Who needs happiness? Seriously, what has ever been accomplished by happiness? Do the paintings of Vincent van Gogh look like the work of a happy person? Was the life of Belisarius a happy one? Were any of the slaves that built the 7 wonders of the ancient world whistling while they worked?

Looking back at my life. Anything that I ever accomplished took a lot of effort, it took lots of time and sacrifices. Not once has "being happy" helped me accomplish anything. Not once has happiness brought me any kind of fulfillment or long-lasting peace. The times where I focused on myself, were also the hardest times to look in the mirror.

before bars were illegal

there were darkly lit rooms and house music

slurred wit that never pulled men in

a Jane Austen novel, millenial-style

later I sip a vodka soda

picking up phone numbers

at my litte sister’s wedding

desperation sinking in

like it only can when you’re thirty

still renting monthly

pouring bitters into a boozy Friday morning

loneliness shaken, not stirred

happiness in a sub-plot you

didn’t get a part in, you useless actress

pretending to be strong and independent

code for: couldn't get a man to stick around

happiness is unlike

lipstick that gets in your teeth

at a wedding speech

where bitterness

seeps in

it ebbs and flows

and mostly

stunts my growth

a real grown-up revelation

in the bar’s bathroom you’re puking in

The garden, the only place I loved would be the last place I would ever be.

I kept digging. And digging. And digging.

When my dad got home from work, his sideways glance at me and the joking "you've dug youself a hole big enough for a dead body" made me even more depressed. You're not wrong, I thought as I looked into the hole again.

That night, I got out of bed, put on my garden gloves, and walked slowly out the back door and over to the garden trembling from the spring chill and the tears rolling down my cheeks.

I looked at the tree above the garden where I had rigged a contraption opposite of hunting traps that use netting. In the bag, I shovelled the dirt that will later fall on top of me.

I set my envolope in a bag on the other side of the garden. It sat on the potatoes in there and sneered up at me asking why I was still alive. I don't know my eyes whispered back.

Back at the hole, I sat down in the dirt remembering years ago how I used to come to the garden on the days my parents fought. The garden always comforted me as a safe-haven outside of the house that habored monsters. I thought about the days in spring when I planted potatoes, corn, pumpkins, and beans outside in the rain, getting sick while the two of them screamed at each other inside so loudly I could hear each word clear as day outside, but at least it was quieter out there. I thought about the snowy days in winter when I'd sit in a little snow fort on top of where the grean beans were planted in spring only so I couldn't see what was happening inside to make their bruises and cuts. I thought of the days when I raked leaves and harvested the potatoes, corn, pumpkins, and beans while they were at single meetings with therapists and later on their own filling out divorce papers. I thought about the humid summer days where I sat in between the rows of corn pretending to be in a quiet crowd of people where everyone knew me and loved me even though the only thing they could do was give me was comfort.

And comfort was enough. Then.

And I made my decision. Laying back, I tugged the rope, and I was under three feet of soil. Drowning myself in the earth that protected me.

No light. No air. No sun. No sky. No shouting. Just peaceful silence as I choked on death and cried my way from life.

In the spring, I thought as silently as the rest of me was dying, mamma will plant potatoes over me, and I will stay in my garden forever.

You might recall what happened a few months ago. When I mixed the unlabeled canister of rat poison into the mashed potatoes on accident and killed Lou Ann.

It should have been me, not her.

I'm sorry that you won't have any daughters left.

I love you, but forgetting is more important.

the first time i saw you there was something about you

our eyes locked and what i saw inside terrified me

it was destiny

it was fate and i was doomed

you know me better than i know myself

you forced my secrets out of me, painstakingly, one by one

i can't stop thinking about you

i must always be alert, waiting, for whatever happens next

you're always there for me

you never leave

our love is unbreakable

my heart, not so much

Anxious thoughts in the middle of class

As a lecturer with a brilliant axcent drones on,

Did he text me back yet?

Its odd, these steamy exchanges that spontanously

Arise amidst talk of narwhal currency and drunken confessions

Aren’t you in class right now?

Squirming as precipitation between tightly crossed legs

Threatens to reveal me to my unsuspecting classmates

Yeah, so what?

