Lists of Right and Wrong

You used to list all the things that were right about me.
All of your favorite curves
Your favorite quirks
The things that you deemed best.

Now you fill the days with all that's wrong with me
My habits
My words
My thoughts and concerns

The quirks that you once worshiped
Have become the very things that keep you away

You tell me all the things that I should change

The worst part isn't you doing this
The worst part is my willingness to bend
To your every whim and desire
Your opinion has consumed me

I find myself staring at mirrors more often now
But instead of a reflection
All I see is the flaws that have become so apparent to you

Does my nose curve out to much
Is my smile
Have my dimples become offensive
Are my teeth a bit too bright

Should I cover my smile
Should I keep it just for you
Is my laughter a bit too much
Has it come to embarrass you

I've come to cave into myself
To want an escape from myself
To want to unzip myself
Step out of me
Step into someone you'll want to see

That's the person I now want to be

You've come to make me doubt myself
To hate myself
To second guess my every move

But deep inside I know this isn't right
That you once listed all the right things
And those right things still exist

They just aren't to your liking now

That's your mistake

I will not unzip myself
Step out of me
Adjust me
Become something other than me

To please someone who lives off of lists of me
Right and wrong.


I will not.

The Good Ones Go Crazy

Be calm in your heart they say
Tread softly through your paths
Whichever you may take
Be dignified and silent they say
Speak calmly and plain
We're told not to be ourselves
And judged for being so
We're forced into boxes
Confined into square pegs
And why does this happen
Why does it start and end
With ripples of high tide
High preaching
High laws
We are meant to submit and obey
Punished for having individual thoughts
Actions
Motions
The good ones go crazy
Confined in small rooms
The bad ones grow higher
Multiplying
In glass towers of high and mighty haughtiness
And the good ones will go crazy
The good ones will submit
But the best ones will push back
And spark a revolution.
If only they could find the strength within.

When Winter Left

Did the cold keep your evil in
Did the summer thaw it out
Were you waiting for the sun
To scream it all out
To shout

When the light broke the ice that kept it all in
Did you feel the release
Was it what you had been waiting for

From the start of the coldest days
You were my warmth
You were my light
My own personal supply of heat

When my shivers took over
It was you that calmed them
You settled the nerves within me
You sent them away
You told me they’d never again have a place to stay

When your true nature began to show
I lied to myself
And the lies felt good
I told myself it was me
My imagination

That my sensitivity was the cause of it all
All of the pain
All of the tears

My eyes leaked
Dropping liters of salt water at a time
I produced more tears from within the depths of me than I had in a lifetime
A lifetime of self-doubt and worry had been nothing
My previous pain had been mere experience
Executed to prepare me for the days that were to come

And now I’m sleepless
Not from my restlessness and excitement of what is to come
But from the fear of knowing that nothing is

Dreams & Day Flights

It hurts me to say

To admit to myself 

That often even I 

Don't know what I mean

Don't know what my thoughts are telling me 

Don't know what to make 

Of all my dreams and day flights 

I wish I knew just what 

All my messages were saying 

Telling me directly 

But all I know is the few words and lines 

That throw themselves at me 

That force me to bite 

And I wish I was more 

And I wish I could absorb 

All that is around me 

All that is being said 

But all I can do is listen 

Sharpen my ears and hope

That my eyes and cells are grasping 

More than even I know 

I hope my visions 

My past and present collections 

Of thoughts, and truths 

Are able to emerge from me 

In ways even I know not 

And I hope one day

Far beyond the one from now 

I'm able to rock into the truth I've settled in 

And understand 

Know and feel 

All that was said and seen. 

Material World, Be Kind

In a day where material possessions are often more prized than memories I'd like to remind everyone to be more aware of what matters.

So often I find people associating materials and presents and things with love and affection. Although it is always nice to have nice things, it's far more important to know nice people. To be a nice person. To have nice memories. To be able to lay in bed at night content with your actions and the actions that have been made towards you. Obsession with things can lead to so much negativity in your own life. Greed. Envy. Jealously. And all of it unnecessary. All of it avoidable.

Be grateful for what you have. Be appreciative. Be truly and consciously aware of every blessing you have been given by the universe.

Say thank you. Not just to the people around you but to the universe. Show thanks for even the smallest of things.  I'm talking about being grateful for the glass of water that you drink every day. I've found that when you're consciously and truly appreciative of the smallest of things, the bigger things seem to show up naturally.

The universe works in a funny way, but I believe that every single one of our actions, no matter how small strongly contribute the outcomes of our lives.

Think about it. Absorb that concept. A concept so finely detailed that all conscious and unconscious actions lead to subsequent results within your life.

Throwing a piece of trash on the floor, rather than into a trash can will inevitably lead to something unwanted being thrown into your life. 

Be aware. Treat the world as you would want to be treated, as you would treat a loved one. Treat it purely, tenderly. Treat it with affection, and love.

Don't be so focused on having the latest this or that, focus instead on your worn pair of jeans, and your favorite shoes that may have one too many scuffs.

Be greedy, and you will never, ever have enough. Be grateful and you'll end up having so much more than you ever envisioned.

Be kind, be gentle. Truly never act with the intention to hurt. Treat others how you want to be treated, even if they may not deserve it. It is not for your benefit, but for the benefit of yourself, for the total sum of the world.

We have enough negativity on this planet. We have enough heartache in our lives. We need not contribute to the emotional pollution of our world. 

