The walls tower so high, no light shone through

Shackled and bound, no escape to be found

Evermore looming is the tower

With every inch I grow, the constraints draw more power

Voices telling me who I am only grow louder

Pressure surmounting by the hour

Heart, body, and soul now fully ensnared

Frantically I search

So entangled am I now

Myself I cannot find

In the prison of all these restraints

A whisper comes in the wind

Yet listen real close

For one tiny voice is beginning to chime

Whose can that be

Surely not mine

Slowly it rises

Now drowning out the rest

Discovering still, it really is mine

Steady as a heartbeat

My voice finally breaks free

This is not who I wanted to be

I can be more, I can be just me

The words piercing through the chains

The shackles crack and fade

The walls crumbling, crashing to the ground

For the first time I feel light beams on my face

So warm, so inviting

Craving more, an uncertain step I take

My whole soul now bathing in light

Each step brings a new breath of life

I'm finally free

Free to be just me

What do I even write? I feel my life being drained out of me one agonizing day at a time. I'm always waiting. Waiting for a new test result. Waiting for a new doctor. Waiting for an answer, any answer. Tell me you can cure me, tell me I'm at death's door. I no longer care about the answer. But having an answer has become my white whale. And I shall chase it until I can chase no more.

I may no longer be a child, but I am far too young to be so broken. Day by day my body descends further into decay. Each breath becomes harder. Each step seemingly more impossible. The descent is slow, you hardly notice day-by-day. But over the months and years it becomes clear the most basic of tasks have become more impossible over time. The simple act of leaving the confines of my home has become a Herculean task. My body has failed me, and I have far too many years remaining to live this way.

Time has become irrelevant. Days. Weeks. Months. Years. Decades. I can no longer tell one from the next. It's simply one long waiting room. I'm not even sure what I'm waiting for anymore. For the day to finally catch my white whale? To wake up one day miraculously cured? For death to break down my door?

No longer a child, so helpless and chaste

Far from the embracing the cold hands of death

An eternal waiting room, from one to the next.

Blurred in my mind

Has it been days, months, years

I no longer know my place in this world.

Tick tock goes the stroke of the clock

Soon the sands of time will run out.

For I know not what to do until my time shall expire.

Swirling Swirling Swirling

Why won't my head stop swirling?

Trapped Trapped Trapped

Why are the words so trapped?

Knots Knots Knots

Why are there so many knots?

Chaos in my heart

Chaos in my mind

Chaos in my soul.

I know not from whence this chaos came

Nor where it's trying to go.

The more I try to untangle the knots

The deeper they sink into my soul.

I go searching for the roots

Try to dig them out one by one.

Armed solely with my flashlight & shovel

My search for all the unspoken emotions continually expands.

Even just searching for the names of the knots

They recede ever deeper into the depths of my soul.

The more I search, the longer and longer the cycle grows.

Swirling Swirling Swirling

Why won't my head stop swirling?

Trapped Trapped Trapped

Why are the words so trapped?

Knots Knots Knots

Why are there so many knots?

Chaos in my heart

Chaos in my mind

Chaos in my soul.

Dear me,

When you close your eyes at night, I know the life that you long for. Your dreams are so much bigger than this tiny town. Sadness and angish are replaced by happiness and sunshine in your dreams. I know you want that seemingly impossible life. I know you want a life of fulfillment. A life that feels worth living.

I know you don't want to hear this, but life is not what you expect. True, my days are now my own. I am no longer chained to my bed with a black hole of despair. Yet, happiness is not what you think.

I know you think one day you'll just wake up and wash it all away. I'm here to tell you that won't happen. It takes years of hard work to become that person. And even when you achieve it, you'll still always be haunted by the ghosts of your past. Those carefree days you dream of will not match the reality laid out in your imagination.

I know you think you know exactly how your career and life will play out. I'm here to tell you those aspirations were all abandoned years ago. Years of bills, medical surprises, and broken promises will cause you to settle. You will need to change the entire way you think of yourself, your career, and what it truly means to live well. Yes, you will still be free to dream. But the life you eventually come to achieve will be much smaller than your endless dreams.

