This Morning - 8/30/14

You wake up.
You're already tired.
It's not a groggy, hazy tired - you can feel this in your bones.
In your marrow.
You convince yourself to rise, to hump through the motions of the early morning grind.
You leave for work.
You're ten miles gone before you realize you haven't eaten, haven't drank a thing.
You convince yourself you have the time to stop at the coffee shop.
When you enter you already feel the familiar anxiety.
People are staring, talking, watching, waiting, listening, chewing, sipping, typing.
You order.
This is all too much.
You receive a drink and a smile.
You turn a corner to privately make it Irish.
Before you pour, flask in hand, you catch a glimpse of faces in a window's reflection.
The sense of shame and self-loathing wash over you.
In this, your darkest moment, you find that time has stopped.
All motion halted.
You cannot move.
They cannot move.
Your eyes can hardly focus between the flask and reflection of yourself.
You live your despair for hours.
You are weak.

Shine - 6/18/14

Trace the outline of myself

Beg you to see what I believe

There is so much more to me

Than I can ever prove

All I can do:

Sit back, hold fast

Head high, lips tight

These lungs fill

This mind wanders

I am tumbling through this sky

I can’t see anything

I don’t see anything at all

But I can feel you

Eyes shut tight – feel everything that is

Nothing here is new and nothing here is ours

Everything bogged with life

Resplendent with now and afters

There was something here before

Try to remember – try to see

I’m as good as blind

I am tumbling through this sky

I can’t see anything

I don’t see anything at all

But I can feel you

Eyes shut tight – feel everything that is

Weary souls stained and tired and cold

Ever hopeful and glancing at the sky

Magnificent all

They shine and stumble

Living terrors as dreams

I know they will find better

These fingers dig into the earth

Lips meet the soil

Embrace the solid ground

Eyes bleary but finally seeing grey

Retrace the outline of myself