She pours the milk tea

In two olive colored porcelain cups;

I set the chairs

In the verandah of our little home

facing few distant windows

of a cemented white shed.

The orange of the dawn is

Melting into its wide plate of blue

Like the ripples of water

Spreading across the stillness of the sea.

"The tea's getting cold",

My eyes murmur into her ears

And she looks me through her leaned lids,

Smiling through the sound of the sip.

I take two spoonful of sugar,

She takes one

And drinks it hot the way it is.

I drink my tea half cold

So she could sit beside me a little longer

by the time I drink the last sip

My tea won't go as cold as

the stillness of the sea.

Today is one of those days

Where I smile

When my insides are tearing up

Where I beg the air to be considerate

Before my tears well up

Where I talk

But actually want someone to listen

Where I try to be jolly

Without having a vision

Where I hope I make it alive

While wishing I don't survive.

×∞ Adin

15 July 2022

“It’s cold.

I think I needed you here.”

\ Message sent \

I tucked my cell phone back in my pocket and folded my legs enough to lift them up a little higher to make them rest on the bus seat and clutched my right arm around the head rest which was partly cotton flesh and partly cold callous steel, a bare reminder to make me miss his absence more. I carried black hot latte in my left hand but it barely made any difference.

Windows showed no signs of empathy; I could relive my old bus school days drawing lousy

shapes only if my gloves could have allowed. Soon after I realized that my sitting position

resembled a pyramid of cashmere designating that my eyes were on bait with this bizarre

weather.

I could feel the warmth leave the bus like someone’s last letter to his lover from the last

droplets of his ink as soon as people started to take their leave. I surveyed a little through

the atmosphere and could plumb the only scent of humans which reeked of fatigue and

stuffed fabric. I counted the totality of 14 including myself.

“5 more stops to go”, a familiar voice whispered and my subconscious confirmed. I looked

behind but my eyes went foggy. HOW COULD HE POSSIBLY NARRATE MY EXACT

HALT? HOW COULD I MISS TO COUNT ONE MORE HUMAN EXACT BEHIND MY

BACK? My skin follicles stirred up into needles and pins. That voice seemed neither

unfamiliar nor welcomed.

‘Did you check your notification, Valeria?’

THAT VOICE AGAIN! THE VOICE!!! ADAM? BUT HE DIED LAST YEAR.

“It’s cold. I think I needed you here.’

“NO STOP!!!! WHO ARE YOU?” Why did the weather go so hefty I can’t see...? ADAM? You

can’t be? My hands bowled over to unmask his cloudy face.

“I’m here, Vale. Right in front of you“

My entire body froze like an effigy of cadaver. The crisp of the steel could no longer be felt.

He sure was Adam.

ATTIC LAKE HOUSE, AREA 76. The beep buzzed. So my eyes did win the bait. I looked

back once again before departing the bus and smiled. Adam was here.

Right, so that little joke right there is how I laugh off anger.

Hi all, welcome to The Weird where we step into the mind of a functional member of society to figure out how they do it. You may ask, "Do what?" Just know this episode isn't for you.

The day starts like most days, sleeping in until the utterly last possible moment. Now, therapists might worry about chronic insomnia and its impact on mood regulation and future cognitive decline, but we're going to write this off to our coworkers as "not being a morning person" which is a more common and less dreadful sounding condition. Moving on.

Coffee, or the socially acceptable form of chemical dependence, comes next. Fun fact: stimulants can act as antidepressants for some people. We won't talk about the meteoric rise in coffee consumption along with mental health issues. It's probably not a causal link. Whatever those are. Coffee up! Remember to use cute mugs to feel even more vindicated in your addiction.

Next, log in to deal with the people. Technically you had to deal with the person you lived with before now but after two years in lockdown they're quite over you and again, you're not a morning person. That one perky morning person at work will immediately latch onto you. You will smile and put up with them because their mental stability is barely better than yours and emotional anchors these days are more like bumper cars, take your boosts where you can get them.

