Locked up, isolating ourselves from a world brimming with animalistic hostility, we recognize the shortcomings of the society we have constructed for ourselves.

We realize the house we have built with our avarice and self-righteousness has a foundation of sand and a frame of matchsticks and scotch tape, ready to unravel with the faintest breath of the wind. A pantry besieged by panicking hens, riled up in a frenzy and pecking one another to death over scraps. Beds that are too rough and too small. A yard littered with the bones of the less fortunate, bleaching out in the sun whilst those within shower them with scorn. All the while the house creaks and groans, threatening to collapse and indiscriminately bury one and all within its rubble.

They say tragedy has a way of bringing people together, but in a nation of individualistic beasts it has driven us further apart; galvinized us in our beliefs that we live and die alone. That one can only ascend by standing on another's shoulders until we are a hysteric mass, kicking and clawing and scrambling over each other to reach the top. Unaware that the top is miles out of sight, let alone reach.

This pandemic has not shattered our society, it has shown us that our society has been shattered for time immemorial. Throughout the nation and throughout the world, the masses fall to their knees and pray things can return to normal, not realizing that deep down, this is the way things always were.

The disease didn't change us, it exposed who we really are, deep in the dark corners of our persona that we ignore and hide and pretend never existed.

So ask yourself: is the world we left behind a world worth going back to?

Light green eyes,

Searching aimlessly in mine,

Drinking till 2 in the morning,

Panic attack in the bathroom,

Crying,

I remain quiet,

I don’t know

What answer you anticipate,

I won’t give it to you,

For now I’ll indulge you in silence,

Your body wrapped up in mine

Left behind is my house

Of horrors;

As I am running towards

A safe house,

A safe home.

Left behind are those

I thought I knew;

As I am slowly trusting

Better people,

Better friends.

Left behind is what 

I’ve been taught;

As I am finally learning to know

My morals,

Myself.

Left behind is 

the old me,

As I am sprinting forwards

At a speed 

faster than sound,

Than light.

And I know not where

I’m going,

Or what I’m running to,

But I know what 

I’m leaving behind.

#running #challenge #change #life

You’re always too far to hear me.

And I’m wondering,

If I whisper to the sun

As it kisses the bronze out from under my skin

If it will carry that whisper back to you

When it leaves me for the night to head for you.

If I whisper, I miss you

When you wake in early morning light

Will you hear it?

Quiet and dream like

You, just barely touching the edges of morning

And rays of light,

Carrying my words

To crawl across your skin

Creeping in your veins,

After passing through your ears

It wouldn’t matter if I could look you in the eyes

To tell you how you’ve hurt me

Because you can walk away

You can go on.

But I am left here

With just myself and my pain

Concentrate.

swallow hard

feel it creep in

a black expanse behind your eyelids

begging you to come closer

that slow burning heat that starts at your fingertips and flushes your face

that aching warmth pulsing through your veins

and the bitter residue resting on your tongue

until it floods you

so thoroughly you don’t feel a thing

just that heavy blazing pulse

filling up and numbing your void

until all you feel

is weightless, scorching light

Love is

That river

That flows

Into depths

Of the unknown

Bringing a rapid

Butterfly

Flutter

To the

Heart

K.j.a.

It doesn't seem fair that people who write stuff about you are the least informed.

You used to have to be a celebrity to complain about something like that. It has, at least traditionally, a sort of mass-media ring to talk about your name in the "headlines". But headline writers, anymore, are people with a cell phone or work computer & appetite for Facebook.

Once upon a time, you needed .edu in the surname of your email address to bull-rush the security turnstile of Facebook new account clearance.

Not no more.

Jesus, the stuff people put on there amazes me. Recently I've seen a lot of summoning of "prayer warriors". I don't quite know what that is. Don't think I'd like to encounter one in real life, though. I imagine they walk from Sunday school to big church with a Bible loosely tied around their beltline. Ready to draw 'n hit you with a quote if you so much as challenge them with a bad mood. Or pessimism.

Another thing I see a lot of on there these days is political stuff. I don't really have any comment on that.

"No comment," that's one of the things I would say a lot if I was a celebrity. Like when the paparazzi bum-rush you at your car.

"Please. No pictures."

Man, that'd be cool for a minute. Just to be like a real celebrity or whatever.

I didn't used to be any kinda celebrity. Not even in my hometown did people outside who I run with know my name.

Once upon a time, I was a good kid. Above-average baseball player.

Good 3-point shooter.

My sister always would come to my games. In the beginning, she had to. Mama made her.

But then, even after she got a car and a boyfriend, she'd still come. She didn't cheer or nothing. But, from what I remember, she'd be there.

People knew she supported me or whatever, I don't know, I don't even like to put it that way. Because it makes me sound like I had a real problem. And that she was like my "support" or whatever, and like I needed that. Man whatever, I ain't ever really even had like a problem.

Just, for some reason, people started thinking my life was worth paying attention to. Whatever whatever. You know?

The headlines. Man, I don't even like to be like that. I don't want drama. I ain't about that.

I'm a good kid.

Dude, I can remember when my mom moved from two jobs to one. She had started up with this guy Darrell. Man, he was so good to her.

