Sleep

Life frightens me. I tiptoe along a rocky precipice overlooking a shadowy depth unplumbed by all but human imagination and it takes my breath away. There is beauty and a sort of magnetism that attracts me to this blackness so total and all encompassing. In this I find comfort, a sanctuary away from the realities that assault my conscious senses. Like a child burying its head under blankets when frightened, I feel a primal comfort in darkness. How dearly I’d like to embrace everything that nothingness offers me! And with that thought, I lose my footing (of fault or of fate?) and plunge into the chasm.
Within its grasp, at last, I can feel the universe showing me a polite mercy as it cleaves the bonds between the very atoms that manifest the corporeal me. Wonderful sensations overwhelm my fingers and toes. They scream with wild delight as I move my thumb up and down each digit until they dissolve like sand in a great wind. Soon it spreads to my arms and legs which I move, curiously at first, and then stop, no longer able to discern whether they still belong to me or return to the possession of the cosmos. My torso surrenders all in an anticlimax and my mind clouds in euphoria.
Then I see them, bright colors spilling into my vision in drops and smears so vibrant it illuminates what was once devoid of color. The sight awes me and my mind begins to wonder marvelous things. Have I finally reached an awakening; a lightness of being of which there is no going back? This is the world I have so lustfully dreamt of. One in which I have transcended material things and bodily possessions for the sight beyond mortality. In the nothing I have found all desire. But then the visions swirl into one another like mixed paints until they recreate my familiar blackness and I realize I am still but a man. The sights I reveled so religiously in were part of a final betrayal by the eyes I had so neglected in life. While the colors danced, the childhood blanket I had run to in fear was pulled over my unknowing head and the only comfort it affords is that I will soon discover just what nothing truly means.

Untitled

The gravity of life is crushing. We come into this world kicking and screaming upon our backs and all too often we exit it the same way. The longer one stands upright, the sooner they are brought to their knees by the weight. But as that unyielding embrace pulls us to the grave, is it not an admirable pursuit to oppose its undisputed domain? Despite the impossibility of such a task, we lift ourselves to our feet, crane our necks and stand upon our toes with the naiveté of a curious child. We look to the sky with our desirous eyes and our beating hearts - sustained only by the dream of a night in which we too will shine from the firmament as bright as a star. Wisps of prescient memories cloud our thoughts of a glorious day in which we finally break the maternal bond that binds us to terra firma to find ourselves weightless. Driven by the lightness of our souls, we will dance upon the aether and we shall fill the vacuum with our song. Only in this unending void will our full potential be realized and yet, here we sit, drunkenly sipping fermented fantasies afforded to us by those whose lives have already come and gone. We forget that unlike the heaviness of gravity, time’s tide smothers.

a poem in three lines

i want to write stories and poems with you
and someday, maybe
they'll all come true

Bastille Day

When I was much younger, simpler, and more innocent than I am now I had a hard time making new friends. I was a very shy child and relished time I had alone. I spent my whole childhood inside my mind which raced and swirled with ideas and fantasies that seemed to make up for all the missed opportunities I had to visit other children my age. My neighborhood had lots of families with kids so finding someone to play with certainly wasn’t the problem. The reason that I didn’t enjoy interacting with others was because it created so many variables that I just couldn’t control. I worried a lot because not being able to predict what was going to occur next was one of many fears I harbored. The world was full of so many unknowns that I remember becoming overwhelmed by the sensory overload and wishing desperately that I could become an adult who had the ability to deal with it.

One of my most vivid childhood memories was sitting in my living room when I was six thinking of things someone my age should never have to. I began to try to make sense of life and the inevitability of death . I remember asking my mother, “What happens when I die? Is it just nothing forever?” She recoiled and she gave the obligatory reply that, “We go to heaven.” But even as the words wove themselves into my naïve mind I knew, somehow, that there wasn’t a heaven and that when I die I will cease to exist. Tears streamed down my face and I buried my head into my hands. The very concept of an end to my thoughts, feelings, and dreams crushed me but in the coldness of this realization I found a truth and that relieved me. It only strikes me now that I was able to comprehend and accept a concept that instills terror even in the hearts of grown men.

Thoughts like those permeated every free moment I had in which I was not engaged in some sort of mental activity. The mind I once thought provided shelter from reality and stretched beyond my fathoming became much smaller and less comforting as the years went by until I finally realized it had become a prison. I attempted to escape it by playing games, reading, and listening to music but only one activity seemed to keep my mind the furthest away from the thoughts and that was talking to another living, breathing person. I managed to make friends and I tried to connect with them but I always felt as though I was never on the same page as them. As I attempt to put into words the way I interact with others I can only describe it as though I speak through a middle man. My brain process the information I gather during conversations but all my responses and expressions are formulated and filtered through this construct into a being that I try to convince people I “really” am. The little I do share is tantamount to the tip of the iceberg; the overwhelming majority of me never sees realization outside of neuron firings and fleeting expressions on my face. Perhaps I created this persona as a buffer zone between myself and the world in a feeble attempt at cushioning the blows that I dread will befall me but have never yet struck.

The irony of this is not lost on me. The more I put myself out on a limb, the deeper I seclude myself in my mind which fans the flames of my desire for interaction. The way the cycle self-perpetuates has driven me to lows that have taught me lessons about myself that I will not soon forget. And yet, sometimes I find individuals just like me, as if by chance, and they help me deconstruct these bars and walls I have created and allow me to witness wonders I haven’t experienced since I was a child. For some reason, I’m able to bypass the filters and speak words that I haven’t used in such a long time that I’ve forgotten how they sounded in my own voice. The gratitude and admiration I have for these people is inexpressible. What I’ve seen of their true selves is beautiful and it gives me hope for myself.