Death Socks

 No idea where this is going,
But it's been awhile,
So here goes...
Wandering through
Urban wastelands...
Gathering supplies...
Generally avoiding entanglements...
Humans can't be trusted...
I scan the local stories
To see them
Tearing each other to shreds...
I see it,
And I know it is in their nature...
I see it,
And I'm tired of being a part of it...
I feel it,
And I'm fatigued
By its constance...
A landscape
Carved by erosion...
Sculpted by decay
Like spongiform encephalitis...
Coral waving in the depths
Of the sea...
Bacterial mats
Rolling like sand dunes
Over the bodies
Of trillions of former lives...
The sand beneath your feet
Used to be encased in protoplasm...
Heavy feet
Crushing piles of skeletons...
Random weathered bones...
Golden in the sunset,
Transparent at night...
Everything runs in cycles
Like an unbalanced tire,
But the center never holds...
The vibration and hum
Loosens nuts and bolts...
Rattles teeth
From their sockets...
But you don't think
You can feel it,
Even though
It is the reason 
You can feel at all...
Positive charge and negative charge
Annihilating each other
All day, every day...
Creation and destruction
Are all one...
Duality is the illusion
That makes communication
Appear to be a necessity...
Love/hate, life/death, good/bad,...
Everything is the same thing...
Difference
Is illusion...
Nothing is real...
Per se...

An Xmas Story

 Ash snowflakes falling...
Moscow streets paved in glass...
Long winter to come...
Long silence after bluster and bravado...
Turnip shaped spires just a memory...
Internet documentation of Ozymandias' works wiped by EMP...
Natural selection in organic life shapes the face of the planet's surface,
With or without mankind...
A song lyric,
"If the world were ending,
You'd come over, right?"
It is constantly dying,
And being reborn...
As above, so below...
Tiny wormholes in every single atom...
Time sliding backwards, and forwards,
And in every other direction...
Every one point progression around the circumference changes
What you think you see at the center...
Everything is nothing,
And nothing is everything...
Add it all up to complete the circuit with a null charge...
The was no Big Bang to start the process...
The process never really started...
Simply something we think we can see
Just like God is something some think they can feel...
Just fever dreams dreaming themselves a fractal home...
A flurry of thoughts imagining this space...
A comforting lie for consciousness
Wondering why it exists...

We Are What We Do

 I guess
Life is supposed to be about growth...
Being adaptable 
And open to change
On a stage
That could crumble at any moment...
Infrastructure cutbacks...
The whole thing has been around
For eons...
Not everything ages well...
Don't be too sure
Of your footing...
Tread lightly...
Be prepared to catch yourself
At any moment...
At every moment...
Learn, grow, change, evolve...
Maybe I've never really known
Who or what I am,
But I have been
Whatever that is
For a very long time...
And whatever that is
Is constantly changing...
I don't have the luxury of 
Being just one, set thing...
I just try to keep up...
And do my level best
To be...
Just be...
I have gained wisdom
Over the years,
But I still make mistakes...
Lots and lots...
Have made what would appear to be
Poor decisions 
Here and there...
I'm a kinetic learner...
I have to touch things
If I want to know about them...
Physical engagement 
With the material world 
Should effect change
In both the individual
And the physical world...
Butterfly wings and all that...
And this mindset
Was the killing blow
To my opinion 
Of her...
Years pass
Leaving her unchanged...
This might sound desirable, 
At first glance...
Like some ageless vampirism beauty,...
But the stasis isn't physical...
Not external...
Certain mindsets and lifestyle choices
Can age you quite rapidly...
No...
It's what's under the hood...
It's what steers the vehicle...
Emotionally, psychologically, intellectually,...
These things have remained
Unchanged...
Tropisms of various sorts...
Mechanical triggers...
Hunger, thirst, rudimentary desire...
Always starving
Metaphysically...
Always...
But the outward expression of
Ravenous
Comes off as 
Unconvincing...
Deadpan...
Like when people say,
"Yeah...
They 'checked out a long time ago.'"
Someone
Has to be at home,
But the lights aren't on...
Just headlights from cars
Turning around in the driveway
Tracking shadows
Across the drapes...
It's always the wrong address...
And they rarely want to stay...
Meet the folks...
Meet the kids...
They all know the patterns...
They've learned not to say much...
They have resigned themselves
To a situation,
A way of living,
That I couldn't...
Not even for "friendship"...
Definitely not for the marriage...
Best option, 
Given the opinion,
Was to become a ghost...
Some people just can't learn...
Can't face
Who they are...
(And you can be self-aware 
Even if you're not sure
How exactly to categorize yourself -
Just putting that out there...)
And, short of that,
Maybe they can't face
What they've done...
We are what we do,
No matter what we may think,
Or how we may try to
Rationalize it...
“Beware of false prophets, 
Who come to you in sheep’s clothing, 
But inwardly they are ravening wolves.  
You will know them by their fruits." 
We are our works.
Sometimes
The only work we have
Is ourselves.
The only fruit,
Our self-view.
Not everyone will change the world...
Not everybody can...
At least, 
Maybe,
Change yourself...
For yourself...
Someone is always watching
Who is potentially capable
Of being inspired...
But don't do it because they're watching...
Do it because you have to...
Do it because you're more
Than just meat...

