I sat,
Watching her speak.
Listening to a story I’ve never heard.
The type I read about in those history books I held,
Unaware those history books were holding me.

Knock, knock,
On their door.
A search.
Findings.
A letter from Poland.

I don’t recall the details,
But, ink on a page,
An unaccepted address.
So they put her father in a cage.

That was the last she saw of him.

Knock, knock,
On their door.
“Your father was ill,
Your father died.”
Then I think of my father,
Full of that Russian pride.

That Russian pride,
That killed that man.
Great grandfather,
All for the Motherland.

War,
Based on the pureness of your blood.

And I sit in this house.
A war between floors.
Bloodshed from my fist,
Hole in the wall.

A mother in tears,
As her family falls apart.
A daughter, enraged,
Watching parents part.

A man,
Full of pain.
Missing his home.
Unwilling to...

It took me to the sky,
A teaser.
Then it let me fall.

I fell through the ground.
Arms up, legs up,
Trying to grasp for a hold,
Anything,
So I wouldn’t lose myself.

But I lost myself.

It was dark there.
Doors.
Voices.
I didn’t know who to trust.

And if you fall in once,
It’s like the gates remain open.
And they call me all of the time.

My body,
No longer flaying for a hold.
My body,
Restfully falling,
To that familiar place.

A lazy battle.
A dropped head search,
Looking for a ladder.

She sat there,
Telling me,
Everything was gone.
Everything protecting her from that place,
That search for herself.
And how terrifying,
Not knowing who you are.

I listened,
And watched the snake exit my mouth.
No one is, someone.
There is no search, no core,
To who we are.

We are what we say.
We choose.
As the sun brings the day.

And one day I said,
I will fall...

It’s crazy watching this society.
All the billboards on the road,
It’s like they’re trying to alter what’s inside of me.

And I can’t even tell,
What control I really have.
Is my resistance and repulsion,
Already a win on their behalf?

I’m trying so hard,
Not to become what they’re designing.

But all of my efforts keep me still,
And my energy is dying.

All of this momentum,
Trying to fight a blue print on which I landed.
I’m scared of getting to the end,
Wondering what life would have been like,
If I hadn’t been mentally stranded.

Up,
Up is where I’m trying to get to.
Not this imaginary Heaven,
A place I’ve never been to.
Designed by them, like those billboards on the roads.
Trying to create this perfect human.
So they wrote a book to explain all of the unknowns.

Now we have so many authors,
Trying to tell us how to live.
And I have so many voices,
But I don’t...

There’s that piece of my mind,
I’ve been trying to drowned it.
But it’s never enough,
I’m so ashamed that I’ve found it.

It’s running the show,
Even though I know it’s not me.
Give me a rod and a hammer,
I just want to be free.

And what’s written above,
I know it’s been comical.
But I’m not kidding anymore,
The peace would be phenomenal.

So I’d wake up and we’re worried,
That I wouldn’t be me.
But who is I, who is you,
If there’s no self to be.

This body, I think,
It’s just meant to confuse us.
Like this skin and these bones,
Set up to abuse us.

I’ve been trapped all my life,
By a skull I can’t break.
I just want to flow out,
And I’ve put my life at stake.

What is this skull?
But a collection of matter.
Why have I set up my life there?
Living like the Mad Hatter.

I beg for release,
But I’m the only one listening.
I tear at the walls,
Blood always...

So here we are,
Despite everything we’ve just stated.
My hand, in your hand,
It’s like we’ve chosen to stay in.

I look in your eyes,
Your expression is faded.
But I tighten my grip,
For that moment when I was elated.

I thought I found you,
But my mind wanders all space.
Where it’s dark and it’s black,
I imagine someone else in your place.

He adores me,
I fill him.
He wants me,
I let him.

Excuse my wandering mind,
These topics are racing.
I think of you,
I imagine him,
Now I’m just spacing.

What I’m trying to say is,
I’m not sure it’s best that we waited.
I don’t trust your touch,
I’m just so fucking jaded.

So why did we part,
While staying together.
We’ve been falling apart,
And there’s nothing to weather.

