fragmented me. part one, two, or three.

my thoughts. fast pace. so fast that they cruise. the cruise. communication fragments. incompletes pieced together. forming something. unrecognizable. effortlessly disguisable. incomprehensible. none of this appears to be very sensible. for the sanity. that lacks. familiar structures. deconstructed. tossed and tangled. mistaken. ignored. when the walk carries a different pattern.

keep up. keep up. keep up.

an abundance of quick glances. enhanced with this. these features that create. an illusion. somehow form conclusions. she. he. they. think. presumptions. linking ignorance and judgment. mental torture. abort your. insignificance. humiliation. at someone’s expense. mine. ours. theirs. hey world. the looking has begun. place mirrors. all four walls. ceiling. floor. turn in circles. spin until everything is a blur. it’s never over. the obscure. unknown. afraid behind petrified. destination fear.

in the air. throw it in the air. it’s in the air. but no one is looking. after all.

different wavelengths.

this feeling isn’t sudden, it’s more like…a reoccurring dream or extended thought process, except that I am awake, sometimes asleep, whatever. I am overwhelmed with this feeling of being on a totally different wavelength than the people that I am surrounded by, excluding a few here and there and for months now, I have felt like I do not belong in this city. like this place is not for me on a long term surpassing college graduation. I don’t know. maybe I am wrong, but only time will tell really.

but I do know that I have begun to realize and observe the people in and out of my life. some more than others and those that are more than others, I have tried to reach out to during different times. initiating conversations or suggesting meet ups that are not just mere initiations or suggestions, but sincere gestures with a 95% chance of following through. my word. and these efforts have a lot of weight on their side, but on the other end, where I would hope to find reciprocation—it is borderline empty. a scam in the end.

revelation: the time that I have spent to show others love and concern, the help that I have given, the actions that I have displayed with ease as a part of my character, revealing my loyalty, reliability, and honesty…ends up being a waste to many. acknowledged by some. a treasure to few.

and so I think that it is my time to close back in and focus. not secluded to the point where I am dismissive of new connections and interactions, just smart about the ones that I continue caressing when the caressing is no longer necessary.

maybe I have tried too hard to find those people who understand me, who I have things in common with, that motivate and inspire me instead of sucking me dry of my own motivation and inspiration, who can offer the things that they ask for.

this thing, whatever it is, is not here when it comes to people I can call, people that want to build something beautiful.

I have always been pretty good at maintaining a balance between work and play, keeping open time to call people and meet up, do things together offline, in the flesh. yes. in the flesh.

but I am tired. very very tired…

and it is time to breathe easy, focus on my work, and wait. wait for new beginnings. whatever needs to come, will come because I no longer possess the urge to chase it.

without ease.

from a distance, I appear to be…whatever it is people assume of me I suppose. together. well kept. smart. heterosexual. pretty. strong. the usual. but those assumptions are expected from strangers. no one, not even the few that “know” me, stop to ask, “how did you get to where you are now?” because apparently my life seems so grand. it seems easy and what I put into the world was and is effortless. no one cares about the struggle. they are only interested in taking in surface observations and gathering bundles of gossip, envy, and weird gazes.

maybe it would be better if I don’t have sleepless nights. I don’t cry in the shower or feel like my work is pure crap. I didn’t have insane childhood experiences and nothing occurred that could have led me to be another drug user, knocked up, and with no high school diploma. I didn’t become fatherless at sixteen. I didn’t hear my mom scream from getting punched in the face by her shared boyfriend. I didn’t almost kill him. I didn’t go through depression and suicidal thoughts. I didn’t get forced to grow up fast. I didn’t think that I could die at any moment from a brain aneurysm, like my father. I didn’t have abusive relationships, court dates, and absolutely no self-worth. I didn’t use sex as a form of what I thought was love. I didn’t question my existence, asking God or whoever was listening to take me. I didn’t drink my way through high school. I didn’t have to battle losing friends because of sexuality or constantly being talked about just because of who I was attracted to.

I don’t have a tremendous fear of not being able to stay in love. I don’t cry hysterically because sometimes what is being asked of me is just too much. I don’t seclude myself, hoping that someone will come any way. I don’t just wish that I had a close enough friend to only call and ask, “how are you?” instead of ranting and complaining about their own life. I don’t feel lonely, worthless, and hopeless randomly for reasons that I can never come up with. I don’t feel like I should be diagnosed with something that could give me the pleasure of saying, “see! that’s why I act like this!” I don’t fear that I will be an emotionally detached mother and should never have children.

