My mamma told me artists are born full, or starve forever.

Joyous lives are pre-selected.

Choose wisely, while I drink away the memories of the stories I didn't write.

Why is it so hard to write about the ones we love, while we're loving them?

Why does "joy" feel taboo on my tongue?

I want to express myself, without defending my pain.

You spend your entire life surviving a monster,

only to wake up an imposter.

I identify as such.

Refusing to commit because I'm still digging.

Or climbing, or relearning how untrue her words really were.

How she never found herself.

Or maybe, like a blind date, she got there, didn't like what she saw;

and drove to the liquor store.

And here I am, addicted to nicotine and self discovery.

Afraid to admit I might like who I am.

One day I will stand on green grass,

flowers in hand,

tears on my face for a life I never got to have.

That day I’ll lay to rest more than your soul,

I’ll finally put down this fear that I hold.

That day I will no longer hold these heavy walls,

that day I can love you without the consequence it holds.

That day I’ll be safe from what this world cruely made you,

that day I can love you like I have always longed to.

That day Songbird will play in the background,

purple iris’ and gerber daisies will completely surround you.

I will curl up alone with my face near your headstone,

finally feeling safe with the mother I adored.

Though my heart will always be broken,

that day will no longer be torn. For that day I will know,

a mothers love without scorn.

I love my mother.

So, so much.

I see myself in her pain.

I see myself in her self-sacrificing and her exhaustion and her desperation for distractions with romantic movie after romantic movie.

I see myself in her caring nature.I see myself in her caring nature.

She taught me how to love, even if she taught me to do so to a fault.

It's because of her that I see the pretty and the pain in caring too deeply, because that's who she is.

She cares.

About everything.

And sometimes it's a gentle care,

It's a hug you tightly, protect you from your angry father care.

It's a let me take care of you and cut you fruit and do your hair and talk about anything you want care.

But it can also be a more painful, more violent type.

A boiling hot anger that spills over, barely provoked.

Because caring about things goes both ways, love or hate.

And when that woman gets angry...

You hear what they say.

Hell Hath No Fury...

She means so much to me.

Which is hard because

Like the rest of my family,

She has this power to hurt me

More than anyone ever could.

That's what happens when you love somebody enough.

It gives them an opening through your walls,

Allows them access to even softer, more sensitive parts,

The parts that are so broken they need love more than anything.

My mother has caused me to breakdown, time and time again.

I taught my mother to waltz right next to our kitchen one random, silly sweet night.

My mother has seen me at my worst and prayed instead of reaching out a hand to me as I drowned.

Oh God, save my child.

Bless my child.

I love my child.

My mother is her good days and bad days.

My mother is her empty and her fullness.

My mother is, in many ways, like me.

Fat and pretty in her sort of way and too loving and utterly exhausted, sometimes.

But no matter how much she hurts me,

How often,

And the fact that many of the wounds she has inflicted on my soul will never fade away,

She is mine.

Mine despite the complexities.

Mine despite her Christian-fueled hatred towards certain parts of who I am.

Ain't no hate like Catholic love, right?

And I wish her well.

Oh, I wish her well.

I wish she could see what I saw.

I wish she was kinder to herself.

Maybe I would've learnt how to show myself compassion if she knew what it meant to choose herself over others for once.

But she is learning.

And so am I.

We will always have the good days,

The better, prettier memories,

Our similar imperfections.

That is enough.

Icarus is swallowed by the murk of a blue-black ocean,

The sun forgotten.

Light is so far from him, now

That he has forgotten the feeling of its rays.

Oblivion has taken what made him dare to fly that high in the first place.

He only struggles to stay afloat.

He is dragged under again and again,

Sometimes so far down he's sure he will not make it this time.

And he doesn't...

And then he does and he does again.

On the surface, he calls out to a saviour.

To his father.

To the sun.

To god, man or devil.

He would give his life to feel alive again

But all he does is drown.

Endlessly.

For too many years.

He thinks it a punishment, at first.

He thinks he deserves it.

After all, who was he to disobey?

Who was he to want more and reach for a celestial entity, blinded by his curiosity, instead?

But soon, he will learn that the world and the gods and fate are not necessarily vindictive,

Nor are they kind.

It is only a matter of individual perspective.

And that, really, is all it takes.

A shift in perspective.

Icarus goes from fighting and clawing his way through the dark blindly to remaining still..

He becomes one with the waters and learns how freeing it can be to let go for a while.

How little things matter except the things that simply mattered to him.

The water was a mirror to his soul..

Dark, violent, terrifying, beautiful.

All at once.

His body is pulled and prodded but the exhaustion has seeped in so suddenly

That he can't fight with himself any longer

And one day, he is finally left to the surface by the bored, disappointed whirlpool beneath.