You owe it to yourself to be the best version of yourself. To be the best person that you can be. Not for others, for yourself. It is not between you and them, it is between you and your spirit. When you do that. When you really focus on yourself and your personal life and look away from the lives of others...you will be filled with peace. And peace is something that can never be purchased.

The Depths of You

Close your eyes.
What is it that you see?

If you were to ask me
I'd tell you I see a shadow of you
I'd tell you even in my deepest corners of unconsciousness I'm consumed by you
I'd explain to you that even when I'm not speaking to you
All of my words are for you
That the movement of my lips are in accordance to yours.

That in utter silence, I long for you.

That when I know you're in pain, my body aches for you.

That your bad days filter into mine
That your sadness hovers above me like the whisper of a storm to come.

When you tell me not to worry, it's all I can do not to crumble.

My temperament has become synced with yours.
Believe me as hard as I may try.

With you I reach new peaks of joy.
I lose touch with gravity
I no longer recognize reality

You're the only reality I want
The only thing that sustains me

If I had to I would survive on the very depths of you.

You Can't Escape Your Destiny

I'm restless at night
I toss and turn bundling up and stripping down
I wiggle and move, sway and twist
But comfort and rest do not come
Listlessness and duress take over
At these points thoughts of you take over
True memories and exaggerated thoughts fill me
Dreams and hopes consume me
I dream that one day I will fill you with the well of love that overflows within me

I wish that I will be able to express to you in more than words that which binds me to you
I want to express to you that you are more to me than what you understand yourself to be

You are my soul and my fire and you are the cool rain that falls upon my overheated components that make me and often break me 


I think of when it all began and I can't remember when I knew it was


I wrack my brain to try and force it to dig within it's deep crevices worn down with steady flows of cells of me

I want to pinpoint the moment when me became us and I became we

But I fail at this
Every night
And within me I know it is because
There was never one moment in which I knew
That you were everything
That you were my sprite and flight and the light within me and outside of me

I remind myself to be honest with myself and acknowledge
That the time when I knew that you were you came in a collection of intuition and gut

That I sensed you before I met you
That I knew from blinks and half-heard phrases escaping from you
That all along I could feel your threads escaping from within your deepest membranes reaching out for mine

But I was shy
And I was weary
And I was tired of regret
So my threads dug deeper within me
Burrowing deep inside
Sending up superficial barriers
Sending out signals of warning

And in turn your deepest cells of intuition and gut slid back within you
Understanding that time was their friend
Time would uncoil my threads to reach for yours
Eventually


And so deep within yourself you knew
And even deeper within myself I accepted
That fate is inevitable
That the twists and turns we both took were meant to meet

Our paths crossed over a series of times until the road was worn thin
And collapsed beneath us both
Forcing us to acknowledge the fate that had been avoided
And now the time we wasted is being multiplied ten fold

We find time to make time
To stretch 60 seconds into more than just a minute of what we make of it
We make it into more than what is given
We know that life is often selfish and love can be so cruel
But we burrow within ourselves to escape ourselves to make life and love pure

And when I look at you I know
That you are all that is pure
You are all that is good
You are kindness and warmth
And now your membranes have finally stretched enough to grasp the edges of mine and have pulled them ever so gently towards whats more
Bound and tangled now
In organized order


We are each others exquisite mess

Dear A, Part Six

Dear A,

    I know that this is important for me to get out, but sometimes the memories overwhelm me.

    It seems I am easily overwhelmed now.

    The other day I was drinking tea on the balcony, finishing up some grading, when I heard a sudden knock on the door. I was so startled, I managed to spill the entire contents of my teacup all over myself. It ended up being the building manager, coming by to drop off a paper regarding the maintenance being done on my floor.

    I guess after everything that happened, it’s not really surprising, it’s just hard for me to accept this part of myself now. The overly anxious part of my personality, that seems to be a permanent fixture now.

    I've stopped seeing my therapist. Partly because I was tired of being analyzed, but mainly because I was tired of being talked at. Being told how I should be coping, how I should start the healing process.

    It’s difficult to start a process, I know will have no purpose for me. You need to have something broken to heal, and I’m not broken, I’ve just died a little inside. And there is no cure for that. No one can bring back to life, what has died within me. What died, when I lost you.

    I think these letters are helping me. It comforts me to know I’m writing these just for you, and that they are meant for no one else. That no one else will be reading them, or so I hope.

    You were always my secret keeper, and I guess at least that hasn’t changed.

    You asked me once, why I never told my close friends anything too private, or personal. I tried to explain that it was because you were the only source I ever felt the desire to confide in. That once my words were spoken to you, I felt so free and light that I saw no purpose in relaying anything to anyone else.

    You kept me light for so long, I guess it’s only fair that I feel so heavy inside now.

    Maybe it’s life’s way of keeping balance.

Until next time,

Your B

No Words

I could call it love
Or lust
I could call it affection
Maybe even adoration
Maybe I worship you just a bit

All I know is, when you look at me
When my eyes meet yours
Time stops
When the sound of your voice
Reaches my ears
My heart beats slow,
to an unidentifiable pace
When your smile,
lights up the shadows of your face
My soul knows peace
And there are no words for that.

Before You

It's not like I didn't have my own story of life before you.
But you were a brand new chapter.
A crisp new turn of a page.
You were a breath of fresh air.

My days turned to nights because of you.
Time seemed to stop when I looked at you.
My eyes closed slower just to catch a longer glance of you.

Now when I breathe around you, I inhale deeper
Just to absorb components of you.
I want my cells to reform for you.


I want to take myself apart
Remove all the parts that aren't right for you
Restructure me for you

All for you.