Nobody Home

 There's nobody home...
Eyes, just glistening orbs...
They only shine 
By reflecting light off of
Moist ocular tissue...
Purely physical...
Mechanical...
There is no light behind them...
No fire inside...
Nothing hard,
And nothing soft...
Just void...
Disassociated and dry...
She may have lived there,
Existed,
At some point
In the distant past...
But the shell
Appears to be abandoned...
Visibly in need
Of extensive repair...
No longer the soul
Of a home...
Maybe never was,
But it's not a terrible thing
To offer
The benefit of the doubt...
It's as close to hope
As can be managed
In this particular case...
No joy...
No exuberance...
Flat line 
On the emotional EKG...
Coding...
Like a living dead girl...
Unless you're in a coma,
Life should not be classifiable
As a vegetative state...
I feel pity for this walking corpse,
But can't find any other lingering
Emotion to apply...
Can't bring myself to care...
Can't seem to recognize
Why I was initially drawn to her...
Was it really for such shallow reasons?
The first kiss 120 pounds ago
When she still had teeth,
16 years my junior...
Does that sound shallow of me?
It should,
Because it is.
My lack of substance 
Was all it took
For me to ignore
Her lack of substance...
I am easily distracted
By pretty things...
Once I'm hooked,
"In love,"
Even if the "pretty" part
Goes away,
They are still the most 
Beautiful thing
I know...
Until they project their pain
Onto me,
And reality tears away
That thin veneer
Of romantic delusion and illusion...
Often what I saw in them
Was a reflection of myself...
And often
They were mirroring
The socially visible
Parts of me
For reasons
That turn out to be
Murky and obscure...
They don't really see me,
I don't really see them...
We'd like to think 
There was some real connection,
But since consensus reality
May be nothing more than illusion,
How "real" can any connection be?
My vice
Is this need to
Test the waters
To see if the water
Is beginning to boil...
How can one know
Good vs evil
Without experiencing both?
How can one know pain from pleasure
Without being touched
By both?
Combining the two agents together
In various admixtures 
To see what chemical reaction
Incites a measurable change...
This is my vice...
Curiosity is a curse,
Ensuring 
That I am always living
In interesting times...

