Fish tanks of things I no longer own

On this here almost empty stage, I present to you two cloaked tanks, 

both of which you might take with you upon your impending exit of my mind. 

However, you may only remove one cloak from either tank.

Now I didn't make the rules.

In fact, if I'd had it my way. I'd have performed amateur surgery to give you my limbs,

knowing full well that you are who they'd have mercilessly clung to.

My arms, beings of their own who'd have reached for you, despite my better judgement.

And my legs, who would probaby still run a marathon to you at the drop of a hat.

But as you can see, my limbs are right here, recoiling at your touch,

so we can eliminate those from your suspicions as to what lies 

beneath the heavy burgundy curtains that separate you from you do not yet know yet

is me. 

These are not your prizes,

nor your consolation delights. 

I designed those two fifty-six gallon tanks for your health,

and your happiness.

If you're so keen to know what I intended for you to have before you choose both and more,

it was my kindness within a box of deep, dark chocolate,

my compassion fused into a tissue box.

Yet that was only half of my ability to shower you with gifts. 

In the other tank, my love

in each wing of the butterflies that I ripped from the depths of my stomach,

just to show you that they were once there. 

Those silly little creatures gave the other prizes life, 

and while it's curteous to give you all of them,

I wanted to be rid of them like a middle-aged mother with her clothes from friskier times. 

You were an awful idea, but I dreamt you up in such a way

that I was almost enough for you. 

And while it was a risk to ask you here,

I was hoping for you to bring reliable greed with you in your trunk like the body

of who I thought you were.

You loved being a victim, and I had the perfect care package to have you come running.

But I never thought that you'd have taken more than both halves of my offerings. 

I presented you with two choices, 

but you held me in your hands and took what I'd never have been prepared to give.

You took your already bloodied claws into my chest, 

broke my bones, and tested out my heart like one would test a pin cushion. 

I kept trying to meet your eyes, but they were empty.

I heard, and even more sharply felt every crack,

as you savoringly retreated from my being. 

For in the midst of my gathering the cloaks and tanks of my own, 

I had forgotten your collection of similar artifacts in your bookshelf,

They, and now I, are yours to read and mock,

and I shall remind you that in the hollow that you have carved,

I will reproduce my ribs and within will become a moss, 

A fern of my dreams, and perhaps at some point, 

A flower will bloom amongst my greenery,

and I will carry it to you, front and center,

and wear it as a corsage.  

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace. 

 

A cynical skin

I always find it strange when I start to feel something that I hadn't felt in a long time, 

and then when it hits, it hurts so much more than it did to start. 

And while it hasn't completely harshed my mellow, 

I'm hitting a slight slump in the emotions that I can sense in my mind. 

It was kind of like I had this dream where I was an actual functioning human,  

but now I'm starting to feel the ink from my forehead stamp that read "False alarm"-

and not in terms of pregnancy- seep into my all-too-open pores. 

It wasn't something that was slammed into my skull like most bad news,

but the searing cold black ink dark enough to mar skin without discrimination of any kind. 

Funny, I forgot the social justice warrior that pain was.

A royal bitch to any and everyone, regardless of gender, race, and sexuality. 

I've never been so disappointed in being a part of such an accepting group. 

Then that one solid feeling starts to spread like the most cynical smile

and it revolutionalizes my way of thought until it was my fault entirely. 

Perhaps it was my ill doing that I hadn't noticed until now. 

Or better yet, a sign that I should back away from the fire completely and ensure that

I don't even get a whiff of it again. 

If there were any reason to believe that I'm fine, I'd love to be seeing it right about now. 

The clacking of keys and the sound of previously soothing voices

don't really make me feel as bundled up from my own tundra like they should. 

There have been no broken promises, in fact this was the most predictable outcome that I could've whipped up if I'd been given the whole situation to begin with. 

And although my view is still bleared as my eyes from crying, 

I think that the bleak part of my outlook shows to be evident at all times. 

Sometimes it's nice to know that there are permanent parts of you that never change. 

As much as I was trying to vote against it in my mind, 

I've never seen a better time than now to embrace the cynical skin that I've been living in. 

Upon looking directly at the definition of the word, 

that seems like the brightest option I have toward enlightenment of my mind-set. 

I know that I'd had hints of this in me from the beginning of my social interactions, 

but now I want to take the lever of balance and shift it completely in my favor. 

Now, somewhere in my mind I'm aware that this may not be the best option, 

but also, I don't think that I care that much anymore. 

That cynical smile is full after all,

and my mother always told me to make sure that my teeth were pearly and white. 

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace. 