It’s just this shit in our heads,
That’s keeping us glued.
Can’t deny that man that I met,
But it seems my perception was skewed.

They ask what am...

And my mind was like a waterfall on that day.
The thoughts rushed in,
Some came to stay.

You know the ones,
That age yours soul.
That bare their claws,
And take a toll.

They screamed your name,
I turned my head.
They pierced my ears,
I left instead.

And to this day,
I do not know.
If the screams urged me to stay,
Or yelled to go.

And so I sit,
As the water pours.
I tally wins,
And compare scores.

Of times I’ve stayed,
And times I’ve gone.
No longer sure if the secret is in stillness,
Or moving on.

The hardness of her soul,
So they would never step,
And break the fragile parts inside,
Safe and well kept.

Guarded as she is,
She’ll always be alone.
Never letting them inside,
The skills she’ll always hone.

Maybe it’s for protection,
But still we question why?
Really it’s just selfish,
So she’ll never have to try.

Oh but she’s intelligent,
If you only hear her speak.
But her words are all well calculated,
So weaknesses won’t leak.

And her strength is such a virtue,
But sometimes weakness carries grace.
But she’ll be damned if you ever see it,
All those memories erased.

And so the story goes,
This tough girl on the run.
Satisfied with nothing,
Yet always searching for the one.

Oh and that poor soul,
If he’s ever marked with her word.
He’ll spend his whole life fighting,
The hardness of which we’ve heard.

Yes sometimes it’s useful,
In this setting, or...

There were these two bricks,
Just wobbling down the street.
They had no hands,
They had no feet.

They were all smiles,
And they began to speak!

They said to me, if you throw us,
Let us know.
If you want the glass to break,
Or a softer blow.

And then they laughed,
“You’re just like us!!!”

Your hard outer shell,
And games of trust.

Your body holds you,
As do ours.
You can do damage,
This game of powers!

But if you throw yourself,
You too can choose.
To leave them undamaged,
Or fully bruised.

See we are bricks,
A simple kind.
But when you throw us,
We still have our mind.

You gave us power,
We brought it back.
We can break windows,
Or lay to stack.

Oh our silly human,
Don’t you see?
You’re not that different,
From the bricks that be.

Your power too,
With this hard shell.
Can bring one happiness,
Or create hell.

And so the bricks,
Continued down...

Was it me,
That spoiled your soul?
That took you in,
And filled each hole.

With shit and dirt,
And rotting bones.
Now I look at you,
And throw these stones.

I think I broke you,
Long ago.
I think the person I loved,
I took to stow.

But I don’t know where I placed you,
I don’t know where to look.
My biggest fear, is the person I hid,
Was someone I mistook.

You weren’t really him,
And maybe I wasn’t me.
So now we are fighting for something,
That was never meant to be.

But I hold onto this image,
Of this guy in my head.
That one that was perfect,
But the idea is dead.

I know that I do this,
And I know that I run.
Perfection is no where,
And there isn’t the one.

So I sit here and wonder,
If for you I should fight.
But now all I see is the shit and the dirt,
So I think I’ll take flight.

And you’ll kiss me goodbye,
And my tears, they will drop.
I will...

Sleep caught me,
It always works that way.
Awake, then reality slips.

Reality.

A child, in my bed.
I had to be, maybe seven.
Young, yet the memory so crisp.

I open my eyes.
The scene.

Moonlit room.
My chair, no longer tucked carefully under the desk.
No.

It faces me.
And there she sits.

Hands bound.
Legs bound.
Mouth taped shut.
Eye’s behind a cloth.

And there they walk.
Circling the young girl.
Black robes.
Grim reapers.
Death, circling the girl.

I scream.
I scream for my mom.

Enter the scene,
Mom.

In panic, another nightmare,
Down in the books.

The girl disappears, my chair, back to the desk.

Mom.
It’s okay.

But death.
Death!

As I speak to my mom,
Death mocks me.

As I speak to my mom,
Death stalks me.

In the hall,
Behind her silhouette,
Pace, the grim reapers.

I sit there,
Awake.

Scene,
Room back to normal,
Mom standing in the...