Quoth The Raven: "Nevermore"

These Are Hard Times For Dreamers

Sometimes I worry that the beautiful is being replaced by the convenient. E-readers, high rises, fast food. Everyone is intent on doing things more quickly and I worry that in some generations’ time, people will not know how it feels to smell a book, to imagine its life before you, to play in the sprinklers in the garden for hours. People will no longer know the feeling of creating something on paper, whispering it into being, from your head to the page, making it exist. Nobody will stop, nobody will notice the beauty in the sunset or the stars, or in the goofy smile of the girl down the street.

Nobody will have time to memorise the perfume of another person, their scent. Nobody will bother to record those not seen as important.

Have you ever noticed how many stories must go untold? Good and bad. Sometimes, I look around a crowded area and I am overwhelmed by the sheer life in it. The beauty of it. Of collective suffering going unnoticed. What if the woman in the corner kills herself tonight?

I worry that in some generations’ time, she won’t be paid a sideways glance. People are too busy, no time to be broken. 

We’re All a Little Mad

The tide is strong and the water’s rough,
Everyone seems to be speaking in clichés. 
It’s all too real, though nothing is.

I think I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole again.
Can I paint the roses and play croquet?
Go to a mad hatter’s tea party?
May I celebrate my not birthday with you?

Drink me.
Drink life.
That’s what it’s saying, really.
I think I like it here. 

I haven’t wasted a thing except my time.

Give me something that’s more than real.
Something big enough to wake me up.
Something that will allow me to tell reality from dreams.

Tell me what you lost.
Tell me what you have.
Show me your scars, tell me your stories.

Pick me apart until I unravel at the sides.
Tell me there’s holes in my façade. 
Make me feel. Something, anything.

Make me cry, I dare you.
I bet you can’t.

Tell me that you’ll still be here when the last mountain of my sanity crumbles beneath me.
Tell me you’d gladly fight by my side.

Be empty with me. 

Hindsight is Always Twenty Twenty

I want to scream
“Help me”
But nobody can

I want to yell
I want to show people I’m not okay

But

I don’t want to be weak

And so quiet I will stay 

They’re all that’s left of you

There are days
Days like this one
Where going backwards only takes you forwards

The days when you could swear something inside you is living
You’re not you
When quite suddenly, you are.

Days when you’re sure you’ve been here before
And here
And here
Haven’t I dreamed this a thousand times?

Days you have to shake your head to clear it
And pretend it worked

Days you know you’re not like the rest of them
Bittersweet days
Days and days and days 

I shall never get out of this, there are two of me now

Finally I want out
Finally it’s too much

The memory blanks, the constant tired feeling
I want out
But I’m not sure I can

I feel trapped now
Trapped
Not comfortable, like before

I’m scared
To try
To fail

Scared of what this means

I can’t remember a lot of this weekend
I can’t remember a lot of what happened at church
I can’t remember

I want to remember

I don’t want help, but perhaps I need it
I don’t know
I don’t understand anything

So I’m sitting idle still

It’s taking me over,
It’s taken me over.

But I want to save myself

Stay bright, little firefly

There’s a dull ache
longing, I think
I never planned this

But here it is
For you
I didn’t expect this

Apparently, I fall hard
And fast
Maybe that’s why I don’t do it often

This is difficult, painful
But sometimes, I suppose…
Pleasant

Please don’t break me 

Relieved and at the same time… Appalled.

How do I say it, darling?
I’m sinking under my own skin
Surely you must see the screams in my eyes

They’re so heavy
Eyes and lives and wonder
Help

Save me?
Don’t.
I won’t let you anyhow.

I want to scream at the top of my lungs
Still
Be still, dear

She’ll come back
Me, that is
I promise you
I won’t be gone forever

I’m not crazy
Yet

Do you know I feel alive, dear?
When I’m with you.
You wake me up sometimes

You have power in that way
I love it
But I don’t like it

Relieved, and at the same time… Appalled.
Appalled. 

Wonderings.

I wonder if someday, someone will see “I’ll be fine” carved into my hip, look up at my cold, dead body, the gash on my wrist or the rope burn on my neck, and let out a dark laugh, because of the irony. Because I’m not.

Maybe they’ll realise I never was.

Sometimes I just wonder.

It all hurts
All of it
All of you

Everything you do
Hurts
Everytime you touch me

Reminds me of my own existence
Reminds me that I’m still breathing
Hurts

Please understand
When my father touched my hand for grace
It hurt

Perhaps this is why
I break down and cry
Whenever, upset, someone touches my skin