Cigarette smoke fringes Will’s breath. Disperses bony fingers, clutching the tail end of a passing breeze. The air is still muggy from the rain. Traffic is at a standstill. And it’s as if the world’s orbit grinds to a deafening halt. And Will can feel the visceral ebb and flow of being alive. It’s strangely unnerving. Why should he feel exposed by the consciousness of each primordial element piecing him together? But it passes. The light flicks green before he can accept this existing fragility. Impatient blares shatter the whispers of nirvana, urging everyone forward in the snail race home.
Midnight Thoughts
When the ease of expression
wanders a dim fringe,
unknown by any familiar nostalgia
That would have made the silence
Comfortably stitched in midnight silk;
It becomes lost
Calling out
To what it perceives
To be nothing
Anxious echoes ebbing
Towards untouched recesses
Where every fetal and curious thing
Longs to be found;
Nurtured by an awareness of existence
And a careful, tender love.
Summer Heat
The smell of sweat
Grows with the summer heat
Replacing the fragrance
Of spring
With smoldering embers
And feverish plumes
Coiling prickly threads
Woven into the phantom calico
Stretching its weight
Between skin & freshly pressed garments
Becoming damp and heavy
Yet still never quite burning away
Though the furnace blazes–
Water bottles appear
Again and again
Drained by chapped lips
Yet this thirst
Has made divots and trenches
Not so easily filled
Unless some magical oasis
Were to appear
Like a marbled well
Conjured by the heavens
That would never
Run dry
Being Human
Like an entity drifting
Between ballads
Of life and rebirth
To the stoic rhyme
Edging lines of the reaper’s
Grim soliloquy;
Toeing margins of
Light and darkness
Feeling the weightless
Nature of hope
That, by some miracle,
Soothes the intangible fractures
Left by despair—
To be
Uncorrupted by the thorned tongue
With which misery
Opines quarrelsome tales
Only seems obtainable
Through fictitious imaginings;
Has anyone
Ever won the true war
That continues to rage within?
Being human
Is a bottomless well
Filled with convolutions
and conundrums
So much so
That the simplicity of being
Becomes not so simple
At all
Introspection
With curtains drawn,
Long after
The last light of dusk
Has faded
With the quiet undress
Of deep amber silks,
She stands within
A fluorescent pool of light
Stripping back
The folds of her skin
So they hang from the bones
Like open clothes
Exposing
Every intimate detail
Where she counts
New bruises
While tracing the ridges
Of those finally healed;
She plucks out thorn
And thistle;
Finds slippery pebbles
Stuck between bones;
But she’s careful not to meddle
With the stubborn hooks
Glistening rust within her chest
Because she’s grown used
To that kind of pain
That ripples and swells
With each sigh—
A quiet anguish
That she can never really be rid of
Coming Undone
The soul whispers
Scarlet mysteries
In sublime melodies
Unheard
Above the neurotic palpitations
That deep, measured breaths
Can’t pacify;
Optimism rusts within the gray
Of a lone shadow
Left too long on its own
While precious dreams splinter
Beneath plucked lashes
Collected in the din
Where chaos and pain scream
With the same voice
And all the known things
That were once tangible
Unravel
With the threads
Of a heart
Coming undone
Wrapped in Cursive
Blunted edges and blotched lines
Inked sinews and paper-thin fibers
Slippery threads of skin;
Obsidian-soft and raw–
The composition of thoughts
And their infrangible pulse
Carved upon the faceless white,
Where understanding may be found
Within forbearing flutters,
Always seem clumsy and without purpose
At first;
Like formless ideations
Writhing out of nothingness
Feebly grasping
Toward a sense of cohesion
Wrapped in cursive streams
That begin and end
Again and again–
Not in futility
But until the palpable essence
Of the soul
Is breathed to life
In words
Trailing
An eternal flame
Goodbye Sakura
The cherry blossoms
Have come and gone;
Houdini-quick,
In their ephemeral pantomime
Of life’s primordial beauty
And bittersweet endings
Thinking about waiting
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking. Thinking and not doing. Fretting over the particulars of when I should come back to this space and create the way I used to. I started this blog four years ago with the intention of growing in my craft, learning from other writers and being part of the creative community. But once I hit a creative block it became difficult to keep track of those things. I never stopped writing, truly. Whatever stray ideas or thought fragments, I penned them in several books or on scraps of paper. I still bought journals with the purpose to keep my mind active, but everything I wrote felt very…wrong. It didn’t sound like me.
There was something very empty in my words – almost disingenuous. Like hands searching aimlessly in the dark. I looked into myself and saw nothing. Almost as if I’d become separate from the intrinsic, more vulnerable parts of myself. That happened because I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts anymore. A shift had taken place, and while I was aware of when it began, I did nothing really to stop it. I thought I was fine.
Living alone was voluntary solitude; I’ve always loved being in my own space unencumbered by others. The loneliness that came with it though, was a different experience than what I was used to. Loneliness had been the inspiration for all my writing in the beginning. It had been my lifeline, extended in a digital space to connect with others like me. But when you live in a country far away from family and friends, where it isn’t easy to socialize because of language and cultural barriers…that loneliness becomes miserable.
I secluded myself, even from my own thoughts. I preferred using podcasts or music to fill that silence and flood all the deep trenches in my head. I wish I had known that doing such things – as innocuous as it seemed – would only make me less aware of myself and my needs. And by the time I wanted to use writing as my last salvation, my words came out feeble and frayed. I couldn’t pull myself out of that place. Each attempt to write only left erased traces – frustration stabbed through every line…
I couldn’t explain these feelings to my close friends or even my boyfriend, because I couldn’t understand why this was happening to me. And if I didn’t understand, there was no way they would. I was always anxious, running circles in my own head, trying to make sense of all the ambiguities colliding there. And then I realized self-neglect is one of the most harmful things a person can do to themselves.
You can take care of your physiological needs, but ignoring the more intimate details of who you are and what you need creates misery and melancholy. I had always been self-aware, so I never considered there would come a time when I lose touch with who I am. But it happened.
What I’m glad for is that I realized before it became too hard to truly fix. I made a vision board last year, of things I hope to accomplish between then and now. I’m happy to say I’ve checked some things off and seeing that did soothe part of me that became hopelessly despondent. Now, I want to focus on the other part of that vision board: writing and re-developing myself and creating a community once more.
I spent too long doing nothing, waiting for the perfect time to come back. I realize now that there’s no such thing as a perfect time. You have to begin where you are.
Hard Lessons
Discernment isn’t as simple
As the flip of a coin;
Whimsical in its submission to chance
Without hesitation
Or even consequence
And perhaps life would be more interesting
Maybe even a little more composed
If it were predicated on such whimsy
If we could easily determine another’s intentions
By the telling glint of heads or tails
Instead it’s left up to our own sense
To examine the smooth texture of others’ words
To test the true weight of their actions
Because it’s silly to trust every smile
Though I want to believe that all people are truly good
That their hearts beat with an effortless cadence
Echoing the fluidity
Of pure and well-meaning thoughts
Without a trace of malice tainting their veins
But I’ve seen the dual visage
Contoured in half-truths and lies
I’ve heard derision and its way of hollowing out
Kind words meant to convey concern
So how do I learn to extend grace
And still be kind
Without mirroring the disingenuous ways
Of those around me
Without leaving myself vulnerable
To the claws itching and ready to scratch viciously at my back?
Nomad Writer 