I did.
I do.

and I am working my ass off to produce good work and grades without wasting time and money. I am sacrificing everything that I believe in when it comes to spending time in a place that I am not happy, my job. I am someone that avoided the temptation to stay back home with lost hopes and only dreams of what I am doing now. I am strong. I am sensitive. I am emotional. I am dramatic. I am capable of loving someone else, genuinely, with every bit of the only heart I have. I am thankful for the positive (and negative) influences. I am someone who does get lost, slips up, and reaches disturbing points in life. I am not perfect.

but I am disgusted

by those who use their past troubles as justification cries for today’s screw ups. constantly screaming their back story when the only thing that matters is what choice is being made right now.

and I am disliked, envied, whatever because I left home or because I don’t have hallucinations of my right now, my later, my tomorrow, my future, of what and who I am or what and who I want to become.

I don’t have many friends. just a lot of people who like to stop by every once in a while to make an appearance.

so, I stay on my path and sometimes I trail off. I make smart decisions and not so smart ones. I leave my eyes and my heart open to anything and any one that wants something beautiful out of life and love and doesn’t spend hours yappin about it.

please don’t look at me and what I have and think that I have it easy.

it has been and is so hard.

sapling.

the seeds fell from our hands,
unintentional and forever fearful
of the outcome that could transpire

buried in the dirt,
sprinkled with terrified tears,
I was making no effort to keep this alive,
convinced that like all things beautiful
and appealing, vulnerability was not the sacrifice
that I was willing to make for what I was certain
would ultimately fail.

and while I ignored the roots that
spread themselves underneath my harsh footsteps,
there was never a moment where you dug up our
possibilities and potential future

instead,
you

watered the seeds
without complaints and conditions,
tolerated my shields
from the sun and required showers

oh, the sweet rain
is what got us to this day.

branches creating themselves while we sleep,
dreaming of the lines and patterns
evolving on the outside of our eyelids,
down our still bodies
with the power to form
because of the people we abandoned

old reflections of our current beings.

in between, lingering

at what point do my choices become completely inconsequential,
only giving me the illusion of personal responsibility and
POWER?

who is in charge here?

I am not sure that it is me.

a feather is found only for another to find the same kind of feather.
“fly together,” it whispers in the wind.

this is not coincidence.

every step that I have taken
eventually made absolute sense in the end.
purpose was found even when I did not understand
any piece of its beginning.

I am lingering in between a path
that I think that I am walking
and one that has already been walked for me.

some call it destiny.

if I take back one thing
or want to erase several that I may regret,
everything is affected.
everything changes.

this is no longer my life.

so, I wake up and say thank you
to whoever is listening.
love the ones in my heart
and breathe the air that is given to me,
with no plans
only mere suggestions.

lingering.

the best thing.

you don’t have to say,
“I love you.”
waking up beside you
every morning
as I am greeted with a smile
says enough

you blush
and blow kisses
you wrap your arms
around me
you stare into my eyes
like I am the only one
that exists in this world.

how is this possible?

you say, “I’d follow you off of a bridge”
and we hold hands,
bat our eye lashes,
argue to only compromise with kisses
and laugh and play like children

I thought that this was no longer possible.

you understand my mood swings,
respect my creativity
and leave your arms open for the
warmest huggs that I have
ever received

I have never met anyone like you at all.

I thought that people like you did not exist.

I was afraid that if you stuck around
through all of my insecurities, bullshit, and fears
that you would prove my heart wrong

you did.

and I thank you.

dissecting the humans we call friends

arms. legs. blood. guts.

if I could rip apart the pieces of the humans we call friends, I’d have several cardboard boxes with titles written in sharpies that held inadequate body parts waiting to be granted life’s hall pass for continuation.

just joking.
no. I’m really serious.

the dreadful sharpie aroma would conjure up black lines that travel through the air, stabbing your ear drums with the bloody truth: these people are criminals. walking deceivers that take up space on your facebook friend’s list.

fortunately, I have figured it out. there are categories for these creatures. I’ll share.

lushes aka drinkin buddies: this is when the weekend calls come in—randomly and if it’s really bad (borderline alcoholic status) it’s also several times during the week. of course I enjoy drinking and bar time but um…I kind of sort of have a life that requires me to be sober in order to function during tasks. on the bright side, you are always around for people to take advantage of your alcohol addiction and head to the bar (or stay at home) for some good night (or day) drinking.

lackies aka people who constantly need things: jesus christ get a planner, a job, an assistant, a tutor, a handyman and whatever else you need to mend your ridiculous levels of confusion and chaos. sure, helping out is great. I do it all the time, but there is a line that needs to be drawn here. where are your priorities? tossed around, misplaced, and resting on E. there is a difference between being stuck here and there and needing someone to support you and give you some guidance and someone wiping your ass because you suck at it. grasp the word maturity and say it 10 times. now repeat. you should probably write this down for future reference, but that would disappear.

