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...