Hi. I’m okay. My name is … (private exchange)
Oceanic delight, Mariana Trench – let’s lie on the waves
Get lied to with promises as you wave your goodbyes
The “we’ll soon see each other”s, the “I can’t wait to arrive”s
Gesticulating giant, wide-eyed naivety shines
Juan Valdez roast – a vagabond’s variant vibe
Cash valet parking – pristine ’85 BMW e28
Cabernet off-switch.
Tannins drip from my IV ’cause I don’t bleed DNA
Deviate from the norm. Heliocentric.
Her face is a star
She makes the sun turn violet, and gives rainbows their scars
Technicolor stitches, wounds wash radiant art
Do re mi, one-way street of living, who’s to say that we are
In Eden’s garden, dancing naked to Purple Rain
My dorsal fin can’t navigate the deepest waters.
Irregardless, blood print barely cracks the surface stain.
The takeaway is mundane themes.
It’s okay to want a place to scream.
The days are hard-fought battles, wars go on for weeks, and
Hurricanes are taking shape in the subway steam.
Every Sunday, he tithes revived percentages of hope.
So, a little bit inside me dies from the carcinogenic dose.
AM country station blazing through the cigarette tray.
Grandpa’s epitaphs engraved in indirect faith.
12-volt Citroën culture, French press grit in my veins
Vaudevillian silhouette, it’s like you barely saw her.
Stained-glass windowpane
Leather loveseat
Frankenmuth Bavarian auberge
Accompanied by airport sound wave dispersal
Dial pound eight, to reach the operator rotary nuisance
Call me a mutant, because we hate feeling lonely as humans
Let’s huddle around the baggage carousel until we depart
What bothers me is the converging of a million souls living apart
Common courtesy talks, airplanes are altitude civilian parks
We’ve been displaced by a culture aimed to minimize faith
And dilute consumer bases, zombified mimicking ape
My father used to say – take walks when it’s pouring down rain
Why? So you can revisit the bridges burned in your wake
Never had a father, it was just something I said to myself
Did I divulge too much?
My mother always said keep to yourself
‘Cause the hearts on your sleeve are a poker player’s favorite tell
Manifest themselves as sheep who hastily offer you wool
Did the vague release of my cry remind you of wolf?
Hell in a handbasket, Riding Hood tells us we fear who we are.
Too many questions, not any answers.
Period, pause
Category: METAPHOR
-
-
You can hear the
suburban chime, zirconia vertebrae, pearly white spine.
Glass thrown in stone houses, a regular suburban night,
whirring, rewinding. Chronicled childhood in olive drab paint,
monocle glass.
Wormwood and bottles of Shawshank
dissolute solitude. A wanderer who wallows in the maze
en route, delaying for tomorrow, never promised today.
A virgin diary, Anne Frank, Marie Curie disease, a tincture of rainbow,
even if the distance is blurry to me, he who knows the way to Zihuatenejo.
Furloughed father, demanding you to die when I say so,
26 pesos left in your wallet
lint and mothball, Merryland experiment omelette.
Laundromat arcade quarter exchange
2 o’clock shadow of death and follicle strain.
These boulders were supposed to be gone when I got here,
you shouldered me off, Sunday morning penny loafer with frost,
social commentary Gabriel-Lucifer talk,
metamucil retrograde, Jupiter star.
Bolivian roast, oblivion, and a toast goes to Mars,
you hold my hand, but I don’t even know who you are,
shout at me when indoors, but whisper weak when afar.
I’m so close to eroding, skin growth barely a scar,
in my house, the big wolf, lungs pulse ’til exhaustion.
I read a suicide note from the ghost in my closet,
I don’t know if he knows if this apartment is haunted,
by patriarchal pettiness, reminiscent negligent heart,
maleficent maligned, distant and forgotten insidious offspring,
with ammunition in their lips that keep you off guard.
Feel the metacarpal love letters ’til your fingers fall off,
once you step out the door, you hear the wooden creak in the floor.