The Family Photo Album

To all of my near and far destinations, 

I carry an old photo album.

Not too bulky,

but not thin in any respect. 

I grew up to the daunting jingle of my mother's voice incessantly reminding me 

that we eventually forget everything. 

I always thought that she had a perpetual fear of dementia,

justified by her losing the appearances of her late parents from her memory.

And while as a youth I have an elephants' memory-

something I'd never ask for again in the next life-

I know that remembering wil never be enough.

A crystal clear motion picture will never be something to be lived in.

I know why she wants everything that she lost back.

And in turn she makes me a time-machine of her shaky snapshots,

she lifts a burden with her smiling or teary expression of a moment.

Recollections on all of its pages, each one compeltely different,

even if they were taken within disparate seconds of each other

by my own indifferent hands. 

I usually still despise taking pictures, but I know that on a level,

she needs them.

We all have some sort of anchor that reminds us of who we are.

In a sea of indentities, I suppose I forgot that she may have lost hers.

Perhaps I can't understand it right now because I don't yet have a solid identity.

On occasion, I ponder what it might be like to never develop one. 

No name plastered for action to be tied to.

For this particular moment, I'm enjoying the prospect of being under the radar,

nothing to permanent aside from my memories and phtographs. 

Perhaps I dislike the confrontation of the

artificial light sprung onto my eyes by the flash. 

"Pictures are memories" she chants,

and perhaps I hate them because 

I have so much that I don't wish to remember. 

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace. 

Flashing vacancy sign

As well as the life that I wish you, 

I love the feeling of not starving for you every day. 

For without your salt water in my eyes,

things became abundantly clear. 

I don't feel the need to be anything other than myself.

The loose jeans and my inexperienced lips just right,

and I've become content with the fact that you are territory 

that I no longer have the desire to chart. 

The plundering of my pulse will stop,

or grow another reason,

and you will leave as you always do,

and I will keep my stopwatch calculating how many seconds I can hold a smile,

instead of the ones I spend holding back frowns. 

You aren't here with me, 

so yoiu no longer take up space in my books.

I have so much left to do, and I have become cool with the uncouth of it all.

If I were ever meant to be with you in any way, even in this great distance, 

I wouldn't have been so ready and willing to give you both of my hands

to swat away any descrepancies from your eyes, my fault or not. 

I could never have been with someone who could be so emotionless

as I felt everything so immensely. 

There is no way for you to reach omnipresence in my life if I no longer allow you to. 

It is now that you are gone that

I can close my eyes and not have your waving to me behind them.

I suppose this is what most people would call "Giving up the ghost". 

I've truly never had a more horation departure in my life. 

Having you leave months ago, and to only feel and hear your car start up to go now. 

Byfar the most miraculous delayed reaction to have taken place. 

You were a comfortable tee-shirt that I'd sleep in, 

but I should have drawn more from the tears in the sleeves, 

or the creases that never came out. 

Wearing you was fine, putting you in drawers were awful,

but I'd have never known that it was because you never belonged in them. 

I could have sworn that I saw you in a store window just the other day, 

I think they were promoting what the youth would call the "grunge aesthetic",

you asked me how I was and I walked away. 

This time it felt right and just to leave, no longer screaming as I usually would. 

But I'm pretty sure that you never noticed this time, 

there were people to replace me by the time I got far enough away for you to look vacant.

And although you've left me feeling like a guest in my own body, 

it's a place that I'm glad to rent, more than glad to pick up your slack.

The place has been looking a bit sparce, and the lights don't really 

sparkle the way that they did when you were here to fix them,

but she developed the atmosphere that you won't ever have the honor to imagine

in your dizziest daydreams.

Before you she could have been the whole damn hotel

with no vacancy and standing room only. 

But for now, she's a stark room, where the same two people share coffee every week,

and walk off to the crunch of cold and crisp autumn leaves.

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace. 

Caved in with distance

I wonder if parents know that instilling a fear of being average

would release a cage full of crackens into the minds of children.

A whole field of fear just for me to frolick. 

A whole list of possibilities ad futures for me to flee from and lament.

A constant craving to be something so amazing

and the simultaneaous denial of that desire.

Always told that useful roles of life are filled befor you can even get your pants on.

My melted down, metallic, resolve bitter as I wash it down with my tea and 

suddenly dry sense of humor.

B's becoming acrobats and flipping into A's and 

I went from a girl of beauty to a girl of brain.

It's so clear why I don't pay attention to a body that my mother considers gorgeous,

she never taught me to really look at it.

She taught me to build my life around a pristine building of supposed intellect.

I forgot that I was even in a body at all.

