Indecision often comes at a price, the final sum totaling up to the wasted time, the spent anxiety, the needless rumination. I am an indecisive person, and I have learned that it is far better to settle with simplicity, with efficiency, than to aim for complexity.

Everything in the room is uniformly white, creating the impression of a dreamlike, far-off state of being. There are four corners—the standard amount for rooms, I believe. A couch and a bed face each other from opposite sides of the room, with a table beside the couch and a cabinet beside the bed. A lone window sits in the center of one wall.

Without further investigation, everything is clean and white and simple. There are no blemishes, no dirt stains, no dust. Nothing is out of place, everything looks perfect and minimalistic and medical. If you don't open the cabinet, if you don't lift the couch cushions, if you don't look under the bed, if you don't reach around the bottom of the table, if you don't peer further into this room, everything is clean and white and simple and perfect, everything is perfect.

Now, if you open the cabinet, you'll hear whispers of long-gone shouts, you'll see the dust of old anxieties and the dark oozing putty of current fears. If you lift the couch cushions, you'll see rusty pins and jagged needles, you'll see old sweat and remnants left behind from years upon years of sitting on edge. If you look under the bed, you'll see dust bunny memories, you'll see faded dreams and a gaunt-looking cat hiding in the corner—if you look close enough, you might even see the monsters, though they mostly come out at night, mostly. If you reach under the bottom of the table, you'll feel scratches and gashes in the wood, lost relics of fights and nights spent clawing for a way out, searching for a hidden door that'll take you somewhere, anywhere.

If you look out the window, you'll see a cloudy gray expanse. Sometimes it looks like the sea, and when you stare out, you might hear the sounds of a foghorn in the distance, haunting, lost, longing for something left behind, something forgotten, irretrievable. Sometimes it looks like the summit of a mountain, and when you stare out, you might hear the wind howling and screaming like ghosts of old miners, you might feel the chill of alpine wind like claws against your face, scraping, scratching, piercing, freezing. Sometimes it doesn't look much like anything, and the world outside seems frightening in its emptiness, and you know that if you leave you'll be all alone in an unfamiliar, unforgiving environment. Sometimes it looks a whole lot like everything, and you know that the second you step out, you'll experience the rest of your life in one short moment and you'll die from over-excitation, you'll die from too much all at once.

The window frightens me, all alone in the center of the wall, because if I can look out, then maybe someone could look in, maybe someone could see me, see me.

I sometimes consider leaving this room, and sometimes I leave for a little, just a little, never too long. It never takes too long for me to miss the security of the known, for my fears and anxieties to overwhelm me and force me to retreat to this aesthetically sterile haven stuffed with dark memories and bad habits.

The room is white and clean and I've worked hard to keep the decay and rot away, to stave off the inevitable atrophy of my tight grip on existence. I don't get guests very often, but if anyone came to visit, they'd see a clean room, a perfect room. They'd compliment me on my furniture, on my cleanliness, on my minimalistic lifestyle. They wouldn't see the churning mess of emotions that fills the cabinets, that stuffs the couch cushions, that seethes under the bed; they wouldn't smell the sweet and sticky odor of my overwhelming sadness or the crisp and lively scent of my irrepressible mania; they wouldn't hear the shouts of my countless fears and anxieties. I don't get guests very often, but I work hard to maintain a perfect facade should anyone care to stop by.

It's not necessarily that I like comfort, but rather that I need comfort, that I need the familiar, that I am a creature of habit and I cannot escape my well-worn grooves. I need comfort and familiarity and this room is plain and simple and perfect—as close to perfect as I can come, that is. I wish I had a room with more life and more energy, a room with more decorations and more overt happiness. I wish I had a more detailed room, but I know that I'd pay the price with my indecision, I know that the tapestries and posters would fade and tear, I know that the picture frames would splinter and the mirrors would shatter, I know that the soft lights would sputter and die out, I know that the books would rot away, I know that the clock on the wall would tick and tick and tick and erode my sanity down to the finest point, I know that the pretty duvet cover would stain easily and discolor quickly.

My indecision would take beautiful futures and mangle them into their worst aspects, my indecision would turn complexity into hell. My indecision overwhelms me when I am faced with decisions—it was hard enough deciding on sparse minimalism, on the color white, on the placement of the window and furniture, and I cannot imagine decorating this room, I cannot imagine the torment of making decision after decision after decision after decision after decision and so on and so forth until eventually I lose my mind and lose my sanity and lose the rest of my life to worry, to pacing, to striding back and forth with no confidence whatsoever.

It's easier to live in a simple room, a white room, a room where I store my dark features under the bed and in the cabinets and in the couch cushions. It's easier to pretend I have everything in my life together, it's easier to appear perfect if I don't have to perfect anything, if I can leave everything white and uncolored and unembellished. It's easier if I don't start, because then I can never fail, and I can go on living in this white room with a gray world outside my window.