They'd take us with them on Saturdays errrrywhere. I can't remember hardly ever having babysitters.

Shit was sooooo good for a while.

Man, I think sometimes what if they'd ended up together.

Like how it was then. Not how it got.

Like, what if they could've stayed happy and he'd adopted me, and I had a steady good influence above me at the house, what with me having anger problems and all that, probably would've been good especially if it was a man, and what about if he'd never showed me pills or how they make you feel, and what it's like to go a day without 'em.

I think on that sometimes. Think on all that stuff.

Hell, thoughts is pretty much all I got. In here, man, the books I get my hands on ain't worth reading anyway.

Autobiography of Malcolm X, what the fuck I'm post to do with that?

I'd rather have my hands on something with meat on the bones. Know what I'm saying. I'm just playing, I'm just playing.

I ain't even have a girl when they locked me up. I was single.

Shit, I'll be lucky to ever get something warm and wet again. That's what they tell me. By the time they let you out, most dudes can't even keep it up.

I remember back in the day, once upon a time, when I was a pussy warrior. Fuck prayer warriors. I was a goddamn pussy warrior.

Man this one time, I can remember I did the Abraham Lincoln circuit. In Nashville, man, we got all the tourists. This one time, check it out:

Friday night Illinois girl.

Saturday night Kentucky girl.

Sunday night motherfuckin' Indiana girl.

Once upon a time. Man, I was a motherfucking pussy slayer. Street warrior.

I was a soldier. Darrell knew it too. He took advantage of my ass.

I ain't see it coming either. Mama, man, she was too messed up to warn me. Darrell, man, he ain't a good dude. That's all there is to it.

He played us. He played my moms. He played my little brother. That's what I'm most heavy on. Man, I can't even speak on that.

Yeah, he played me. I made peace with that, though. Only God can judge me. Know what I'm saying.

My little brother, man, they turned him. He wasn't no thug. Man, you log onto Facebook though. They make him sound like, man they got him up there like some serious gangster.

Kyle wasn't no goddamn gangster. Maybe he wasn't real smart. I happened to get the genes that way. And then I wasted 'em. I had a good look at the basket too.

I was about to finish school. I was doing my thing, drawing and writing comic books. I always had a good vocabulary.

Pretty much all my teachers told me I could write. Math, man, I just don't have the patience for it. But with writing, I don't know, it just rolled off my fingers.

I know good stories.

No good story about real people was ever written under some once upon a time headline bullshit.

Man, fuck that. I like real stories and real people.

Maybe one day I'll write my own. Leave Darrell out of it. Or shit, maybe I'll make him my devil.

Someday. One day at a time.

You gave me a gift,

A gift of hope,

Holding me to the reality,

Telling me it is not a dream,

For I wandered helplessly,

For months floating about,

You string part of me back to the ground,

With your stories.

To your stories, your visions

I listened.

Genuinely thrilled,

I have always been,

With you around,

Never knew I'd actually be.

More than I question anything,

I question what is it in you that is intriguing,

I could have walked away in seconds,

Said no to everything you initiated,

Which I'm good at shutting people out,

But I could never say no to you.

Foolishly I just followed,

Never want to reveal myself,

But you knew.

I knew that slowly you strutted in,

To my maze of walls,

"Remember those walls I've built

Baby they tumbling down

They didn't even put up fight

They even make a sound"

True enough that lyrics to picture those walls I've built that meant absolute nothing to your presence.

But still I hold onto myself tight.

Little talks,

All that lunch hours,

Much of the worries where it started off early,

Little care here and there,

Slowly I care for you more than I thought I would.

To me, to my eyes, you showed interest as well,

The kind where you play with my mind,

Ones where I'd only realise when I go back home whether,

Did you mean that or am I just thinking too much?

Always choosing the latter I brush them off.

Sooner, I started weighing things,

Thinking too much of what you say,

What would you have meant,

My mind says I'm losing it,

My clan warned me,

Isn't it too late? it already is.

I know that craze took over me,

From which I had control before,

All gone loose the moment I knew this impulsive one, you.

I dont know, I really dont.

I'm imagining things arent I?

Questioning everything you say,

Chaining every single things you say and to think that you might actually like me back

I think so much ..just too much!

I can't breathe easy,

Sleepless nights pass by,

I have decided to let you know,

It may result in letting you go,

Us walking away in different paths,

Not a beginning of something new,

But demarcation of a closure,

The closure of what was us.

It creeps me out,

The reality,

What would you say in return,

It scares me to even believe that you might say that you feel the same,

I can't I just couldn't!

It stops right there.

I'm telling you of how I feel,

I'm tearing up, walking away.

Silently hoping you'd stop me or hold me back,

But I feel you'd say nothing in return,

I'm in nowhere near in comparison to you?

Why would you even feel something towards me?

I understand.

That was all I have thought and am puzzled of.

For this might actually had happened,

For this would be the reason why you're reading this,

I want you to know that,

I never regretted a moment with you.

And I'm sorry I jeopardised what we were,

I dont want to put you in uncomfortable position dealing with me feeling this way towards you,

And so thanks for everything; for making me smile,

For giving hope to the hopeless,

For this is worthy of memory,

I'll see you when I see you.

~Nara~