“Do you mind?” A girl asked as she noticed I was staring at the the coffee in her hand for a little too long.

“Not at all,” I muttered under my breath.

Her eyebrow twitched as the the girl huffed and took her drink to go.

“What a strange person,” I whispered to myself as I watched her walk away in defiance.

Behind me, the the barista stifled a laugh. “Sorry, but no. That’d be you, love.”

I pointed to myself.

“Yeah, you.” He remarked as he leaned over the the counter. “You were staring at that girl’s drink for like… ten minutes.”

I pouted. “I just don’t get it.”

“Well, I get paid too little to stand behind this counter for six hours and make ridiculous coffee orders for people. I swear, one person ordered water with whip cream. I don’t know who they were, but they’re definitely sociopathic.”

I slid my drink out of view.

“But that doesn’t make sense,” I echoed.

With a sigh, the the bartender asked me. “What doesn’t make sense? People want coffee, I make them coffee.”

“But why do they want coffee?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, because they need the the caffeine?”

I pushed my upper torso across the the counter and stared into his eyes. “But why?”

A little freaked out, he said. “You were the the person who ordered the the water with whipped cream, weren’t you?”

“That’s not relevant.”

As he took a step back, he replied. “But it does explain a lot.”

“How much caffeine do you think you sell in a shift?”

“You are far too obsessed with this ‘caffeine’ thing.”

“Am I? Or do we live in a society that’s become obsessed with speed? With doing everything so quick, you don’t have time to enjoy the the little things? Hmm??”

“Look, I make like ten bucks an hour, that’s not enough to engage in philosophical conversations with customers. It was nowhere under the the job description.”

“Fine,” I scoffed as I headed for the the door. “But you know I’m right.”

“And crazy!” He added as the the door slammed behind me with a light ring from the the bell above.

“Frickin’ psycho,” the the barista muttered to himself as he started to wipe down the the counter.

Later that shift, the the barista himself drink three cups of coffee to keep up with the the customers’ piling orders. Too consumed with speeding through his shift to remember that’s he supposed to take a step back and breathe sometimes. A tragedy.

And what about you, person reading this? Were you speeding through this fictional story? Did you stop and think about it for even a second? I bet you didn’t. I bet you went so fast you didn’t realize every ‘the’ had been replaced with ‘the the’.

Slow down a little, alright? Your life is willing to wait for you.

He’s the human embodiment of sexual tension.

He is slow jazz music; a saxophone solo walking lonely in the night.

She is the wind in the chimes on the front porch of home on a summer day. Her face is such poetry; to look upon it would kill Shakespeare on the spot.

He kisses the bridge of her nose. He kisses her sometimes in places people would not find romantic but when he does it, it is; because his love can be seen and felt. Even when he wasn’t sure himself that it was love yet.

Sometimes,

I see myself as a leaf,

Too high temperature, I wither,

Or too low temperature, I crumble,

Too many annoying bugs, I'm dead,

No support or water,

Then that's my end,

I’ve learnt fears don’t help for survival,

Changes is what is needed,

If I want myself to be acceptable.

Hard times for me the leaf,

From insects and flower plucking people,

From overwhelming fate and unsatisfied parents,

Times might turn,

If I turn into a spine,

Defence work I will do,

Like cactus and opuntia I will be,

Sometimes hurt the ones who touch me,

With this new life as a weapon,

That I have become.

Or maybe I could be a tendril,

Like grapes and peas,

A hold for me to curl,

Something for me to lean on,

As I’ll be more weaker than now,

I’ll gain sympathy and be a charity case,

It won’t be too bad I hope,

Since obviously the velocity of pain will decrease,

And hurt hurling at me will be less,

When all sees my hopelessness.

If I’m still unsatisfied,

I might turn over a new leaf,

Change into something,

Which obviously hasn’t a look of leaf,

Like a pitcher plant I could be,

Or a venus fly trap may be,

A Total change in character,

Like a murderer, a thief,

It’s just a facade to survive this life,

But I'd still the same troubled leaf.

It felt so quick, the time that passed. Everything just seemed to blur into one.

Grief had slipped its dark, cold hands inside my chest, and was holding onto my heart so hard it felt like it had frozen in time.

I was so angry. Angry at the world. Angry at the universe.

And most of all, angry at myself.

People always think bad things won’t happen to them.

Well, I’m here to break it to you, they can and they will.

Bad things happen to good people, to bad people and all the mediocre people in between.

You. Are. Not. Safe.

Because, I was not safe.

Time stopped for so long.

I had no where to go.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

I sat in my fog, Taking answers where I could.

Trying to dethaw my heart.

My parents let me be a child again.

It was like reliving childhood through an adults body.

No expectations,

they were just happy I hadn't killed myself.

A sigh of relief everytime they entered the front door.

I didn't have time to kill myself.

Too many thoughts consuming me, I could barely move some days.

I got to rebuild my lost relationship with them in those months.

Take what I had always wanted.

I wouldn't eat - Couldn't eat.

Chewing was another thing I had taken for granted, until I could do it no more.

All I could fathom was soup. I couldn't comprehend eating anything else.

Time moved on.

I began to eat small morsels again.

Allthough my heart was filled with bitter-hate still,

I tried not to show it.

Slowly slowly, I thawed complete.

I was left with a soft smudgey puddle of a person.

So soft, so mushy, so delicatly weak.

Here I am rebuilding,

Bringing myself back from the brink.

People have changed,

But so have I.

A new person released.

A new person everyday, Deceased.

A demon sits in my passenger seat all the time,

but I’m the one driving so you don’t notice him, do you?