This is a small room, a simple room, a white room. There's not much space in here, but there's room for indecision, there's always room for indecision.

Standing on two feet, both lungs breathin’,

Think I’m alright, but inside bleedin’. . .

Killed my dreams off, broke my heart,

Chained and buried my soul in the dark.

And I look in the mirror every day

Put on my mask that’s made of clay.

There’s no spark left in these eyes

’Cause that’s what happens when you die.

And who’s my murderer? Who could it be?

The only murderer here is me.

i run away

first for a month

then for a year

it all dosn’t matter

because now i am back here

like at days where thounder was still scary

now it’s, when and who i am going to mary.

once again i am packing my bag

thinking, this time

i may not even come back.

“will i ever see you again”, she asked

“sure sure” i answered fast.

i changed my religion

and run away once more

in a different direction then before.

this time i am overseas

desperate for some ideas

what should i do with my life

and who even says that i need a wife.

comming back this time was different

the house was empty with a sign “for rent”.

the key still fits perfectly

but no body is in there to comfort me.

what would it take,

so my last memory of you,

won’t be a cold hand shake.

i would do it without hesitation

even scream my love to you, to the whole nation.

mom its me, your son at thirty two

saying for the first time, i love you.

What would it take

for people to put down their weapons

for people to look up from their screens

for people to listen to others' words?

How long will it take

until everyone's voice is heard

until the world is equal

until there is no more blood?

What would it take

for a broken heart to heal

for a spirit to be soothed

for the tears to stop flowing?

How long will it take

until mothers can stop burying their children

until children can stop being killed

until death can be of natural causes?

What would it take for us to listen?

Lately I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to do with my life and most of advice I’ve been getting is “do something you love” or “don’t worry you’ll end up where you need to be” and all I can say is that I have no idea what I love doing. I’m 19 and all I’ve done so far is get A’s in standardized tests for no reason, get into a university I have don’t know what to do at and freak out literally every day since the beginning of this year.

Maybe I’m putting too much pressure on myself but I am just so lost right now. Everyone I know either hates their job or doesn’t have one. I guess Dubai isn’t a great place to look for inspiration in that area but I don’t know... the future just seems so bleak.

times have certainly changed.

Pitter patter preen and pine

One final evening splayed out divine

Laid to rest under a docile wave

A eulogy writhes in the absence of the grave

A mist of red beheld a ray of blue

The heartfelt silence of an “I love you”

Tossed overboard to pay my dues

To the ocean floor in concrete shoes

Try as I may and try as I might

The only constant left is the bitter endless night

Forever and eternal now comes to a close

A lost little sparrow in a murder of crows

Vagrant and voracious and indelibly unkind

A past life lived begins to unwind

Masked in the torment of complacency and contempt

Birds of a feather cast a befallen last attempt

Crashing to the Earth as a marble stone hand

Reaches toward the sunset of a far off distant land

Nails and nuance cleaned silver and neat

The corpse of tomorrow lies under all our feet

“All I’ve wanted was to be enough for you!” I sob, why aren’t I enough? She looks at me, her face twisting with disgust.

“Of course, play the victim. Why can’t you accept responsibility? No one likes people who always blame others.” She states, watching my reaction like it’s her fuel. Tears drip down my face, I don’t understand what I did wrong.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” I whisper, my legs barely holding me up.

“Are you kidding me?!” She yells. I regret saying that, I regret it, I regr- “You’re a horrible person, no one will ever want you, you’re completely worthless and a waste of a life, everyone would be better off if you’d never even been born!” She yells, her words shoot right to my core, completely shattering me.

I race upstairs to my room, shutting the door and climbing in bed. I gasp for air, tears falling like rain, my sobs shake the bed as I reach for my phone charger. I pull the charger as tight as I can around my neck and hold it, and hold it. I let go and gasp for air. I wish I was dead, why aren’t I dead?

I fell for you the first day.

Your sweet smile melted my heart.

You and I became we.

Two hearts, now one.

I love you.

Always and

Forever.

Pretend that we are upon a beach, walking towards where the waves break, shoes in hand. Tell me, what would be beyond this shore?

Don't know the answer?

I'll tell you. It's another shore. Quite simple, really. What's beyond that shore? This one's not much harder: it's just a further shore. And what would be beyond that? A still more distant shore. This could go on for quite some time.

So, what's beyond the second-to-last shore, I ask?

An edge? A cliff? An endless precipice into the vastness of the universe?

Nope. It's the shore you started on.

Don't believe me?

Then you may climb into a ship, if you wish, and set out to prove me wrong. I'll stay here, tracing short-lived letters into the sand, while I watch your ship slowly sink over the curve of the horizon.

I expect to hear back from you, eventually.

People may change

But the soul still remains

Bound in eternity

With a glimpse of infinity

Anonymity

Painted in symmetry