My odd affinity for the opposite sex

Often drives me to do this stuff,

Though I wonder why these thoughs still resurface?

This scene died a year ago now,

And youre playing dictator and I’m wondering,

Do you ever let your mind wander back there too?

In-depth explanation of how broken shards of stained glass pieced together create a window for light to pass, and not much else.

Chapter I:

Riverside

Im sitting on a park bench. I feel well grounded. The wood is sturdy against the back, creating an illusion of stability in my still adolescent life. It doesn’t worry me that I’m failing school and have no idea where I’m going to college. It doesn’t worry me that I’m high more days out of the year than I am sober. Today I’m sober for a change. My head is clear.

Her bare legs are laying across my lap and the smooth skin of her thigh feels lovely on my fingertips, as I run them all over. My other hand is occupied with slightly tickling her neck. She has a silly spot around her third vertebrae on the right side of a cute beauty mark down the middle of her spine. My nails barely come to contact and it makes her tingle and tell me to stop as she ticklishly laughs. Her curls are brushing against my face. They have this fascinating texture. I used to sneak behind her years ago and play with it. She would let me. I didn’t know she was self conscious about her natural hair back then. I’ve never seen or touched hair like hers before. They’re brushing against my face in conjunction with the river breeze. I close my eyes and memorize this sensation. Deep down inside I knew there will be moments in my life when I will recall this for comfort. I was right. I have relived this instant many times in my memory for half a decade since.

We talked about an hour or so before we decided the moon and city lights reflecting off the Hudson water were equally as enjoyable. The silence wasn’t awkward and feeling the vibration of her chest as she occasionally broke it with a subtle song was making me happy. She has a great memory. She wants to go to a karaoke but, I don’t know how to sing and refrain from going. Five years later I’ll be singing her Russian lullabies to calm her anxiety so she can sleep. I also don’t want to tell her that I love her at that moment. It’s the right moment to say it. I just don’t. I’m making a mistake and not realizing it. I can’t possibly understand it at the moment. We do not recognize the loss of opportunity until we’re waving it farewell off the docks of regret.

Chapter II:

ESL

We speak to one another in our native tongues for entertainment. We laugh and find it amusing to hear what each one of us has to say without understanding. She says something to me in Spanish with a serious face. I felt every meaning she could have possibly conveyed. She refuses to translate and keeps walking. I think it sounded like “I think I’m falling for you”. But, it also sounded very much like “you’re an idiot and I will leave you soon”. I think she meant a little bit of both. I put her back against a brick wall and told her I love her in Russian. I think she understood. I asked her a final time what the last thing she said was. She just gave me a kiss. “You’ll find out one day”. I spoke to her in English for the rest of the night.

It’s a late summer night and we’re cuddled on the train together on the way back home. I ate too much papaya just like I overindulge with everything in life. It made my stomach very upset and I’m feeling sick, but trying my best not to show it. Projecting my insecurities of appearing anything but perfect to her. I’m too deep in the abyss to be looking for a ladder.

Не пробуждай, не пробуждай

Моих безумств и исступлений,

И мимолетных сновидений

Не возвращай, не возвращай!

Не повторяй мне имя той,

Которой память - мука жизни,

Как на чужбине песнь отчизны

Изгнаннику земли родной.

Не воскрешай, не воскрешай,

Меня забывшие напасти,

Дай отдохнуть тревогам страсти

И ран живых не раздражай.

Иль нет! Сорви покров долой!..

мне легче горя своеволье,

Чем ложное холоднокровие,

Чем мой обманчивый покой.

-Денис Давыдов

1834

-Илья Трофименко

почувствовал

2014-2018

Chapter III:

Comfort Food

The sun has set already and the farm stand has been packed. We get to keep what we don’t sell so it doesn’t go to waste. We only vendor fresh produce. A chefs dream. I hid the lucrative purple potatoes from the customers so that I can make her mashed potatoes out of something purple. I don’t know why I’m so excited, especially after walking miles to her house with a bag full of them. A little garlic for the kick, a little cream for texture. A skirt steak to pair with and I have one happy girl munching down across the table from me. I know shes satisfied. Last time I got her food she didn’t like the breading on the calamari that I walked to her house. Maybe because I also brought a sick girl flowers that shes allergic to. I’m glad I made it up to her. She appreciates everything I do I just don’t notice it. I’m so focused on the pigment of the potatoes I don’t realize this is the time to say it. Those magic words. I leave her house again without telling her my intent. I didn’t cook them because they were purple. I don’t even care that they’re purple. I did it because I love you. You know it, but you need to hear it from me.