Fell asleep at the creek daydreaming before,
every time before bed I hear footsteps coming from deep,
and I hide in my closet, until they delete.
REM hits me while I’m counting my sheep
counting rosary beads for every step wolf takes towards me,
like neighborhood freeze tag, counting to three.
Dysfunctional beings huffing in suburban breeze,
I know that I know nothing is in love when I speak,
into denizens, the medicine cabinet creaks,
when you close it and I haven’t heard it in weeks,
from bourbon to curtains burnt at the seams.
I’m so close to being the opposite of perfect, I scream.
What emerges, a bird sits perched in a tree,
what alerts him is the suburban breeze. -
It was a matter of why, statuesque beauty over vodka and wine, an hourglass figurine. When you come around, it becomes tough to tell time. Seductress Stolichnaya, brunette, bridal, bohemian. It’s cruel how without even trying, you leave me in a state of dreams where I’m hardly breathing at the Gala. A seamstress couldn’t replicate your body shape. You look awfully familiar; it’s been a while since I’ve been in this hypnotic state. Eyes are pools of island bays, emphasized by the shine of geysers. A vivifying type of way, to kiss your lips would feel like fire. To put them out, I’d have to meet your jewels of diamonds. Only a fool could deny this muse that emphasizes grace, electrifying distress. Prostovian princess with a crystallizing gaze, an accent so alluring, the way you pronounce your words overarched. I’d feel your tongue twist cherry stems in my heart.
-
So, October 28th. The day before it had arrived.
Pumpkin leaflets, summer’s leaving, Volkswagen sedan on a drive.
Gusts of season, flannels, and walks through 10 p.m. suburbia nights.
Blasts of orange harvest, olfactory senses concise.
Lakeside and Beverly Creek. Lake Nelson just over in reach.
The crossover between the Fur Elise and berry stems in the streets.
The very first time we ever had kissed
And unlocked sundrops. Whirlwind storms that soon would commence
To convince ourselves that this wasn’t pretend.
October 29th, 2012, we watched on the news how much Sandy had caused
Wondering if our love was somehow the cause of it all.
Visiting Coach. Six-hour dividend coast.
Whiskey and hope. Woodford Reserve on the Millbury slopes.
Three thousand miles. A year later. Psychiatrists, and displacement was born.
The forecast was sun, sun, sun, roses without thorns on the stem.
Feet dangling off the gondola lifts. Balm on your wrist to soothe the sore on your lips.
A feeling of emptiness with her finger not adorned with a gem.
Telling me time heals all, something you accustomed me to
And I believed you because your wristwatch covered your wounds
Blood drunk, hungry for more, hungry for passion
That gets robbed from me, the moment our hands clench
I was embarrassed. Ads on the walls about marriage
False interpretations of love, made the gray areas bland
Endless carousel wagon, help reveal this fairytale land.
October 22nd, 2015, three years after it happened
I’ll never forget. I visited you after two years from the norm
Thinking it was calm, but it was just the eye of the storm
We walked home from the bar, silence spoke a desolate rage
Makeshift disarray. Maroon merlot in a vase
She undressed before walking in the room as to say
She had it with life, and its incessant display
Of obsessions for sex and temporary embrace
Of this modern day culture of sultry distaste
Bra clinging off her shoulders, so I just let the metaphor hang.
Mama let out a cry and said it wasn’t the same.
So I touched her lips with mine and understood what she claimed.
Inebriated, insane. On your breath, Cabernet.
Full-bodied, at the tavern, they knew you loved it that way.
Stroking your hair, I muttered, “I know, it’s okay.”
Knowing it wasn’t, and knowing we’ve changed.
We were both naked and touching, but felt a silk layer in haste.
And it sucks that I had nothing better to say.
Grey Goose swallowing pain.
These scars don’t define you; these scars are displays.
To let the next person know you made it out, not stronger, but strange.
Head in my chest, hair in my mouth, a hole in my brain.
Nestled in the crevices where the tension exclaimed.
A lie is just a story where it’s ruined by the truth in mistake.
Karen O and the kids on the record replays.