Next proceed to fall into habitual unhealthy patterns of stress addiction - your other socially accepted vice - and get things done. Nobody cares how so long as you do, so a few breaks here and there to stretch, wrangle pets, get yelled at by your grouchy lockdown partner, eat, fetch more coffee, and so forth, will make the wasted hours of your life lass more quickly before your existential dread can set in. This is vitally important to your day.

After work you clock out and refocus on food, your one unhealthy coping mechanism you've desperately spent a lifetime trying to get a better grasp on by teaching yourself to cook, good on you, not that your grouchy housemate cared other than to bitch that you create more dishes. You also do dishes. Then watch something funny and geeky while you eat, which again isn't healthy but it beats trying to engage in conversation with the ungrateful prat who literally gets all his meals made for him yet still finds shit to complain about.

After food and shows - which said negative bastard will watch until suddenly they're "mindless drivel" he's only bothering with for your benefit - you will turn to your second computer and attempt to find connections to people who don't make you feel taken for granted or mindless, either by chatting with old friends via social media or watching some funny short videos whilst secretly dreaming of a van life, on the road and away from this building you barely afforded that has now doubled in value to where you could never afford it now. Then laugh to yourself how all your money goes to fixing the shack from the fifties up until there's none left for a real vacation, like the one you haven't had in probably five years now. Not that anyone's counting. Your partner never needs them, why should you.

After you waste another evening on wishful thinking and unfulfilled plans, maybe some creative distractions or games to round out the night, go take your libido-killing antidepressants - the real ones now, not the stims - and some melatonin supplements to kick off your sleep hygiene routine. It's important to try, even if you'll wake up inevitably in four hours anyway. Like the health coach said after your therapist put you on meds then ditched you, you're just going through a transition period. Keeping habits is vital to your body eventually getting back on track naturally. One day you'll get back to your self care regimen, and things will be better.

For now though you take your pills, say goodnight with a fifty percent chance of hearing it back, and climb into the second bed as you have for who knows how many months now, they all blend together. Maybe you'll dream of happier things if you manage enough REM to dream at all. Most likely you'll be up at 3 AM fetching more tea and trying breathing exercises that barely contain the tears.

Which is fine because as everyone knows, you're "not a morning person" - which is arguably much better than the other labels you've worn over the years - and this is just another transition period. You'll get through it.

Because "functional" isn't just a therapy standard - it's a survival trait.

And tomorrow nobody will care how you get your shit done.

want to cry at the

thought of being asked to stay;

for now and onward

they are supposed to be kingly fishers.

so what the hell were they doing, nesting on top of a walnut, next to my fifth-story dorm room?

we were about thirty miles from river, pond, or stream.

and yet, these colorful fellows were colonizing the place!!

i spent early mornings looking at their antics. i tried to entice them with presents left on the windowsill.

but they don't fall for such bribes.

sadly, at some point they decided that living off of the land is antithetical to their rebelious nature.

they left me alone. looking at a branch of a walnut tree...

You never realize how many songs you really don’t know all the words to, until you’re singing with someone else in the car with you.

So, the way I see it, is you’ve got two choices:

fake a distraction & stop singing or

freestyle like a rockstar!

You ran covering those miles between us

And I could just walk some paces.

A cubit was the distance left but

My footprints are what your heart traces.

My blood trailed the previous handspan.

Tears puddling since the first yard.

Your palms containing my weary face

As I leave every inch of you, my lifeguard.

×∞ Adin

7 April 2021

When I lay on the mellow green

Of the earth

who fosters me like one of its

missing child,

making me drunk on the honey comb

Filtered juice that warms my flesh

from a far away driven sight

and jewel me with its dirt

that smells as though

my entrails have been hidden within,

bewitching me to call it a home.

The autumn wavers its hello

in its brown and crusty foundation

but it feels as if

the spring has crawled on me

Lightly bruising my cuticle,

All naked and archaic

as though It has been waiting for me;

To be the fragrance of the woods

again to be someone

I have always meant to be.