all around her by a means of strings attached to the trees surrounding your driveway. And not, certainly not, as a woman with a small top hat and a pair of finches on either shoulder walks towards you, and extends a hand invitingly with a bow of her head.

The door of the foremost carriage opens without aid as she motions you to come closer. The music rises. The performers begin to collapse their movements together in a crescendo of talent, weaving like fireflies in a competition of whose brilliance is brightest. 

And you are walking forward to join them, putting your foot in the first stirrup of the coach's steps, to watch the final moments of their performance, to slip inside between the curtained windows, and never look back, as the wheels begin to roll away.