Stapelia Gigantea's Hole

 Some things are just
Sad...
Some experiences are embarked upon
Experimentally
With a scientifically cold demeanor...
Just to see what will happen...
Just to see how it makes
The limbic system feel...
Pushing inside
Just to see what I lost...
Just to see if anything of mine
Were ever there...
Again,
Some experiments
Are objectively sad...
Spending an afternoon
With a former lover,
Someone estranged,
And realizing
It was never real,
They
Were never real...
The memory of a shared experience
Now become
An empty shell
Simply taking up space
In the material world...
Physically inside of her,
But she's not there...
She was never there...
No hope,
No joy,
No self-respect...
A Venus fly trap
For damaged insects,
Mostly...
Or a carrion plant
Mimicking the smell of rotting flesh
To attract same...
Lying, immobile,
On her back
Just like when we were a couple,
When I didn't mind
Her lack of participation
In the act
Because I was "in love"...
The corpse bride...
Questioning
How involvement first began...
How this entanglement began...
Grey shades
And monotone "jokes"...
A not-so-subtle
Mean spiritedness 
Hovering close to the floorboards...
A sterile coolness
Oozing from every pore...
This isn't about reconnection
For her,
It's about boredom,
And some futile attempt 
At physical validation...
This is all she has to offer...
All she ever had to offer...
All that she knows
That she can offer...
Questioning how love
Could possibly be felt
As deeply as it had once been felt
For this lost soul...
Sometimes
Allowing someone
To be themselves,
Once things are "over,"
Can be elucidating...
Words not colored
By desperate attempts
To prove a fiction true
Give perspective...
Physicality
Not colored
By tender emotions
Or fictions of loyalty...
A touch more brutal honesty...
Hindsight...
Of course,
Gaining perspective
Can be saddening...
Remembering
All the time you wasted
Polishing that ring
That never did shine
Anywhere
But in the confines of your mind...
Hard to stay hard
When things were and are
Based on lies and self-delusion...
When the object
Contains nothing
But an absence of human emotion
And seems to be ready
For the formaldehyde flush
Before being prepped
For the wake...
Seeing through illusions
Is bracing...
Accepting extant reality
Isn't always palatable...
A bitter aftertaste
Pinching the nerves
In the jaw...
A desolation steadily
Creeping into the bones
Like fall turning into winter...

Still Life in Cyanobacteria

 Depression,
A slug living
In your gut...
A cavernous emptiness,
Dark and humid and stale,
Where the life
Is no more complex
Than a bacterial mat
On the sea floor...
Nothing moves,
And yet there is constant tension...
Does the depression
Cause the anxiety,
Its visceral expression
Feels
Threatening...
Or does the anxiety
Exacerbate the depression?
One can only feel helpless
For so long
Before the brain chemicals
Begin to somewhat
Deregulate...
Maybe they both exist
On their own
Individual merits...
Who knows?
But they have a synergy...
They dance with expert moves,
An East Side Story
Knife fight...
The intellect
Watches, in disgust,
The time wasted
Being inside the mind
A bit too much...
But
There are many dangers...
Hyperawareness
Via genetic predisposition 
And just the right mix
Of trauma...
It doesn't take much
To traumatize 
The emotionally sensitive 
And emotionally reactive...
They see everything
That could go wrong 
(or right, for that matter)
A thousand times,
The proverbial coward...
Unfavorable outcomes,
Predictably,
Pique the attention
More urgently than the good...
Frozen in the lights...
So many things can go wrong...
And so many things
Have gone wrong...
It can be
Gotten used to,
Frogs lounging comfortably
As their flesh
Begins to cook...
It's not quite catatonia,
But nothing feels like it's moving
Forward in time,
But it's moving forward in time
Too fast...
Faster and faster...
Intermittently trembling earth
Brings concern...
Buzzing in pulses like a 
Cell phone on mute...
There are still things to see
And things to do...
Not just things that have to be done,
But things that are wanted
Just because
Something triggered
Interest and/or desire...
Even soldiering through,
Leaves moments for joy...
Even if brief...
Leave room for anticipation...
As was earlier said,
Living with neurodivergence,
It can be gotten used to...
Don't stop doing the work,
Keep moving as forward as can be managed...
Remember to also manage expectations...
Surf the waves that might otherwise
Roll you down
Beneath the waves...
Blue-green algae slime
Silently the only thing
That can literally be seen...
The ceiling is moving above,
But down here
Just a still life in cyanobacteria...