Squeezed each other’s hands, a two-person submission.
Inside of delusion, to sobbing in fetal position.
Relationships never play out as we have them envisioned.
It’s true what they say that life is a bitch…es.
Keeping the ring box in my pocket might’ve been indecision.
The next day, on the plane, she said to send her a text.
A thousand-kilometer stretch, it’s something we wanted in jest.
When I landed, she asked me if we could ever work out the distance.
Feeling the neglect in between the pause in her sentence.
As the autumn air in Newark Port tore through my throat.
Love rendezvous became my déjà vu, a hurricane I had to bear on my own.Hurricane Rendezvous
–––––––
-
Dear Journal,
Recollections of a picnic eventuate vividly in my mind. Amidst the reminisced scene, a profound sense of auditory quiescence prevails. What endures most is the ethereal spectacle wherein the heavens infused my being with enduring chromaticity. The transformation of a seemingly desolate desert into an entrancing marvel transpired. Heliotrope, lavender, and carmine merged in multifarious focal points, resulting in a mesmerizing spectacle. Orchid and suave essentials imbued themselves in a delightful communion of mauve and soft magenta hues. A liquid confidence transmuted into an exuberant blaze, akin to a prodigious ember. The quest for pomegranate, purposefully nurtured to invoke a sense of exquisite madness, became palpable. Moreover, the crisp frontier of ions proffered a steadfast verdure, and by that I mean, paradise..
Amid the backdrop of meticulously laid-out blankets, strategically positioned to accommodate our repose, an evocative tapestry of verdant tenderness and a tactile connection to boundless perfection ensued. It was something out of the ordinary, and a vibe that didn’t exist in our current world. In the realm of this particular planetary sojourn, the daunting discouragements of existence ceased to be of consequence. We ascended amid the nascent flourish of intricate patterns, marking the inception of an incipient romance ripe for metamorphosis into this shapeable, and lovable profound mastery.
The auditory landscape, when captured, was replete with a pitch so profoundly rich that visceral reverberations seized the very core of one’s being. A normative twitch manifested in response to the tenuous tension, so palpable one could sever it with the metaphorical blade of irrevocable sin that was ripe with blood.
The ambiance was graced with invigorating gusts of air, effecting an exfoliation of the corporeal integument. Our laughter, during this occasion, found itself immortalized in the annals of memory. Subsequently, following the consumption of the crimson nectar, the sandal-clad feet, and our resonant laughter, the scene transitioned to a majestic sunset. The vista unveiled a palette comprising a myriad of hues, numbering a thousand, gracefully transitioning across the perceptible spectrum.
Notably, the intoxication experienced was not a consequence of our corporeal imbibing but rather an immersion in the celestial panorama. The celestial bodies appeared to undulate and intertwine, mirroring the artistry reminiscent of Picasso’s oeuvre but amplified by a surreal infusion of emotion. The visual tableau was augmented with the seasoning of cilantro and love. Nonetheless, as the sun hastened its descent, we undertook the task of recording every fleeting instant, as we were loath to partake in its conclusion. The firmament seemingly ignited in celestial fervor, embodying a cataclysmic wrath that was paradoxically tempered by an amalgamated magma-like embrace.
In the present epoch, the vista appears eerily unchanged. Encased within the confines of a picture frame characterized by obsidian borders, the scenery is characterized by the presence of cloud-covered skies and smoldering verdure. A very fucking real and palpable sense of stagnation permeates the landscape, underscored by the monochromatic tapestry of smog and sepia-toned expanse. The term “blah” looms ominously, pervading the soundscape with an overpowering resonance.
The analogy of smoke to a claymore elucidates the oppressive nature of this atmosphere, leaving me grappling for words. My apologies if the words fail to flow; the constriction in my chest renders eloquence a challenging endeavor. The landscape that once evoked a sense of awe now projects an ambiance cloaked in ashen hues.