Tears are like rainfall, dropping acid on my cheeks. It’s been so long, trying to hold it all in. My thoughts can’t stay balled up in a cloud.

Gravity wins, in the end, I’m caving in.

Am I floating forward or falling face down?

I can’t seem to tell the difference anymore...

In my mind, I am so alone

It’s a sea of thoughts, so dark and so cold

Can I escape? Swim away? Recover strength? Break free?

Oh no, is my inner ugliness seeping through? I guess covering up doesn’t really work, does it? Has it ever really worked though?

I’m cracking, shattering, I am glass when it smashes on tiled floors, bursting into billions of pieceis of me. All my hidden colours exploding.

I am embracing gravity, my weakness.

Gravity is my weakness, yet I’m so addicted to falling, to the rush of the wind between my fingers....everything around me falls...or am I just hallucinating?

A writer’s mind is a beautiful hell. I want to escape, but I am too addicted to my constructed fantasies. Trapped in a nightmare with the mesmerizing smile of a daydream.

My thoughts just dance…and dance…and dance…my reality fades, lost in space, with no air to breath…no air to live

Falling into blue...

falling away from you, dear world...oh how I used to love you! But I was innocent and

naive, realizing you could never really love me back. I have changed so much since

then...forgotten...please, don’t see what I’ve become...my demons are ugly as I keep

driving on...Darling, look away from me

In a crowd, can you see me falling? Shattering? Flooding with colourful blood and dark oceans?

Can you see it, dear world? Can you see me?

The world...my world...it keeps going, twisting, turning....living...a never ending highway. I let it mind its own business...I keep on driving.

“The world should forget your existence.” My demon always says to me.

My heart hurts so much, it can’t keep pumping, I’m losing circulation, so slowly. I can see blurred lines and butterflies.

Aren’t they beautiful?...Well, aren’t they?

More hallucinations...my lips won’t speak my thoughts out loud, so afraid because the horrors of my mind are too much to bare...towering like tsunami waves, crashing down on me, drowning in dark waters and hurricanes. All my colourful shards of glass, I lose them to the distant horizon.

Hallucinations are real...I’m losing my mind...just keep driving

This is not what’s supposed to happen. Reality is blurring, surrendering to demons. Dragged away by the coldest hands, drowning in thoughts and nightmares. My breath held in, to the point where my lungs give in....

I miss the feeling of the air.

You know the sea is too large to tame. I thought I could hold all its waves, stop the storm before it hits, hold the rain in the heavy sky...

But gravity is my weakness, the tears fall anyway...a drop at a time.

My smile melts ice cream on a summer day, my emotions so sickly sweet and sticky on fingertips. I knew the facade could never last.

Nothing is perminent and gravity always wins.

So paint me with the ink of my thoughts and let me soak in it. Let the ink dry over my dying heart, fortifying its walls that have stopped its drum beat. On the inside, a heart hollow of blood...there’s no point in holding it in anymore...there is nothing left for it to hold.

Embracing nightmares, empty vessels filling with darkness, bringing back dark emotion. Let darkness sparkle in everything, let sunset stain glass float on a midnight ocean, floating with the stars and galaxies, dancing with the moon. The moon is a wonderful partner to guide me, we dance on to imagination’s infinity.

Let my thoughts shine on paper, written in blood red ink...or maybe purple would be better. I have a hidden darkside, but don’t we all?

“Plus,” says my demon, “the dark side has the sweetest, most addictive cookies.”

Nature has a box

crafted just for me

I fit, but too tightly

no room to breathe

so hard to move

I fight, but pointlessly

nature's force is strong

it will persist and persist

but my will is stronger

so I resist

and I resist.

a sip of moonshine will take you to paradise.

or that’s what she told me.

it tasted like honey down my throat.

i’m trying to forget you, you see.

in my drunken state

i see

phosphenes

the stars in my eyes

burning like headlights in deers eyes

the numbing sounds hurt my ears but i persist

outside is less quiet

the reflection in the pool

might as well be one of a lake

so deep, so shining

i can barely smell the sulfur

as i peer into it

i no longer saw my face, an illusion from the drink

it was not mine

but only yours

and i stared into it

knees hitting the concrete,

cold roughness

i started to shed red droplets

into the blue water

your appearance

so majestic

pure

elegant

if i must say so myself

i tried to kiss you

with my drunken lips

but the only thing i felt

was the cold water

snapping me to reality.

i am lovesick.

love me back.

I found Terrence in my garden.

He was in the sombrero’s shade

of the Mexican gnome who played

his guitar with a toothy grin —

a beautiful green terrapin.

I carefully locked up the gate

to be my pet, was this creature’s fate;

built a natural habitat

with rocks, a fountain and all that

turtles needed to be happy —

food and a bed with a canopy.

Made a tuxedo and a red bow-

tie to match his eyes, and you know

I lifted him high in the air

to take a selfie and he peed in my hair.

But O, Terrence, no matter to me,

you are mine all mine mon ami.

So then one day out the door I crashed

to the yard but Terrence had dashed.

He crept through a crack in the gate,

Tore his tuxedo, escaping his fate.

From the top of my tete to the

tips of my toes, Terrence believe me

I cried. Without you my life will

be empty and sad and uphill.

I searched in the desert and spied

his long neck emerge from behind

some cacti. Cocking his head he

gave an ungracious glare to me,

the one who cared for him so much.

Turtles are such an ungrateful bunch.

***

Who says he wants your sweet life to save

But then enslaves and depraves?

No true friend takes your freedom away