My Worst Enemy

I realize the root of my fears when my heart is in my throat and my stomach is full of vodka I never asked for. After six days of isolation from pain – a world where the world spun smoothly, the heat thawed my frozen heart and allowed it to love again. A place where I was surrounded by love and support, comfort and safety, laughter and happiness. Only to be thrust so suddenly into reality, a place where I am alone.

There are no more obligations to be a team member. The radical shift of being thrown back into the pit ready to be torn apart like my dogs keeping me awake at night. All the horrors of my past come crashing back because nothing can keep them away. Nothing can stop them from breaking my heart all over again. I watch from afar as their world continues to spin in fair weather without me. But why does the earth tremble beneath my feet, if my absence is not worth a drop of rain for them?

When the only thing left to comfort is darkness, I’m afraid I will never emerge from the shadows. I believe that, perhaps, the light of hope at the end of the tunnel is but a myth, as my world only seems to transcend deeper into black. Surrounded by demons, I became well aquatinted with them. They were the friends I never wanted. The bullies that I kept around because it was better than being alone. As time crawled on in that despair, I began to realize that my tormentors were simply extensions of me.

I had allowed my feelings to be manipulated into a loaded gun.
Mangled, violent and angry, ready to fire. But the only death would have been mine. I was the only thing caught in the crossfire. I became the victim of my own feelings. The feelings of betrayal and disgust – things that fueled my self imposed hatred. All because they cared no more about me, than a pebble in a stream.

Toxic friendships seem to be a breeding ground for depression. Their words multiply and grow like parasites, thriving off the misfortune of others. But yet, we endure because somewhere along the way we were taught it was better than being alone. Somewhere along the way we were told to put ourselves in danger to blend in. Somewhere along the way we were taught to feel guilty, when inflicted by the wrong doing of others. Somehow, we were learned to feel nothing but pain.

Acrostic Name

How many times in school did we have to write poems out of our name? Stumbled across this from the writing course I took three years ago

The Post 9/11 Kids

Just like any other generation: the baby boomers, the X Kids, anyone born into the mid to late nineties are flagged as many things. Generation Y. Post 9/11 Kids.

Graduation

It’s hard walking the hallways that echo with memories of people whose names will be forgotten as the years go by.
Faces that will fade into blurred lines. Their power and popularity will dissipate and be nothing more than a blip on the caution radar.
Everything was about the grades, the boys, the drinks and the girls. It was what you had, not what you were worth.

Do You Know Me?

There’s something tragically beautiful about being loved, but in all the wrong ways.

Crow Time

Do you ever stumble across pieces you wrote seemingly forever ago? This is one I dug up today. I don’t quite remember writing it actually. 

 

It blackens the sky with useless hope,

And a vivid sense of magnificence.

It’s something so trivial yet complex,

Eating the marks of what we are.

And of the kingdom it does inspire,

The wise and the mysterious.

But to our world we do impose,

The impending, deadly and cruel.

 

And yet how are we to compare,

To something we have no matter in?

Let them be as they are, themselves,

Let us not cross conflicting paths.

To coexist would be our goal,

To strive to make that acceptance.

But to accept, we face the unknown,

And we face the unknown with uncertainty.

 

And as we stare into that face,

We receive a black, empty gaze.

For if that is what we have given,

Then that is what we shall receive.

Or if we set their ways on fire,

With our own disbelieving, medieval ways,

Then do not expect nothing less than

The same outrageous hate you had bestowed

 

We continue to do so, stare

Challenging, with eyes ablaze.

Set fire to the preachers promising movement,

And aid the demons keeping us ever so still.

We cannot move forward if we do not accept,

If we are to be pulled down by our demons.

Whom shall only be banished with light,

That those preachers eagerly wait to prove.

 

But we have not given them the chance,

To prove nothing but their differences.

Not that their differences are all that different,
but different enough that they’re not the same.

To which you turn your head so quickly,

And raise your nose to the smell of… harmony.

Something you have never heard tell of,

You long for it, but still deny it.

 

 

 

And there sits the crow, still.

Elegant as the black curtain that follows.

Perches delicately on what we say is ours,

But they do not do anything to harm us.

The crow, caws. Other’s follow.

And in adoration, seemingly, they’re together.

And with their unity they do paint the dusk sky,

Black. But there is nothing wrong with that.

Twenty Dollar Car

642 things to write about: describe your fathers car.

I never had the luxury of growing up into wealth. By the time I was four, I was already a statistic and a poster child for a broken home. At the time I knew no difference, and that was okay to me. It was enough for me. The motions of childhood may not have been ideal; but even the grievances had their priceless payoffs.

Home

There’s something about the way the dying Spring light filters through the kitchen that swells my heart with warmth. As I sit on the couch, some strange yet familiar, and listen to the songs of the Beatles drift through the floorboards and mix with the sound of the news, it feels like home. A home I never really had. A home I don’t have.
Surrounded with sarcasm with the best intentions. And genuine care and concern. A barking bantering love I missed so dearly. It’s the rare time I feel a part of a family. Family isn’t always blood. It’s the ones who love you, with all integrity and loyalty they have.

Everything fits into place so well, even after months of not seeing my brother. A brother with a different mother, who was never my brother. But, in the light of these days, he is my family.

It’s only now, recalling the past that I realized how much these people shaped my life. The music, the culture, the love… And it’s overwhelming to see how fast time flies – for now it is not him who is leaving for the next chapter of life; it is me. It’s my turn.
Though I am afraid, I know it is okay to fall. For they will catch me with all the love and their best efforts.
It’s moments like these, that I am home.

Pre-Programmed

I’ve always considered myself a part of a privileged life. At least in the big scheme of things. My situation was no more desperate compared to third world countries, than Tsar is to his peasants. I may not have had much at some times, but I had my health. I had my family. Some days I debated whether or not I had either. But there was always the liberation of my heart, come any holiday when I remembered those less fortunate. But in the small picture, the narrow tunnel vision of selfishness, I never really paid mind to much of anything.

American Jungle

I often wondered what was behind the masks of the monsters I walked beside in this American Jungle. Their sleeping faces were as close as I would get to seeing their humanity. But by being in such close quarters with the demons of the darkness, I put my neck out for them. Their words hold the power of the guillotine, I flinch at each venomous syllable as I wait for the end.

It’s hard to tell who you can trust; whose intentions are genuine and honest. We’re caught up in the affairs of others like flies in a web. At the end of the day, it all seems futile as it’s a dog eat dog world. We can’t escape the nature of it. It’s every man for himself. Those of us who do try to be the Good Samaritan are left fighting over scraps of success to get is by. Our dignity may be intact, but our hearts are not.