Amid this setting, I find myself seated upon the studio porch, engaged in the composition of tuneless melodies, in consort with an elegant yet unused silvery spoon. The skies, once cerulean, have now transitioned to a state of neutrality, lacking vibrancy. Amidst the prevailing inertia, I aspire to unearth a semblance of purpose.
In retrospect, the dichotomy is striking: the memory of vibrant hues rendered inexpressibly gray. It is with regret that I confess an inability to imbue this gray expanse with the beauty it once possessed. My deepest and well-suited gratitude’s for your understanding.
Sincerely, and my biggest thanks, Cristian.
-
All little boys need father figures,
Not to be normal or sane. You wouldn’t turn on a light switch without knowing where all the conduits are placed. You grow up with a fistful of hurt, a surge like a missile, without hearing a ‘miss you.’ But one thing is certain, nothing makes you question your integrity more than knowing that your very existence is a burden. You’re a burden just to breathe. I was just a curious boy, Curious George, Curious Cristian. I tried to talk to friends, but the look on their faces hurt just to listen. A burden. “How about a counselor?” Yeah, I know the ins and outs. I’m a soldier. Here, take my money, let me cry on your shoulder. How do you plant your feet in the mud? How do you turn your feelings into comfort? How do you know what you’re feeling is real and not some misguided daydream because you’re weak and, well, younger? I’ve broken my heart into pieces asunder, endured the most embarrassing trial and error in the world to learn how to speak to a lover. It sucks. Questions I wanted to ask, questions that needed answers. How do you express greediness more than leaving a son? Upset because I proceeded to ask them. On the cusp of 24 without ever really knowing how it is to have one. Just shells of people who didn’t want to take up the task. Another week, another meek undercover. Another daydream took a plunge. Now all I want to do is scream. I want to go into the streets and scream until I don’t feel anything. Until I summon beams full of thunder, until I shudder streets full of anger, until my teeth shatter and burst into a dozen pieces of rancor, until you see a beast take refuge on the streets with an anchor, and he won’t leave until sun-up and sunsets over under. Cloverfield breach. I feel mean. The form of speech “hate” leaves me unencumbered, until you learn that my motherfucking pain isn’t something to play with, motherfucker. There’s a bloodbath of ink on this pale sheet. I’m on a smooth pace of spilling, a new space and ceiling. It’s a tragedy that I had to reduce my father figure to newspaper clippings. How my favorite ballplayer scored 30 points. There’s a new wave of emptiness intended for millennials, and I write most of everything in metaphors. Soft explanations, so the interpretation gets lost in translation because as long as I know what I meant, your misconception is void, because I felt those words when I wrote them. 100 years from now, when I’m gone, children in classrooms will be dissecting my verses with no intention or purpose. I scribbled them into quotes, a message deployed through rejection, rage, an affectionate ploy. An inception became a reflection of my own inevitable pain. Because remember, for everything set in stone, there’s a knife where the edges are frayed, irreverent, sane. I clutch an invisible pendant made out of being ashamed. It’s like every portrait drawn of me, there’s a frown on my face. Every individual second is captured in a thousand frames, and those frames are just lost; they never see light, they’re just gray. I have nightmares of being indicted for being different. There’s a judge that looks exactly like me, handing out a sentence in vain. Bail is set at impossible, and the bailiff is me too. At my funeral, I want Beethoven’s 5th set as the prelude. Every physical sentence I mash out is obsession. I’ve invented the abstract, and what’s next is a flash, exposure to quiet. I sit alone at the dinner table, three hours past supper, spinning my index finger in the red wine. Dead silence staring into the glass, as if it’s going to stare back up, and it doesn’t. Every masterpiece I created is crap. I feel my own perfection is lackluster. I don’t know. I’m impossibly hard on myself, and the quality is starting to lack. Quantity takes its place to tackle an impossible task. I’ve tacked on a badge of honor for burnout. I’ve become so accustomed to exhaustion that having energy gives me PTSD. My madness is bottled up, swallowed up by a flask of somber.
