Transition

A beautiful sunset ruins a perfectly shitty day
I never take pictures
When I’m with other people
My internal logic dictates that shared memory
Precludes a need for proof of existence
Here I am alone, though, and my camera emerges
To capture proof that I existed in this moment
In the future my existence will only be implied
The actor unseen on the stage of memory
I deceive my future
The transitory nature of my mood defeated by
 Capturing lasting beauty

Rant

Quickly close my eyes
I can’t bear this
I blink out of existence
Pictures, videos. Two dimensional images to impose myself upon
On a place that doesn’t exist
On a place that was a lie
But it wasn’t, I insist
And I push myself forward
And the pain is so real it burns from within
And I can hear laughter
And I can hear laughter
I can see everyone but me
I can see
I can watch them interact with everyone but me
They never touch me
I never speak
And my eyes burst open
To reality darker and empty
I shout desperately to justify myself.
The judges, bored with my absorption, drifted away years ago
Cant you see? No one gets me
Everyone else is crazy not to think this way
Everyone else is fooling themselves.
Either way, the walls of the asylum divide us.
I shut my eyes
The doors to the asylum close.

The Island

Where I'm from is hard wood floors and the color burnt sienna

and people that can tell the difference between burnt sienna and brown.

Where I'm from is loud for good reasons

and full of sunshine. always the sunshine.

Where I'm from has long bike rides and kickball

and the certainty, the unyielding potent knowledge that the future was bright

Where I'm from is an impossible ideal so built up in my head that my life will never hope to compare. Where did my parents find all those friends? Where did they find money for vacations, bikes, my short but intense obsession with the spanish-american war? My prose fails me; fear rules.

Where I'm from is concrete.

Where I'm going is sand.

For Nothing

Here is this puzzle piece.

See? I placed it correctly here.

A path that leads to an abyss is not a path at all

Stairs that fall away to nothing are not stairs.

Here is this ladder.

See? I've placed my foot upon the first rung.

I can't tell you where I'm going.

I can only show you where I've been.

The Greatest Love of All

I believe the children are the future
Is the motto of cowards
Too afraid to acknowledge that the future
requires a possessive pronoun

We effortlessly own our present
Even in dire circumstances
We oblivious masses feel free to make world shattering decisions
Using whatever whimsy we choose to employ

But when faced with future decisions we lose confidence
The infinite aspects of the future
Create a gaping maw, let’s let that be someone else’s problem
Maybe our children will own their future.

to take hold of suddenly or forcibly; to grasp

In middle school I did not have control of my life
I let others dictate my actions; thoughts
Puppet

He showed us dead poets society
That guy from Mork and Mindy
Putting words to my most secret yearnings

Now I control my universe
I own my failures
To make my successes more real.
I seized my life.

So why am I disappointed?
Because seizing the day is fucking impossible
The harder I grasp the quicker it slips away
Mork lied.

If I find a bag of gold coins
That turn out to be chocolate
Can I really be disappointed?