Hubble and Webb

Forced writing...
Mostly empty inside...
Slave to bills,
But surviving...
There are moments of brightness
Before the sun
Slips back behind the clouds...
Those clouds are dense
And black
And don't let light
Pass through them...
I read by the pale green light
Cast from my bioluminescent skin...
I am the light in my life...
I used to seek external light sources,
But that was St. Elmo's fire,
Or just an artifact
Of an overactive imagination...
Like a phantom limb
Tingling, cramping, and buzzing...
What isn't there
Is often felt more strongly
Than that that is...
I am that I am...
A galaxy unto myself
Attempting to avoid
My past penchant
For seeking out unstable galaxies
To crash into...
Unsuccessful attempts to merge
One with another,
While I wound up consumed,
And then shat out...
A rabbit leaping
Into the raptor's claws...
Mice jumping
Into the mouths of arctic foxes...
The doodle-bug
At the base of the cone
Is an ambush predator
Despite the childish cuteness
Of its colloquial name...
The closer you look at things,
The clearer they can get...
And sometimes
The clearer things get,
The darker they become...
Clear and dark
And Razor sharp...
Perceived meaning 
Obscured by optic clarity...
The past brought into severe focus
As the now fades at the edges...
Looking past the event horizon,
They say,
Isn't possible...
You can't see what's inside,
If, indeed, there is anything at all...
The big question:
Something from nothing?
We presume our perceptions
To be representative
Of an objective, shared reality...
Maybe it's a shared absence of reality...
A community phantasm
Of binary self-creating coding...
Just ideas with no medium to grow in
Other than fever dreams...
The ouroboros 
Choking on its tail
For eternities...

Vacuum Chamber

 Nothing is real...
It's as real as you need
At the time...
But things change...
Everything is transitory...
Everything,
Constantly in flux...
There are no
Fool proof plans...
No assured solutions...
When the wheel of chance
Spins up a winner,
There is a timer running...
Scales must balance,
After all...
And that timer
Is counting down
To the next
Post-apocalyptic 
And dystopian 
Real world event...
From the public sphere
To the private,
As above, so below,
All in chaotic seeming
Fractal unity...
No matter how closely you look, 
No matter how intensely you magnify any one piece,
You're always looking at the exact same things...
Zoom out by 1,000?
Exact same things...
Geometric conformity...
It's actually 
A bit depressing
Once you begin to notice
The patterns...
Certain behaviors...
Predictable...
Expectable...
It's rare 
To feel surprise...
Humans are literally apes...
Apes with guns...
Cavemen with technology...
And an attraction to shiny things...
Soft metals...
Hydrocarbons...
Money...
Power...
Control...
And we sure do seem to enjoy
Controlling each other...
Speaking out of 
Both sides of the mouth...
Politicians...
Despite varying levels of reach and responsibility, 
We're all politicians of sorts,
Some of us
Only representing one...
But that's ultimately all of us
When the ride comes to a stop...
The shoulder bars loudly unlock...
The distal portions of your limbs 
Are slightly buzzing...
Gravity feels different...
You didn't think about 
This place
When you were up there
Wrapped up in some feelings
That were never built to last...
Who wants to live forever?

6 "Justices"

 Can you fight it?
Will you fight it?
We're all falling together
Even if you feel alone...
It's not like we didn't
See it coming...
We did...
So...
What do we do now?
Now that the minority rule
Has become
The law of the land?
How long will we
Allow this to stand?
How long do we not
Lower ourselves to their level?
They fight dirty.
It's about time
We fight dirty.
No more need
To be polite.
Show your anger,
Every chance you get,
Everywhere,
All the time...
They put chains
Back on your
Wrists and legs...
They secretly wish
That slavery
Was still a thing...
They want more service workers
With little to no chance
Of escaping the poverty
They were born into...
They do the bidding
Of their masters...
They do not consider us
To be the people
They are sworn to protect...
It's dreams of power and control
In visibly weak minded justices
Who don't think for themselves...
What are we going to do about it?
Get your gasoline...
Get your matches...
Burn their ideologies 
To the ground...