I already know what you’re going to say before you say it. It’s non-euphoric, and even if I were to become complacent, it would be out of boredom. What a soreness to wake up out of touch with the world. Yeah, I see your pain, and I raise you my void. I’m hard-strung. I’ve coughed blood into buckets. I’ve sung songs to my lovers. It’s better to have love lost than to… forget it. Making people laugh is a drug, and I love it. I run out of punchlines and realize my life was it. Feeling implicit. You need to be me to relive it. These last two decades confined to the fetal position.”
-
Sigh. The streetlight kissed your eyes and created an impression so pure, its whiteness. I bring this up because I fell in love by remembering my reflection off your iris. Expression in its highest form, sensory design to cure, destinies arrived. Analyzed the sculpture, of course, then vandalized your structure. Leaves falling aimlessly, in their phantom-like flutter. Randomized in the sputter of it all, only to capture geometry. If love reaches new heights, this colloquy is written in masterful mountains, parallel streets, the architecture of houses, potential surrounding of impeccable scenery only strengthened and balanced by the powerful breath breathed into me when your mouth pressed out in between, the sound effect of the pucker so loud, so vehemently. I remember a shroud of evenly distributed, heavenly eloquence, where blood cells held an exodus to swell in the realm of my lips.
Visited a palace of hymns where people would sing forever, rectify the devilish sin held in the pits that existed because we relished in them. To intensify my sensory limits, so inexplicably wicked, touching a galaxy. Lungs breathing love, lost and found, but what were we hiding and seeking from? Under an elm, deciduous. It was funny because that’s when I decided. Where the brushing of wind from Sandy slighted me above the stratosphere. We’re out of here, cusp of your hand became the new life vest where if it rained, I knew right then to hang by you, to clutch, until the waves subdued in horizons.
Hell-bent over control of my conscious, like I poured everything, and stanzas decomposed into options. The perfectness? Prose couldn’t match with it. Gravity didn’t have an emerging role in this drama and thesis portrayed through my soul, because I swear it rose, and nirvana’s capricious. Picture a boat, now picture it floating without water beneath it, still rocking along the coast, unbeknownst to a force that governs its beaches. Once I pulled you close to me and spoke in a manner, boldly enamored, dissolving distraction, your hips close to me after. It was poignant. I told you to kiss me, with the grip of your jeans intervening and lingering, memorizing the seams, and create macrocosms just between what I felt in my fingertips. Elevate my scarlet shard. That’s the end of the discussion. I could feel the eruption of your blushing, emanate from my arctic heart.
Hurricane winds made you clutch your arms in a defensive posture. This next sentence is a toss-up between a metaphor for intensive form or comparing your sensual heart hugs to a tropical storm. Love boat wasn’t enough to capsize in waves of charm. Awestruck, star-studded raindrops baptized our naked arms, established an anomaly so vastly diverse; I could only deduce it in a calculus version, gauge the geometric perversion, and argue that it was mathematically perfect. And by that? I came to animate inanimate objects, abstract art splattered paint so simple, my only explanation is that it had to be complex.
-
I don’t even care about breathing air. A) It’s clearly a mission. B) Decided not to get angry today. It’s barely a decision. I think life should be grander than it is, but it isn’t. Can’t have regrets with being wrong; that’s why I love indecision. Sweater against chins, found myself looking for trouble. I love when the thread gets hooked to the stubble. Every day that awaits is merely a presence. Trepidation dismayed. Come on, spare me a second. Deliriums weighed out of space, a variable essence. Just savor today and take care of the present. A valiant way to go about positive pulses, to distract any and all cognitive focus. Bottled emotions are false; I recycle with candor. Light a candle for the fervor, yeah, I’m slightly enamored. Find me an ember, then signal me over. Superstar to the black hole you stitched in the nova. Pray to thy father for all lucrative sin. Indifferent with my efforts to feel human again, making deliberate errors to feel human again. I don’t feel human again. Oh my god, I don’t feel human again.
A crippling endeavor, how loose can I get? Mixing leisure with whenever = how’s the hubris in print? Ballad of blueprints I script; valid Freudian slips. That the entire, massive audience gets. Parrying my worries off with a quart of vodka and gin. Cocky with grins, cordial to the ghosts that I sleep with. Blood alcohol at about .8 for a better portion of the week. Speaking in harbingers, cohesive volume bleep. The final cut of “Lost in Translation” in scene, ironically explains my solitude deeper than any audible scheme. What a phenomenal feat, I still dream about the hairs on your neck. To tell this real boy that he’s still a marionette. Cut my heartstrings, in all fairness, respect. Your stare down had me speechless at my ventriloquist act. Webbing off surrealism, with tarantulan siege. Gargantuan in a glass jar, with nothing to reach. With nothing but handprints on the outside that acted as speech. Palpable. Weak.
I wish when I talked, that my words drew circles with supersonic aplomb. And my vowels would nonchalantly evolve through a canvas, through a gospel of songs that I draw within language. Go into a lobby, as if I’m talking to God, to what I embody; through an army of my consonant art.
-
The moment was so existentialist.
I brought three apples, one for both of us, and one for the road.
If it comes up, I suppose we could split it,
undisclosed disposition,
hanging from the hammock ropes in the stitching.
There was hope for half-robed demolition,
a bungalow almost out of a dream,
quite a bit intensive, fictitious,
in the sense of paint peeling from white picket fences.
A strange feeling in front of the mowed lawn, in
between the solstice of summer and spring,
molded from the cumbersome explosions you’d bring.
Love, when she hands me her half-bitten apple,
as if it comes with an asterisk,
an ad-lib example of italics in the back of the index.
Take a bite out of the apple or take a bite out of me,
fall in love in the castle, fall in drown to the sounds of the sea.
Comparisons to the moon thought were drastically measured,
but I noticed high tide receded sunrise where my gravity centered,
upset. I bite my lips till blood spills in the battlefront mist,
not to inflict pain but deflect the traces of that dispassionate kiss.
Teeth marks turn into tattoos, covering the mistakes from the past,
the china vase that bloomed flowers but shattered, is only serrated as glass.
Lately, I feel sort of amazing, yet displaced and unreal,
unsanctioned, revealed, abated, idealistic adulation unveiled,
just waiting, unrelated, too anxious to seal the tiny indiscreet places unfilled.
Out on the rock, by the creek,
placing your hand on my cheek,
detached since forever, you help me make these connections I seek.
Never thought I’d be formal, but you make me feel normal, at least,
enthralled in coercion, your neglect changed me overall as a person.
Love was linear, so now I write love songs and sonnets in cursive,
despondent, subversive, a tire swing made from your ’91 Cherokee Jeep,
which showed me you still used parts from the past thrown away in the street,
connective to the stylus of the records through music created,
overuse of the grooves from the vinyl discarded my humanlike traits,
describing an incentive to twist, a sigh, and a scent of distress.
It’s funny and sad, I write to remind myself to remember to live.
If you’re reading this right now, I probably need to reevaluate my resolve,
dissolve in the Valium wake, retaliate from the maxims till I can barely walk,
I could barely talk. My adolescence consisted of wishing I died,
living without really having lived; now I don’t even think I’m alive.
Now even feeling a feeling is feeling contrived,
cause six feet seems like such a waste to shovel, just let the sediment dry.
Chesterfield smoke on Elmora and 5th, such a vivid annoyance,
beginning to fill my lungs with smoke that I’ve come to avoid.
Now I play the villain cause I just simply enjoy it. -
Swore it was my last shot, promised it would be. It was the electric surge coursing through my conduits, a constant hum. I’ve been left alone, shadows have unfollowed me, but I’ve got 40 ounces that suggest I’ve done everything but bottle it up. My hair is falling out; I play a game, though I feel so ugly, I’m utterly defeated. I count the follicles, “she loves me… she loves me not,” with a sense of perverse pride. I dissect things logically, gladly picking them apart. Sadly, I find myself single-handedly pulling at the strings of your heart, stitching together compartments that house both fancy and fury. I live in this apartment, a shell of anger. I felt the shift in you when I put my fist through the door.
Sometimes, I listen to the pauses you take, the breaths, and the silences woven into every word, lost and adrift. I don’t really hear you, or even myself when I speak; it all seems to decay. I simply alter my demeanor and withdraw. It’s a constant struggle between me and my ego, a self-indulgent, heat-seeking endeavor. I’ve fallen in love with the unspoken nuances hidden beneath our masqueraded pretenses. I’ve lost count of the bridges I’ve burned along the way.
-
Grooving to the classics, velveteen smooth, with devilish antics.
Never seen through my pirate-themed ruse or the skeleton captain.
X-ray embellishing, developing cancer.
The elephant in the room, and the rest is in captions,
subtitled. Lexicons added for your pleasurable view,
I’ve got a penchant for ad-libs.
Subdued in my intelligence, say hello to the masses;
yeah, it’s just you, some gel tablets, and the medicine cabinet.
They’re like a president’s cabinet, a group of advisers:
the Vicodins, the vice president, the alcohol, the confidant,
all loose on the side. Hiding the bruises you’ve captured.
A group of counselors, grouped into family matters ending in -cillin.
The chancellor, the consultant, all there to mentor you, alla’them chilling ,
as if it was meant to instill some impressionable feeling.
Dandruff building, scratching until it bleeds,
where’s the Selsun Blue?
Telekinetic view, light a match
until it ceases and recedes until the black
hits my thumb. Black from the burning.
The burn will bring me back from the dumps.
Marvel at the stars, watching the TV watching me from the sofa.
I turn on the TV but drown it out with the garbage disposal.
My credit score is pristine, except I crashed my car last year.
Now I have nightmares about Geico could save me fifteen percent. -
He drifts through life, an elusive specter of emotional detachment. His friends, mere stand-ins for the void that lingers within, serve as placeholders in a desolate existence. In his solitary moments, he’s tempted to serenade himself while tending to nonexistent plants, a poetic yearning for a connection with nature that remains unfulfilled.
He dances with actions he later laments, a discord of choices and regrets, tangled like a web in his tormented psyche. Regret becomes his constant companion, an enigmatic shadow cast by deeds both committed and omitted. A heart, once gilded with hope, now mired in decay, bears the scars of unspoken sorrows.
He gazes upon pretty faces, seeking solace or salvation, finding amusement in the theatrics of humanity’s grand masquerade, all performed in stealth. His cry for help is cloaked in the guise of self-sufficiency, a silent plea that he masks effortlessly.
“I don’t,” he declares, rejecting the notion of need. What he truly craves is a fragment of hope, the bedrock on which to establish sound footing in a world that constantly threatens to pull him under.
Today, the simple act of toothbrushing eludes him. Instead, he commits to memory the braille-like patterns etched into his plaque, indifferent to their fate in his daily routine.
His friends smile, blissfully unaware of the tempest that rages within him. The warmth of sunshine is an opportunity to bask in the fleeting embrace of sun rays, to stretch his weary back and fingers toward the heavens. Yet, he questions, “Why?” A sigh of disillusionment escapes his lips, refusing to engage in a debate of differing opinions, for what’s the point when nothing matters?
He remains an island of indifference in a sea of fervent causes. “I don’t care,” he mutters, disengaged from the million battles people wage, for his war unfolds silently within the confines of his own mind. It’s a minuscule arena where the weight of millennia rests heavily on his shoulders, suffocating him to the point where even drawing breath feels like an arduous task.
He makes sounds, inhuman noises reminiscent of a mournful puppy, disoriented by the cacophony of fragmented voices that have led him to this desolate place. His eyes well up with tears, and his throat aches from the unspoken sorrows that weigh him down, like an anchor to the depths of despair.
Fatigue and discontent are his constant companions. The imprint of his body on his bed has become a work of art, a testament to his inertia and solitude. He abstains from the numbing embrace of alcohol and drugs, not out of virtue, but out of sheer boredom. He’s too uninspired to become a worse version of the self he barely recognizes.