To put in basic terms,

all physical awareness flew out the window with the belief that 

I will be anything more than what is expected of me. 

And although I became a girl of brain,

my mind has suddenly become a pile of mush

that makes me lop my head to one side or the other. 

The comparing and the compettion reveals the hideous part of the world 

that I didn't bother to look at.

As one would teach their beautiful child to love themselves, 

please don't let them drownin the art that they are taught to love. 

Their impending growth in the area may become infected and scar over.

I'm not doctor, but I'd reccomend exposure to open air and insecurity.

One will heal the wounds,

and the other will be ived with and battled like any other disease. 

Your child will become a marvelous, hexed butterfly,

and I can only hope that she goes tree to tree,

never to even see the sinking, caving ground as she escapes it.

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace. 

 

The major souveiner of a terrible year

After shivering for so long, 

it feels decent to be able to stop.

I'm not sure I mind the fact that I haven't moved from my lying position yet.

The floor sure doesn't mind me here. 

I've gotten about every look that I could have been given for staying here. 

I know that it's been too long since I've fully stood up in my own bones,

but I know that they truly did need the rest. 

Perhaps when I need to, 

I'll be able to rely on them again. 

I hope that I don't find myself here again,

but I know that sadly, 

there are a plethora of floors beneath this one that

I can melt through to the rock beneath it all.

I will lie here in the cushion of the ground for a short while longer.

And in the absence of all that I knew, I will know other things.

And in the absence of knowing anything else, 

things will know me, 

whether I allow them to or not. 

The stereotypes were inredibly right. 

It was a life that I loved and a life that I will now need to leave. 

It's the same life, 

in the same chapter,

but with a shift in the tone.

I loved it as a favorite book,

but like any good book,

it wore itself out over time. 

My heart aches for the words that I no longer have the chance to re-read,

but I hope that they ease the pain of someone else.

It wasn't somethng I needed to plan, 

and I'm glad that I didn't because I'd have healed naturally. 

It's not my responsibility to ensure that people are kind,

nor is it mine to assume that they are.

I'm almost okay with the constant absence of loved ones and lovers

that never became my own.

Eventually I refused to need them.

I can't need them anymore.

There is a life to live and seeing everyone else living it shouldn't scare me anymore.

The long time coming of me realizing that I have my own pulse

has the uncanny resmeblance of a bird realizing that it has functioning wings. 

I hadn't used mine in far too long which is infuriating. 

Releasing the pain I once held so dear might just let me exceed my limits 

and reach my full potential. 

The limit of my mind has been underestimated and tested in the myriad of ways 

all of which I have passed with flying colors by failing them.

Rejection forces intrusion and although persistence encourages impatience,

It will be well worth it as success prevails.

The man behind the failure will always prevail amongst the failure itself.

Learning prevents the same failure,

but failure will always be inevitable.

I long for acceptance but that will only be something that

I can give myself by allowing myself to be seen. 

I will be seen by all, 

because not all will choose to see. 

However, 

I will continue to be grateful for my own eyes 

as I begin to see myself.

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace. 

 

More of the end.

It is to my belief that 

recovery ends when one becomes sick of recovering. 

The healing process can be so that it becomes sickening 

to know that it isn't over. 

Being in that gross, sick of feeling sick state,

I'm not at all sure what's comforting to me anymore.

Or perhaps the healing isn't ever meant to stop.

Maybe it really does last forever. 

I'm not necessarily talking about the pain, 

because somehow that subsided slightly without me lifting a finger.

However, 

I think that I'm done recovering from this disaster. 

It isn't mine to mourn anymore.

There is a life to live and I no longer need to feel it slipping away.

Life isn't supposed to be felt as it leaves. 

You wake up from your business and realize that a little bit more time has lapsed. 

But for the most part, 

I perfer the sleeping state of oblivion. 

My only goal for my life is to be able to sit down in a rocking chair 

after age has rocked my body and know that all of it was worth it.

This goal brings about a sense of nausea that indicates that 

I need to be done with what is done with me. 

Things are ending all over, 

and there are too many things that I need to finish myself 

long before they do me in.

Everything will be fine,

as everything will go the way that it's meant to.

At some point soon,

I won't need to sprinkle glitter over my eyelashes to see the beauty in everything.

Not that everything will then be beautiful,

but I will have the gall to accept that some things are meant to be ugly. 

This was a terrible love, 

and it always will be. 

Terribly big, terribly hideous, terribly strong.

It was terribly permanent.

I have taken the solace in the walls around me,

forever grateful that not everything speaks. 

I've found that my favorite parts of life come when I ignore words. 

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace.