escape

You think you need escape from this place, you believe you hate it. You don't know where I've been, though. I've been so far gone and back that now I'm grateful I don't live in better places - but better has various, flexible meanings. If you are looking for freedom, good luck finding it outside your own mind. If you are hunting down a beautiful landscape replete with exotic scents and sights, I wish you luck in finding an outcome that's not lonely. Call me wrong, shut me down, but you haven't watched the spiders crawl up the wall like I have. Follow them, tap, tap, patter, splash, and put yourself in their shoes. Don't focus on where you want to be, but where you are now. All you've got to do is make that place worth living in, and voila. You've escaped.

fantasies

"Why do you talk to everyone so half-ass?" He shook his head impatiently.
"I... I guess I..." she opened and closed her mouth several fish-like times, quickly trying to formulate an answer in her brain before she snuck into her English class.
"Yeah?"
"I just live and put all my energy into my own world."
He sighed, emanating an indiscernible array of emotions in one breath.
"Well some day, do you think you'll ever float on back down to mine?"
She watched as he walked away, tucking his books under his arm and leaving her late for English.

weak

my greatest weakness is that ever since i stopped talking to my old best friend, i've had the uncanny ability to ignore someone, even those close to me, for long, long periods of time.

on a whim

"If you have to constantly remind yourself that you're lucky... are you still lucky?"

"It depends on who's doing the reminding: your heart or your brain."

wait, what?

i can feel the temptation,
longing shades of red, orange, yellow, and mauve
twisting and turning to the shape of your brain.
one thing you haven't realized
until the colors hit you in the face
and the cool turns to noon,
noon becomes after,
after turns to evening,
evening hatches night
and by the time it's all over,
what attraction have you resisted?

when i walk home, my feet accustomed to the concrete rise and fall
pitter patter, this way, that way, paved or not
i know my way around, though things have changed
i see them as they once and always were
whether the subject is uplifting is no one's business
except for the wild birds calling come home, come home
but this is where i grew up, mr. bird
and who are you to think i'll stray?
for once i did, never again, so ship me away, away
as far as you'd like, but to this day i'm not running.

jealousy plays no part in this act, but watch and you'll learn
the many ways and aspects of this society will unfold
just open your eyes, differently each day
maybe pry them monday,
drift open tuesday,
rub them wednesday,
stretch them thursday,
and after all this,
maybe you should keep them closed on friday.

clueless, past, doubled, sideways
i saw you standing on the steps regardless
with a swift mind i told myself don't look away, don't look, not now
but it's friday, i kept them closed, didn't i?
i closed my eyes and also my mind to shut you out
but you're right down the street, aren't you?
my fingers hate you.

tension, tension, unlike a knife
slice it once and what do you get?
two halves of the same price, both undesirable as well as nice
but
wait
you're
forgetting
to
keep
them
open

inspiration

Inspiration
More than
An arm’s breadth away
But still you reach,
Reach,
Reach,
And when it hits, you run
Run
Run home
Until the insight shoots
From your fingertips
Collides with your toes
Jolts back to your heart
And into your brain
You’re home now
Sand slipping through your fingers
You can’t recall
A single shot of
Inspiration

magic & memories

8/18/09

Sometimes I think you ought to revisit memories – the good and the bad, but mostly the good. However, I think people sometimes get these two mixed up. Good memories can initiate bad or miserable feelings, while unhappy memories may create joy in the fact that whatever happened is long over. At least that’s how it is for me.
I think you need to make the best of the memories you’ve got. That definitely doesn’t mean sugar coating anything; nothing tastes worse. It’s not trying to fit puzzle pieces together that never fit in the first place either. There’s also nothing more useful than learning to block out that lazy, apathetic feeling you can get from occasional memories. The Venus fly trap of last summer pulls me in sometimes and threatens to hold me hostage. Sometimes I’m taken, sometimes I even willingly give in. Whether this is unintelligent or not will never upset the consequences. I’ve learned the more you kick and struggle your limbs, the tighter the knot between then and now will inflict more markings in your skin so forgetting the pain or loss you experienced once your euphoria was over is inevitable. It’s uncannily funny how everything that reminds you of that state of euphoria is hugely depressing. So what do we want? Euphoria or normalcy? Infinite dullness or occasional bliss? Living under a veil or living an epiphany? Is it noticeable to be changed by one week of your life, noticeable enough to live off of until your next dosage of fever medicine?
My life is tainted by constant day dreams of memories. Is there anything so tangible it can be savored for what it is? This is a tempting idea, but I remain torn between this and the proposal of strapping my feelings on a leash. All I know is that memories will personally refuse to be cast aside or become a host to dust bunnies. There are memories, magical ones at that, that have spoken to me, placed a healing hand on my heart, and with a soothing voice told me never to regret taking for granted all those days I counted down, persuading me to move on and try new things. ‘It’s alright, Sparrow,’ it spoke to me, ‘don’t shake and shudder your wings now, you’ve got too much to lose.’ But maybe that’s just it.
Maybe it’s all magic playing tricks on us again. It wouldn’t be the first time. It’s just that magic has a fault, and it accepts no apologies. Whether to look up to this or not is still unclear to me, however, the whiny voice of my past tells me to sulk and revolve my world around a question mark.
I can’t tell if I’m done with those days or not. There’s only one thing jumping out of the bushes at me now though, and that’s the never ending excitement that courses through my blood at the thought of my next opportunity to take a stab at a well-earned round of memory-making. For now I’m stuck in a dry land of confusion and masks, where every sorrow becomes a joke and every memory turns to dust.