afterthoughts

and i want the world to know

but the feelings hurt

and people don't care

about this show

audience of one

lover to some

i saw they found someone new

and i felt numb

i want to be sad

but that's not for the young

my friends are far

some physically

and others emotionally

and i don't know why

it hurts

everything hurts

and there won't ever

be anything strong enough

or are people just wrong

about what they see in me

or the words off my tounge?

i tried and tried and tried

but even a decade of time

seems to not be enough

i thought i fixed my social wounds

but the suture won't hold

my mind under a stairwell

where grudges still travel

for the ones I love

they’ll never know

how much I long

to be able to bestow

upon them the way

they show their love to me

my thoughts don’t go rouge

instead they fester

and pine to leave

the prison of fibers

the ink lies upon

but I show my affection

in other ways

is this the last of your days?

I always thought I’d see you

out of this phase

and when I see you soon

I won’t forget to say

how much I’ve missed you

since the skies turned gray

I’ll cherish our antics

and miss the ways

we’d joke about nothing

I wish nothing would change

and when I see you soon

I won’t forget to say

how much I’ve missed you

with someone whose string

is only bound by one thread

our memories a remnant

of times well spent

the times were short

but I’ll never forget

the way you made me feel

but blinded by my rage

morals perpetually in the grey

kill them with kindness

but only if they

don’t own the moral high ground

and I’m saving the day

from the lies of the unkind

savages everyday

one mind has morals but

conflicted feelings stuck under this tongue

words set to kill

but the aim is pointed

out of the muzzle of an empty gun

these words don’t shoot to kill

they’re poison

to the expectations that tie me down

with a rope made of mounds and mounds

of fears and worries

of what might go wrong

bound to the endless screams and pain

of a sound only those who feel it now

and takes me back to the happier times

when I had all the time to find

the curiosities in life

but then I grew old

and I’m still looking for them

and I’m grateful for each night

when I stand outside

and smell the city

and all its potential

another day i leave my head down

hiding from the very thing i am afraid of

myself

i am too much or not enough

slipping from a beam

tossing me over the brink of anger

the need to romanticize

Every single meaningless

thing in my life

As if someone’s gonna watch

me all starry eyed

And hand me

a 93 cent postcard to sign

With a picture on it from

a lake that isn’t too different

From the one that I’ve passed

since I was an infant

I’m scared that

if I don’t romanticize

I might lose it all

and break unrepairable ties

From the future that I’ve created

with meaningful lies

Of someone with a past

as the television and its cool light

flickered in smooth waves upon it

a neutral expression calmly resting

upon a pillow on a spacious couch

that only a soul away from this world

can express when it doesn’t know

where in space it is or who holds a place for it

I have many regrets from that evening

but not embracing you after you awoke

and admitting what I hid in plain sight

from you all year after we met

I wanted to consume the earth in its entirety

but that would make me fat

and i’m already fat enough

why do i eat so much?

that actor on the silver screen

is so much skinnier than me

and the curve that flows from his

broad, muscular shoulders

to his tiny waist

makes him more attractive than me

i forget he’s thirty-five in that picture

and i’m only twenty

yet i take one look in the mirror

and think about the fifty things to improve

about me

but no

i am perfect the way i am

and i’m so smart

so what if those friends i barely hang with

think i’m declining academically?

they weren’t gifted the way i was in grade school

i was so ahead of the others

that when i began to lap them

i thought i was behind

and that’s where my mind stayed

behind

in the past

because that’s all i think about

is the past

i wonder why i did what i did

to her

to him

to the other her

they didn’t deserve me

they deserved someone

who set themselves aside

someone who loved them

as much as they loved me

i lie to others and myself

and say i do that in my current relationship

but i do not even know if i want her

because i didn’t finish

the sexual escapade i started

when i was 17

but she’s all i have

and what if

she’s all i will ever have?

i don’t want to die alone

but there’s so many people

people and their bodies

to explore

but she will think i am

gay all the way

with no exception for her

i’m tired of not being straight enough

for the straight people

and not queer enough for the queer people

i’m myself

and i like what i like

so what if i like makeup videos

and scroll to a car video next

and watch that all the way too

i love being sensible and vulnerable

but i also love being stern and detached

i’m such a paradox of paradigms

no one knows what i truly am

and i think that’s why

i think the way i think

because i have all these insecurities about myself

don’t even get me started on my financial ones

or the ones involving my parents

or the ones involving religion

i go on and on and on and on

and it feels like people are tired of hearing this

i absolutely know

you’re tired from reading this

because i showed it to you

and you feel you have to

otherwise you think

i might think you’re a bad friend

but i know you don’t care all the way

and you don’t have to

and that’s okay

because i’m here for you

and i appreciate you for all the days

you spend with me

i never thought i would have someone who would

because who would

you only see that on tv

and they say it’s all fake

i screwed myself over by thinking

it’s real

because i never experienced something real

until this year

this year my thoughts finally collected

they finally stopped swirling

and I finally stopped yelling

where everything moves forward so quickly

and I never stop to think

about how I left my small town behind

but they move forward too

for my sanity though

I pretend nothing changes

and I’m the only one who does change

when in reality

i’m the one stuck in my tracks

stuck in this place

staring at the footprints left behind

eyes away from the trail ahead

ready to stumble

and about to unknowingly fall upon

a pitch black path

yet here I am

in a place I didn’t know was waiting

physically

mentally

not even I know

and even then

no one will know

that I let you down

except the demons

yet full of regrets for choices

I didn’t make

where I’m going

will not be where I’ve been

no matter how much nostalgia

affects my sentiment

I’ll always remember

where I came from

but who I am