Intermittent Light

The light goes on,
The light goes off...
Intermittent...
Days pass...
Weeks, months, years...
The illusion of time
Keeps grinding
Bones to dust...
Toiling for that daily bread...
Rent more a priority than health...
Gasoline
More a priority
Than food...
If there were
Enough wilderness
To disappear into,
That would feel like an option...
Living off the land
Versus
The mutual parasitism
Of "polite society"...
There are unfortunate connections 
And meaningless obligations,
However...
At least
The voyeurism is entertaining...
News and movies
All just as ludicrous,
One compared to the other...
Fake outrage
Programmed into zombies
Turned by the parasitic fungus
Of "faith" and politics...
Fantastic imaginings 
From bronze age goat herders
Used to Groom
Those that can not think
For themselves,,
Not even believed by those
That use the words
To take their money...
Bathing in their blood...
Punch drunk on the wine...
x

Zen and the Art of Moped Maintenance

Taken one system at a time...
Electrical,
Air flow, 
Fuel flow, 
Air/fuel mix,
Compression,
Spark...
Every little detail...
Be clean...
Be mindful...
Get to know its body...
Its inner workings...
Beneath tangled wires, cables, and hoses
Is simplicity...
A simple four chambered mechanical heart/lung brought to life by a timed spark...
No need for a brain...
Take the whole thing apart if you have to...
Bolt by bolt...
I did that once...
Can't even remember what kind of bike it was,
But it was an actual motorcycle...
A bit more than 49 cc under the seat...
A wreck that a gas station pretty much gave to me 
So they didn't have to pay for its disposal...
I was reading Zena and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance...
Took it apart
Bolt by bolt...
Completely...
Laid all the parts out...
Fixed a cracked oil pan...
Gave it fresh oil...
Then put it all back together (with the help of a Chilton's manual)...
Turned the ignition...
Engine turned over...
Almost started...
Sputtered out...
Gave up, thinking I failed...
Didn't remember that,
Of course,
I had emptied the gas tank before the disassemble...
And, of course,
It was stolen that night...
The very night I realized that I was actually successful
At getting to know that engine...
All it needed was gas...
This time, with the moped, the situation is a somewhat reversed/similar...
Got stolen from my parking lot on St. Patty's day,
But reclaimed about a week later...
It wasn't in working order when it got stolen from me...
I had just started working on it after about a month of cold weather
(About all you get of that in Austin, TX...)
Bad spark plug...
And, as it turns out, stale gas...
Found that out later...
An arrest had been made,
But the machine came back in "less working" order
Compared to the level of "not working" it was already experiencing...
May as well have been thrown in the bear cage at a zoo...
With very curious, active, and destructive bears...
Bears who do not use the proper tools for the job...
So, diagnosing problems involved replacing stolen/missing parts
And creatively redistributing the remaining bolts...
Then,
System by system,
Modifying and testing...
Had to learn how to hotwire it
Just to be able to troubleshoot the electrical system...
Keyed ignition destroyed...
Air filter casing shattered...
Dozens of YouTube videos on troubleshooting, and wiring, and air flow, and etc.
Patience became more fine tuned...
That happens when there is a clear goal...
Following every wire, 
Every tube and hose,
Learning the landscape...
Being quietly productive...
Appreciating the moment when that little engine finally went full throttle...
A success...
Something that was just me...
Unaided...
This bike, once upon a time, stolen,
Balanced things
With that old, once upon a time, stolen bike
That never came back...
The old "what goes around, comes around" ploy...
There is balance,
If you seek it...
Aide and abet it when you see it...
Watch...
Observe...
Assess...
Plan...
Name it.

Unplanned Staycation

Adrift on a small life raft...
Maybe more like a 
Space capsule...