No, your happiness will not be what you are now imagining. You will settle and compromise until your life is livable, but not the spectular event you dream of at night. You will eventually realize that your happiness will never be the careful fulfillment you think. Your hope will turn into a life of quiet desire. A yearning to find that happiness you once longed for, but is now so far out of reach.

I don't know if I can say anything to truly prepare you for the pain you have yet to endure. I know you think you are living in the darkest part of the planet. I know you think that the light can't be far from you. Sadly, I know you have darker days ahead of you before you can finally be free. You will become all to accustomed to hearing doctors say that they are powerless to help you. In just a few short years, you will have to watch your own boyfriend be buried. It will be years before you are truly financially stable. And even when you are, you will still be drowning in medical bills. There is no way to prepare you for what lies ahead.

I don't want you to think that my point in telling you all this is that it's not worth the pain. Yes, if I could, I would change what lies ahead for you. But I sadly do not process such powers. You will get to a point where you are content with the life you have settled, scraped, and sacrified to earn. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. It may not be the blinding sun you are imagining. It's more an everlasting glow of embers from a once roaring fire. But it is there. And you will learn to warm yourself with the glow of the embers.

Before I write, let me preface this. I know I haven't been posting a lot. I miss it, but I've been undergoing a lot of scary and unknown health issues that has made it difficult to continue to write. I'm just beginning to get answers, but there are still many unknowns and my life is continually impacted every day. I hope to soon get back to writing more frequently. While I was meditating tonight and working my way through some of the intense emotions surrounding this, I had a particularly interesting experience that I thought I would share. It was very on-point for what I think many of us are feeling right now, regardless of the circumstances causing it. Maybe, just maybe, if we can share and relate to one another's emotions during such a turblent time, we'll come out the other side. I hope that this experience resonates with some of you, and you find some comfort in the fact that there are lots of us out there who are experiencing similar emotions right now. Anyway, here goes, hope you enjoy...

Oozing, festering, rotting, hot molten lava. It's flowing through my body, growing, taking up every nook & cranny of my body, seeping through all the croacks & crevices, spilling into all the empty spaces of my soul. Where has this anger been hiding? I don't know how long it's been there, but it has the aura of an eternity. It's eating away at my soul. What does it need? Sensing a feeling of longing to be heard, I surrender my higher self to the anger.

I watch my higher fall into the oozing molten lava. I allow my higher self to be bathed in the scorching heat and liquid fire. I feel the anger quickly rise and expand, filling the few remaining crevices that were previously empty. For a brief moment, I'm entirely consumed. My higher self evaporates with the heat, my body boiling over with the lava.

I've now become the anger and oozing molten liquid. Soon the liquid cools and my higher self resolidifies. I hear my higher self ask, 'what is your purpose here, what is it you need'? In the blink of an eye, the lava consumes her once more, somehow expanding even more than before. Soon it begins to cool and ebb.

She asks yet again 'what is your purpose, what do you need'? No answer returns my cries. Over and over she repeats the question. 'What is your purpose, what do you need?' Silence continues to fall on exasperated ears. She asks once more, about to give up. 'What is your purpose, what do you need?'

At last, before the words even finish escaping her lips, a response comes through. The now semi-solidified ooze all at once becomes a river of tears. She is now treading water in an endless ocean of tears. A soft voice gently replies 'I just want to be noticed, be heard, be cared for and loved'.

Just like that, the ocean shrivels into a small puddle. It's now easily engulfed in the arms of my higher self. The now-puddle is cradled in the arms the way a mother cradles a newborn infant. And just like a new mother, she begins to rock the puddle. Each gentle sway of the arms slowly soothing away the pain. As the puddle slowly disappears, she begins to walk away. 'Not yet-don't leave me yet', a soft voice desparately pleads. And so my higher self continues to rock until there's nothing left to soothe to sleep.