Slowly, painstakingly, the young one sows in himself the idea that perhaps the light and saviour was him all along,

Daring to swim ashore and begin anew once more.

i bob up and down around the surface constantly

it's not difficult to slip back down and keep going

the first time this year that it happened was a while ago now

if i'm being specific it was in march

if i'm being specific it was the twelfth of march

i don't want to make this about her again

because it should always be about you

i dropped all the way down through my new normal

to a place i almost didn't recognise

you sort of gripped onto my hand

on the side of the bathtub and up the road

you didn't leave my side for the week

i don't remember it well i think my brain slowed a bit

but i'm grateful for how much you didn't mind

when i couldn't stop crying

we'll be together forever because otherwise

i don't know how i'll exist

for what it's worth

i think you saved my life

more pain

more pain

more painful things

turn into paintings

tears wet

colour discs

on a palette

that were dried out

and crumbling

juice joins

dusty fissures

makes pigment bridges

hydrates bristles

feeds pictures

more pain

‘it’s the colouring that concerns me’

truth be told

more pain

summons rufio

lost boy

art studio

more pain

more pain

a molotov

for the person

that was

more pain

triple x pain

peter pain

cry like a cockerel

fly again

‘it’s not your fault’

when life serves unskippable ads

big sad

pull out a pad

sketch a draft

new neverland map

never doubt the fire

more pain.

I hate that so many people today think they're automatically absolved from all wrongdoing simply because it's in their nature to be an asshat, as if their primal desires and their conscious choices are inseparable and inevitable, thereby predictable and immediately forgiven. Then, somehow, it's your fault for having done exactly what you should have done, always being faithful to your heart. You're left standing there, naked, wondering if it was the asshat's primal desire which tore the dream apart, or if you were the object of that primal desire and the only one dreaming was you.

Be done with it. Naive may be the perfect word to describe you, but it describes someone who takes chances, strives for greatness, lives generously, loves passionately, and feels deeply. The word on the other side of the coin, however, is not yours to bear. It's the word, Oblivious, reserved for said asshat. It describes someone shallow, counterfeit, and incapable of recognizing what's standing right in front of them.

Some people put women on a pedestal, some put men on a pedestal, some put the relationship on a pedestal. All are doomed as time chips away at the base. Sometimes wisdom and insanity go hand-in-hand, and all you need is a voice of experience confirming that you've made the right choices along the way. So long as you believe them to have been your best choices, although weighted by circumstances, then they are valid regardless of any hypocrisy or even inaccuracy. You did your best, even if you weren't at your best.

Yes, it hurts. Even harder than losing someone who never returned your love is losing the time you spent seeking something that wasn't there. In truth, you held on longer than you should have, pretended too long, swept too much under the rug, swallowed too much pride, made too many excuses--all acts of desperation in order to avoid saying goodbye--but the damage was already done. That brilliant imagination that convinced you that this was the one, is now telling you that you could've done something different, something better--that it was your fault. Stop and think. If you're thinking of how you could have better (or sooner) addressed the damage, that's good. That's wisdom at work. If you're thinking of more clever acts of desperation--more excuses, another lens to filter out the ugly, un-swallowed pride--that's not good. Nothing good comes of that.

Perception is a tainted lens filtering out what others see plainly without the rose-colored glasses lovers wear. They always see the truth long before you do. Eventually, you'll be one of them--one of us--no longer susceptible to your own need to alter reality--to redefine the ugly, to soften the rough edges, to give credit where no credit is due. That word is Jaded. It may feel like a cynical place to be, but it's powerful, tempered, wise. It doesn't turn away from love, it filters out the crap which love is not--the asshats. The flip side of that coin is Honesty. It's the only thing that can win a jaded heart, and leave the abyss behind--nothing more than a memory.

Despair is all I've known

As I lay in this room weak and alone

With no happiness nor a home

Only one thing in this world can remember me as I lie

The stars shining upon the navy blue sky

"Come with me," a soft voice whispered from the night

I could not answer in my fright

As it was not from the night

But from my mind

"Why do you fear the stars?"

"I do not fear the stars but the emotions they show I feel so raw"

The need of acceptance in the eleven stars is all I see

As the mourning cypress tree scratches the window beside me

My mind only swirls with the wind in the sky

As I focus on the crescent moon, stars and village in their dim but hopeful light

In this quiet peace is something I might find

As I find my thoughts go astray

'I often think the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day'

My eyelids are as heavy as lead

Yet my eyes fight to capture the light

The more I push myself forth,

The farther behind I seem

When my fingers reach out to grab the light

It turns its back on me

The brilliant light slips through my fingers,

Leaving nothing but me and my empty mind

Forced give up, with pained relief

My vision blurs with soft, dry tears

And the last thing I see

before the darkness

is the shadow of the light

that turned its back on me

...the blinking bar on an empty screen

that is simply waiting for me

"Identification please," said the short stout grumbling man, leaning over his desk.

"I didn't know I needed my identification," tears began to spill like a waterfall as the hostile monster glared over me, quickening the rate of my usually steady heart beat.

"Reveal your purpose boy," his cold dark eyes causing me to shudder.

"My father,” I stuttered, "he was-he was in the fire-"

"I'll just borrow your horoscope then," he remitted, allowing the gate to hover, permitting my presence into the cold cemetery. "You're quite the project aren't you?" He laughed just as everyone did drawing light to my negligent natal chart. The concentration of water elements left me cosmically and comically imbalanced.

My breath started to expand as my love for the angry old troll softened. My frown learned to reverse into a smile, as I nudged my horse forward with the tap of my heel.

"Thank you sir, it was nice to meet you," I said, nodding my head.

"Sorry for your loss," he grumbled in apology.

Before I could consider a response, the gate pressed firmly behind me, his glower in my past, the stench of death to my front. I struggled a swallow as the stones symbolizing life long gone painted a nauseating aroma of nostalgic noises silently stirring before me.

"I'm here father," I whispered to the wind, willing me forward, willing me strength I hadn't the courage to muster on my own. "I'm here."