Almost alone in my room...
Small furry creatures
Sleep somewhere in the many
Nooks and crannies...
They bring some life
To the isolation
Every few hours...
And then,
After about 20 minutes,
Back to sleep they go
For 4 or 5 hours more...
Binge-watching series
And re-watching old movies
I've seen
A dozen times before...
Netflix and Amazon Prime...
Planning
On getting at least one thing done
Everyday
That has to be done,
To justify the rest of the sloth...
Vehicle in the shop...
They're fixing something that they allegedly already "fixed"...
Now they get to do it all again,
Free of further charge...
I guess they missed her...
Didn't get to spend enough time
Romancing the engine...
So,
I'm here,
At the tail end of some
Seasonal Affective Disorder level
Depression,
Drifting...
Just passing time...
Somehow unable,
At times,
To step away from the computer...
Really difficult
To not just cue up
Another video...
Hard to motivate to
Take a walk...
Used to do that all the time...
I should put myself
In situations
Where I am required
To interact with other people,
But solitude
Can be so comfortable...
Relative peace is priceless...
It's something worth protecting...
Or, at least,
It's worth valuing...
It's never perfect...
Nothing really ever is...
But it's sometimes as perfect as it needs to be...
Little moments, here or there...
My first wife always said,
"Life's not perfect,
But there are perfect moments.
Those are what we live for."
She loved truisms and clichés...
Probably heard it at church
When she was a Sunday school teacher
Spinning the prayer wheel...
Almost...
It's close...
Those moments aren't perfect...
They weren't...
But they felt that way,
For a moment...
Suspension of disbelief...
It's a survival mechanism...
Much like cognitive dissonance...
The things we do
To psychologically survive
Being cast into this world
Of matter and morality
When once
We were blissfully unaware,
Drifting in the waters
Of the abyss...

But I Keep Waiting (recovered from March 22, 2016)

Her face flushed a little as she described some other man's smile...
There was a barely perceptible trill at the end of the sentence, slightly catching her breath...
The kind of thing you can see when a school girl has a crush...
The kind of thing I used to hear in her voice when she spoke to or about me,
but haven't heard in many years...
Her body language changed for just a moment...
Seemed almost happy for an instant...
If I saw this or heard this in a stranger's voice as they spoke about something they enjoyed,
it would have made me smile,
maybe,
but I'm too close to this moment to smile,
haven't really smiled a genuine smile in a long time...
Too close to this moment,  this person,
but more than a million miles away...
This whole event
was small...
Insignificant and meaningless...
But insignificant and meaningless things can tear me apart...
My emotions are stronger than most,
despite outward appearances of indifference or calm...
despite years of being accused by various lovers 
that I lack a certain emotional depth...
I hold back the river
which might be destructive if set free...
I've tried to shut them down, 
and it appears to others that I have been successful...
But I haven't been...
And even these little things
tear me down...
It took me years to be able to be comfortable saying the words "I love you" to anybody...
And in this tiny, insignificant moment,
I saw a momentary spark of happy emotion in her,
even if only for a split second...
She doesn't want this man romantically,
she was just describing a thing that made her happy,
but she doesn't want me either...
Not that way...
Not any more...
That brief sparkle in her,
it wasn't for me...
x

Love Song Immunity

 Love songs don't reach me anymore...
Whether in a relationship or between them,
Love songs,
For better or for worse,
Could sometimes
Strike a chord of emotion
And pull forth a tear or so...
Tales of romance,
Or tales of heartbreak
Used to be able
To move me...
Now, 
Not so much...
Reminders of wasted time
And fruitless pursuits...
Temptation to ruminate
Over things that
Can't be changed...
Struggling to release
The hurt...
Pathologically unable
To forgive and forget,
Apparently...
Struggling internally
Against spider silk 
That is
Pulling everything
In every direction... 
Attached to everything...
Woven intricately 
Into every situation, 
Every thought,
Every sensation,
Every emotion...
Spiderlings ballooning
Over the infinite pattern
Adding more thread
To the skein...
In certain light,
Silvery grey skin,
Almost an exoskeleton...
Coated in decades
Of wasteland wandering...
My biggest enemy
Has always been me...
My identity
Has been fragile
And unfocused...
Survival has been the main focus...
I'm alive, and under a roof,
And bombs aren't raining down on me,
And that's going to
Have to do...
Like a man alone in the wilderness
Learning how to cope
With a system
That is both overtly and covertly,
Metaphorically and literally,
Predatory...
All souls emerge from the void
At the same point...
Time is an illusion,
Just a part of the grammatical structure
Of our perceived universe...
This world is just the chatter
Of minds learning
How to intercommunicate...
Consciousness
Trying to find itself,
And always finding,
In the end,
Nothing...
All paths lead back to the void...