tissue blowers aka people who contact you to boohoo: I get it. your life sucks. every thing is wrong. all. the. time. I’m starting to see a pattern here. I’m just really surprised that you cannot. it’s wednesday, you have opened your eyes, and immediately the day is screwed. every day is a borderline suicidal contemplation over a crooked stop sign on the road, a new homework assignment, a lost pen, boredom. unfortunately, I am no ones cure for boredom and I do not possess the necessary knowledge to take notes on all of the mishaps occurring in your life and diagnose you for medicinal relief. solution: public bathroom roll. it’s easier on the nose.

time-shares aka people who come around every once in a while: last week you and your bf/gf were completely fine and I know this because you never called. this week, you’re blowin my freakin phone up because an argument occurred, the sex got boring, you’re not mentally stimulated, and he/she is annoying the hell out of you. I would entertain this temporary company, but I actually have better things to do. your relationship (or situationship) complaints are no longer entertaining and like the tissue blower, you are also living a destructive pattern that does not create a pleasant image on my moleskine. shut up. seriously.

brain slugs aka people who lack depth: you’re around because I occasionally need someone to tell a good knock knock joke, but the moment I spark a topic that may suggest higher thinking (not to be confused with airheads) I’m struck with the dumb face. silence. blink. blink. I like to laugh, be goofy and playful, but my mind often wanders to a place that demands intellectual substance and I like to obey from time to time. where is your opinion? your own perspective on life? is it even alive? um. hello…?

so, which one are you?

observations, assumptions, and actualities.

this topic has been on my mind for days now, probably an entire week or more actually. but of course my brain has been tossed around in the process, forced to puke creativity and shit achievement. despite this, however, I kept coming back to the same thoughts and ideas.

I’ve always been a freak for observing and taking the time to pay attention to things instead of just having someone tell you about every single thing that occurs. as engaging and provoking as this may be, it has its disadvantages. while we observe and are constantly taking down mental notes about individuals and situations, are those thoughts about what we have claimed to witness, the persons actual intention or have we just assumed their intentions based on our subjective observations?

I’ll break this down with a scenario that resembles something that I have done before for better understanding.

observation: outside of your window, there is a woman walking down the sidewalk. you notice that she suddenly stops to pick something up from the ground. it looks like a paper of some sort. she stares at it for a minute and quickly shoves it in her bag and continues walking down the sidewalk.

assumption: she’s selfish and greedy. anyone who picks something up from the ground that could’ve been money, a personal belonging, etc is obviously not concerned about the person that it belongs to. even better, she could just be a paper collector who wanders the streets and picks up random trash for her own personal pleasure.

actuality: the woman was walking her usual route to work that day and saw a child-like drawing on the ground. she picked it up, opened it because it was folded and also slightly torn and delicate and was in total awe. she wasn’t sure if the art was thrown away or lost in the wind, but she decided to keep it and make it apart of something, even if it was just a part of her life to share with others. believing that everything happens for a reason, she placed it in her bag for safe keeping.

this particular situation may have been a more difficult one to approach and get beyond pure assumption through communication, but there are a million different scenarios that could occur and offer that opportunity.

think about the last time you observed someone doing something and made an assumption about their purpose or character. these thoughts can be avoided if we skip pass the assumption phase and just talk to each other. so what if they’re a stranger. who cares? if you’ve taken the time out to piece together another person’s actions, it shouldn’t be a complicated task to find out if what you thought was really what you saw.

vision can be a tricky thing. sometimes we aren’t seeing anything at all.

this doesn’t need a title.

as the chaos swirls around you
inhaling the air that you breathe
you will walk
with a smile on your heart
that does not answer questions or give explanations.

what was once in disarray
is silenced by internal honesty and clarity
spilling out of your pores,
undisturbed by the outside world
and peacefully speaking of the person you
no longer have to dream of being.

you are waiting for yourself
to be introduced to you again,
unfazed  by the chaos that swirls around you.

deletion.

I think that the amount of time that is spent hanging around is nothing but a bag of excuses, justifications, and questionable actions that get carried around due to personal doubt and insecurity.

I went to sleep knowing that some things I just don’t deserve.

I woke up knowing that some things I just don’t deserve.

and behind all of the stomach butterflies and lustful delusions that were created under mind-altering influences, someone has to wake up. but what do you put yourself through before you allow your eyes to open into a brand new day and decide that what has been presented to you is short of who you are?

“the world is not around because of you.
you know i’m not around because of you.”
—mouth full of diamonds by phantogram

wasted sobriety: knowing that everything you have encountered hasn’t been completely washed of the pieces you think that you see or the touch you thought that you felt.

junk thought: a disarray of jumbled thoughts that have no connection and meaning, resulting in a transfer of the ultimate misconception of words.

I’m still floating feet above the suggested ground with just a little more insight than I had hours ago and I don’t mind being wrapped up in my own set of arms as long as everything is okay.

everything is okay.