Chapter IV:

Intuition

Sometimes you know. Our bodies have a very good balance of having underwent millions of years of biological evolution, and eons of spiritual experience of the self aware humanity. Those bus doors closed and the last thing she said was “see you later”. I won’t see her again for five years. I sat on the bench for what seemed like an hour. My mind was blank and void of activity. The reality of the situation has not yet caught up to my intuition. The bench didn’t feel as firm on my back as it did earlier that summer. A lot of change was coming, but I will choose to swim upstream instead.

Chapter V:

Skeptic

She reads my fortune. It is accurate, but vague within my understanding. The things she says can pertain to anyone’s life as long as we make the appropriate connections. Every broad statement can become very personal if one chooses to believe their fate is in a deck of paper cards. She tells me that I will reunite and fall in love with someone from my past. We both don’t see her name written on that card. To this day I don’t know or recollect what pushed me to asking her to meet me in Thailand. I just remember being pushed. It was an external force of supernatural beginnings pushing me towards an equally divine source of energy. A month later I am laying down holding her hand getting the word fortuna tattooed across my stomach. The name of the vessel thats surviving a kraken attack as the tentacles are dragging it into the darkness of my blacked out navel. Whether fortune is what truly gets me through the storm, or the skilled sailors of rough seas, we’re in dire need of both when fighting off a mythical creature. Home is where I want to be and shes my temple.

Chapter VI:

Stained glass shards

Every individual moment in my life has been a broken piece of glass. It has the potential to contain a sharp memory that can cut me as deep as my carelessness will let it. It’s stained in the color that I choose it to be.

Chapter VII:

The window

If all the shards are the same color there will be no picture. If all of them are shades of dark, no light shall pass. If all of them are shades of white the light will hurt the eyes. Each shard has to be the precise color that it is in order to create a depiction that you choose. It doesn’t matter what the depiction is however. It is the light that passes that will warm your soul that does.

But, my window will probably be purple.

He was an average earthworm. Quite healthy, medium girth. Though driven by instinct, his mind ran wild. Like every worm out there, he felt exceptionally special. Imagination punishing - with the incredible lonesomeness of seclusion. The inability to express and share feelings drew him deeper into the abyss of his consciousness. What he did not recognize however, was the blessing of lacking an ego. There was no voice that spoke inside his head, for he never knew what speech was. Instincts raised him - he had no influencial upbringing. He saw nothing and could not, nor could be judged. He was but a Being. A presence that nonetheless was aware of its' own existance.

Slithering through the dirt just as the awarenss did through his cosciousness. He did not think in the manner that we know. There was but feelings inside of him. A self explained aura that did not require physical expression. Yet he wanted to share his existance with the universe. The world interacted with him in a brutal manner. A constant reminder that he is not alone. All he could do was slither. And slither he did.

One day he felt the soil take on a more delicate touch. The moisture quenched the thirst through his pores. Cold droplets sent soothing vibrations through the earth, drawing him towards them. Digging past the cold ground he suddenly felt a great deal of relief as a gust of crisp air hit him. He felt out of place, like he did not belong. But, an eerie curiosity begged him to remain. More so than the intrusiveness, the radiant warmth of the sun was far more welcoming than the cold earth. So he laid there, his body squirming in pain.

He felt free all of the sudden. For once he had no desire to express this feeling. The entire universe knew already. He was at one with it. One with the presence which is the background to all life.

The human that stepped on him did not think so. But then again, how could he. It was just an average earthworm.

You laugh I know

But today I’ll show

The world beyond the Abyss

Dark and cramped it seems

Frightful and horrible creatures leems

But yet you go far enough

And there hids children crying

Some in a ball and some just lying

On the stone cold ground

Trying to touch them could be deadly

Yet in the distance you hear the medley

Turning to a striking women

She protects them all

So watch your step or you’ll fall

Back into the Abyss

---------

@LexiCon