#streamofconciousness #emotions #prose

I have been going back and forth on whether or not to post this all day. As someone living in America I have a lot to say on the election. If you are someone who is tired of politics and needs to shut off all political views, I highly recommend scrolling past this post. Believe me, I understand. For those who care to read this, thank you for taking the time to hear me! These are just my personal feelings on the recent events, and I just need a space to air them out right now. I trust that you all will be able to respect that.

Yes, I voted for Biden in this election. Yes, I'm still (somewhat) dismayed by the results. We have spent the past four years living in a bubble of fear, hatred, and anger. We are afraid for our friends who are immigrants and have been under constant threat of losing their own family and children. We are afraid for our LBGTQ friends who are constantly being harassed and attacked just for being themselves. We are afraid for women around the country, who are being seen as a second-class citizen. And yes, we are afraid for our friends of all colors, as the cops continue to brutalize them. And the leader of our nation has spent the last four years feeding into these fears and hatred of fellow man-kind.

I am deeply disturbed by how many people wanted four more years of this. The race was so close that it could've easily had another ending. So many areas in our country where people voted for this fear-mongering and hatred of others. How can you look around and decide this is what you want for the next four years?

But tonight is not a night for lamenting. Tonight is a night of jubilation. After a long and tumulous election, love finally won out. Enough people decided that love and acceptance are worth fighting for. We decided that after four long years of dispair, we are ready for a better tomorrow.

We must not forget that this is not the end of the road. There is still half of our country that chose another path. It would be naive to think that our problems are through with the end of the election. We must remember to stand up for what's right. We must remember that we are a deeply divided nation, and there is still much out there to fight for. Yes, tonight we celebrate. But once the jubilation and hang-over wear off, we must pick ourselves up and remember to stand-up for those around us when we feel the hatred and angst rearing it's ugly head once more.

#opinion #streamofconciousness #nonfiction

I close my eyes and see the abyss before me. It's deep, dark, and inviting. Something about the abyss seems so familiar and so comforting. I could swear that I've been here so many nights before.

I start to remember. Now I know I've been here before. It's my safe haven. It's where all my unspoken secrets are locked. All those feelings that society has pushed to the margins of the page get locked in this eternal abyss.

It's become my sancuary. The only place I can go to feel everything that's supposed to be 'taboo'. I sink further into the abyss as all those feelings begin to overwhelm me. Everything that's been locked away by the expectations of society are finally unraveling.

With my eyes still closed, I run my fingers over the underside of my wrist. It's as smooth as the stones of a rushing river. But here in the abyss, it's covered in scars. From all the times life became too much to bear. Wanting to feel something, anything, and just imaging how that first cut would feel.

My hand moves and lays on my chest. It hurts from the rage. Sometimes life can be so cruel. Why does my body continually fail me? Why did he have to die so young? If I express all the rage, I might never stop. I'm to afraid to feel the rage, so it gets locked in the abyss where it can't do any more harm.

As I sink into what I can only imagine is the bottom of the abyss, I find the shredded remains of my hope. That youthful naivety that tells you the whole world is still yours for the taking. It's been a long time since I've felt that level of happiness and liberation. That too gets locked away. The weight of life crushed that hope long ago.

I stumble my way out of the abyss. All those ferocious feelings have been contained yet again. As the abyss melts away, sleep finally washes over me. And I know that tomorrow, the whole dance will begin all over again.

I collapse on the sofa,

Another long day of doctors is through.

Will the madness ever end?

It's been months now that I've been sick.

Can't sleep, can't walk, can't breathe, completely bound by the confines of these walls.

Why is my body failing me?

Time is no longer relevant.

The circle of life is now a circle of work and doctors, doctors and work.

Where is the finish line to this infuriating rat race?

They've run all the tests,

Yet sill no answers are offered.

How many more tests are left before they finally know?

My hope for a solution has run out,

My lust for life died with my hope.

What ever happened to that light at the end of the tunnel?

A

Rat

In an

Endless

Maze.

Tick.

Tock.

Clock

Continues

To

Strike.

Time

Is

Standing

Still.

Walls

Forever

Shrinking.

Will

The

Maze

Never

End?