Existential Dread

 I feel everything too much...
And I feel nothing at all...
I don't desire to die,
But I can't remember, exactly, how to live...
I don't want to care
About my credit score...
I don't want to worry
About the fact
That everything eventually succumbs
To entropy
And falls apart...
Vehicles, devices, relationships, 
Emotional attachments...
Nothing lasts forever,
And so I have learned
That I can't count on anything...
You have to be happy
With what the current brings,
what washes up on shore,
Or you have to be happy
where the current carries you...
I've grown tired
Of trying to be 
What other people want
Or expect...
I was never great at it,
But I could be entertaining
Jumping through hoops,
Or being the jester for the Queen...
I don't have it in me
Anymore
To put in that much work...
Especially
If, in the end,
We were just
Wasting each other's time...
I have wasted so much time
Building sand castles
And sand mandalas 
Hoping that they would be
More durable than they
Turned out to be...
Vows scattered
By the breeze
Like dandelion seeds...
Children
Torn to pieces
Or expelled...
As a child,
I was terrified of death...
The thought of it...
Or, I thought I was...
Maybe I was just scrambling to name the general feeling of terror
That anxiety disorder brings...
Maybe I was searching
Extant reality
For something real...
For something that seemed to make sense
In causing such terror...
I don't think that death was it...
I think the terror exists
In and of itself,
For no discernible reason
Other than brain chemicals...
I try to tell myself
That as long as I am still living,
Still trying,
That I haven't failed...
But I still often feel
Like I have...
I struggle against myself...
Barely comfortable in my own skin.. 
Every day is a struggle
To feel complete...
A struggle to survive and provide...
A struggle to find meaning...
A struggle to feel
"Happy"...
And, as they say, the struggle is real,
Even when it feels like a bad trip...
x

Darkness Falls

 If you let them,
They'll diminish you
Piece by piece...
One grain at a time...
I've learned this
From my committed relationships...
You still have to hold boundaries...
Even if they
Say they love you...
Even if they really do...
Nothing is forever,
So forever is meaningless...
A darkness has moved over me...
I psychologically analyze people 
Before they
Even open their mouths...
I imagine a lifetime
Dealing with their
Particular psychological dysfunction...
I see the disasters
Before they have a chance
To happen...
Then they open their mouths,
And their words
Fit the profile
I have imagined...
Back in the here and now,
I'm dodging
Imaginary bullets...
My mind was always
Overcast,
But prepared for possible hope...
The new darkness
Doesn't leave much room
To process "hope"...
Hope falls into the
"This too shall pass"
Category...
I guess everything does...
That's depressing enough
In itself.. 
We may be living
In the most peaceful time
In human history,
All things being relative,
But we may be feeling more terror,
Conversely,
Due to a chronic rise
In self-interest...
That fear of depleted supply...
Feast or famine...
"My 'freedom' trumps your well-being"
Seems to be the motto of the day.
Leaves swirling in the wind...
Never allowed to settle...
To rest
Before being reclaimed
By the Earth...
The sun is still up there,
Burning,
But there is so much
In the way,
Obscuring the view,
Blocking the warmth...
So much distance
Between
There 
And here...
As I get older,
There's a duality
Of self-actualizing,
On the one hand,
And disassociating,
On the other...
Reconnecting with
Who I really am
Vs.
Disconnecting 
From most of humanity...
I don't actually want
Those two things
To be the same thing,
But people are discouraging...
Scary and dangerous,
Emotionally speaking...
Wandering through
Forests of pedestals
And soap boxes...
Colonies of superficial moral judgement...
Or
Barren tracts of land...
Sand dunes
Smoothly rippling...
Barely any means
To support an inner life...
For these,
The sun shines...
I am
The dark side of the moon...
I am 
More comfortable in the shadows...
Unseen and unheard
Is safety...
Aside from
A select few
Personal friends,
People do not lately
Make me feel safe...
I've become suspicious...
Guarded...
Armor protecting
All the slime in the core...