Your Past Is No Excuse For Your Future

You pluck out old bones from your body like errant thought; dropping them carelessly to the ground.

They crunch and crack under thick black boots; crumbling to dust.

And you sigh as if this change and growth in yourself is tedious and detached as the pruning if a bush.

Cutting away stray branches with the sickening crack of bone.

Brushing them away with the sweep of your hand as if these pieces never came from you; they aren't of use.

And I wish at once to be as numb and strong as you.

The grass is greener somewhere ahead. But half the time I'm walking backwards.

Long ago I accepted that my mind would always outrun my body. It would be an exhausting existence but one I could ultimately cope with. I spent all of my youth studying for it, how to live with my own mind. How to make room for it in my life. I looked it in its wild eyes as it promised it would never be tamed. And that was fine. I swallowed my dread determined to live anyways. To perservere.

I was unprepared for my body to start lagging further behind. I should still be young. Barely an adult. But my body is degrading around me nonetheless My joints creak and ache, my muscles fall slack and weak. I can't carry the weight I could before. I cannot hold a knife correctly to cut my vegetables, I can't even muser up enough strength to stand throughout the day. Always having to stop and catch my breath.

My mind is only getting faster and more unruly as it grows but my body is quickly becoming infirm. I worry the two halves of my existence will pull me apart refusing to live together.

What will become of me when I am abandoned by both?

I'm good for love

A fertile plot for it to claim. It springs to life under my feet. It drips and curls down from my fingertips. Its roots in my every thought.

I love colors and sunsets. White fluffy clouds. Boys and girls. Friends and strangers. The texture of cotton. Hot steam and cool stream water. Eyes and arms and noses. Hands and hearts and shoulders. Fresh baby kittens and sun-soaked kitchens. Me and you and them.

Love grows up my arms like new grass sprouts. Tangles around my ankles like thorny vines. Grows thick in my chest like moss. It's suffacating

I'm good for love but love isn't good for me.

Colors under my skin

There's violet and lavender and lilac.

Like deep bruising, like sleepless night, like cold anemic skin.

It hurts somewhere between the cold defeat of blue and the hot anger of red.

But it's comforting too, like acceptance; acknowledgment; the first step to getting better.

And there's yellows too

Marigold and dandelion and polished bronze.

It's like warm sunshine, like soft flower petals, like sturdy statues.

It's encouraging; hotter and more pure than red but never as close as the color of life.

But it's intimidating too; like the mythical idea of being okay.

Sometimes I catch myself not breathing.

No air filtering in through my lungs.

My brain fuzzy and slow without it.

My chest still and my shoulders hunched.

Like some subtle subconscious part of me just decided this was it.

Time to give up.

Coming down

funny how distance looks different sometimes. When I'm sitting back to the dresser, watching my desk come into focus, much closer than anything's been in weeks.

There's carpet under my feet and the hum of a box fan off to the side. Light looks different, brighter where it plays on the reflective surfaces. Throwing overlapping shadows across the room.

And I'm suddenly aware of my own skin where it stretches over my knuckles. Tingly and colder than the night air.

Someones shifted the focus, dialed it up a little. And suddenly I'm here again.

I don't consider myself particularly religious.

But I think I might understand why rural areas are so full of superstition.

Not out of an antiquated idea of ignorance.

But because if you've ever seen dawn bleed red into the dying breath of a bright white night, then you'd know God too.

There are hands on my hips and I dread where they might go; cold and calloused and full of intent.

They inch up instead along my ribs; crawling and scraping against my skin.

Under my sternum they begin to dig; slicing deep with sharpened nails.

They stab and burrow deep in my chest; hands pressed in prayer barely brush my heart.

They snap my bones when they pull apart; prying me open to hungry eyes.

Yet still, I beat for their entertainment; exposed and bleeding and no longer me.

What I wouldnt give to feel the static in my limbs again.

For as much as it makes me jump and twitch at least I can move.

For as distracting as my restlessness is at least I am not still.

Not frozen by the empty space between my skin and my bones.

Left hollow by the absence of motivation; Of want for anything.