Die Young
Born young
Die old
The sweet cruelty of youth
Tainted with promises of strength
And dreams
And hope
And ever afters
Taken slowly
One
by
One
By the hands of time,
Unbiased and uncaring
Ticking slowly to our rest.
Are we the lucky ones
Who live long years and plod the earth?
Who stare at stars until awe fades
To feeling lost and small?
Or are the lambs of youth,
Shepharded into folds where we can't reach,
Taken from these hills too soon?
Is youth wasted on the young?
Or is it a trick of time,
A consolation prize for things to come?
A book on loan that must return,
Save for those who live
Forever Young.
pain
Pain is not a beautiful thing.
It is sobbing at two in the morning when all you want to do is sleep and hoping that no one can hear you.
It is choking on all the words that you cannot speak aloud.
Pain is ugly, and pain is deadly, but pain is raging to be shown.
Yet no one wants to see pain in its true form, for people crave beautiful things.
So instead pain is turned into art. Paint on canvas; ink across pages.
Others covet the talent needed to make these beautiful things, but not the pain necessary to create them.
So the pained continue to make beautiful things, hoping no one will see what they have really become.
A mess.
A monster.
Childhood trauma the fuel of self loathing - a thread of red.
First friendship strong and true, extinguished by time - a thread of blue.
Time passing so quickly I cannot create meaning - a thread of green.
Love, heartbreak, and learning to love again - a thread of gold.
These threads woven together are simply the beginning - a cord of the tapestry to be spun.
Self deprecation. Giving up on hope.
Feeling useless, weak, full of despair.
Cords begin to form a pattern.
Starving. Alone. Terrified. Broken.
The tapestry portrays an image:
A heart of stone,
many cracks,
glowing brightly,
by light within
The fibers are strong.
For through all of the adversity,
a heart still remains.
Alive. Persevering. Evolving. Growing.
The scent of each cherry blossom petal
Feels and smells like bliss
Reflection of the night sky
On the glassy surface below
Disrupted as a flower
Drifts onto the surface
The ripples
Float away
In perfect symmetry
Your breath, sweet, warm
Ruffles the hair above my ear
The back of your hand
Brushes against my cheek
And I know.
But then the ripples
Become waves and the flowers
Lose their scent
I sink below the water and soon find
It was never a pond to begin with
too helpful
if i could change
anything about myself
i would change,
nothing. i like who i am
perhaps too much. i want
to share my gifts, to bring others up.
all my life i've wished to
gift my soul willingly,
give it to those who are lost.
i want to guide people from
darkness, but i fear i am a fool.
am i the blind leading the blind?
for hours i've stewed in this
melancholy and doubt.
it is my greatest vice,
always thinking too much,
never knowing if i'm right.
how do i survive here?
i live in this darkness,
never the light.
i’ve made a home here, placed
a doormat to welcome others.
except no one else is comfortable
in the darkness I provide.
it’s too different, too radical.
they can’t see eye to eye
when the dark presses
heavy against their eyelids.
i find the weight comforting...
but others are suffocated by it -
or, by me.
