All the Things Left to Think About

So, I’m turning off all of the lights. I am shutting down all systems. It is time to reboot. Because I can’t keep searching for pieces that are all dead and gone. I can’t keep wishing things would stay and, at the same time, chase the change. There is no heart in holding on. 

Tension can be cut with a knife. Like a gutted pig it’s gruesome and ugly face shows itself as the rooms are full of stale and stagnant air. Hope lingers and sinks low to the floor. It clings to the feet of those lining the halls. Bound together, hand in hand, they speak words to an almighty they hope would answer any moment now. The wailing sound of a grieving mother haunts the hallways and echoes above the sinister feeling of immortality. Tears stain a floor that will forever serve its purpose time and time again. Hands cling to one another as the only real hope slips from the grasp of dozens. Make way for the Father as he sweeps through like a raging inferno, coming only to destroy what you thought might be a miracle. Pray, they say, as empty words resonant to gods and angels above. Yet, no one listens. Just the cold, dark corridors and their haunted walls.

My feet have taken me away while I sleep. Where do we all really go? I dream of stars that are painted in the sky. As death lurks in my mind it begins to take its own persona. Did you remember to slow down? I am bruised and torn apart from the secrets I am left with. Madness strikes my ever beating heart. I am my own weakened enemy. Again and again I keep hearing this same old song. It is sung by the streams of liars that torment me. My blood runs cold through my veins more and more as my heart becomes numb to the sadness.

“I could only begin to dream of waking up to kiss you. Letters will never amount to the times I’ve spent in thought of you and the things you’ve said. I could only wish the sky above was full of electricity and of the things I feel about you. I have succumbed to the will of my own shortcomings. Flowers wilt and the ink on letters may fade, but the world will always spin around and around. At least in this lifetime. Oceans will rage against the coast while the wind follows. The jagged rocks may ever stand against the coming tide. But surely this isn’t it. This is not what we have always asked for. There should always be more. As fingers dance upon ivory keys and drums beat against the deepest bass, I tremble amongst the wretched sounds of things I wish I’d known. And what I’d wish I’d known always troubles me in the end. A lonesome wanderer’s cry for nothing more than that which he has always been searching for. So press your lips amongst me as I fall deeply intoxicated on your embrace. Fool me again. So that I may never lift my head up into this world I live in again.”

I feel the warm colors of your face radiate amongst my chest. My flooded heart is only overflowing with the simplicity and joy you have already brought me. So sail with me. Leave this place and let us start anew. Leave those wandering thoughts and self doubt behind. I am here and so are you. And you found me. As I was dangling from a string, you wove your own and came down to me. So let sway here. As we slowly find our way back up. Together.

I want to watch your hair grow grey, as you and I grow old.

The sleeping pills stopped working for me a long time ago. Twist, turn, and repeat the same old songs I’ve heard a thousand times this week. Keep talking to me in the waves that you send crashing towards my ears. I can’t breathe under the heavy pressure of my own thought. Thought, just like I did when you told me months ago. Just like I found this dizzying, bottomless bottle. The bottle, it’s full of things I wish I never said. Things I wish I knew. I wish I knew you. So, cast your stones to me. Ye who hath no wrath like I. You who has no mind like I. Now the song is playing. Slowly, the piano keys chime in to play another sad song for the same old verse that I keep singing. Singing, myself to sleep. Only sleeping after heavy doses of my own self doubt and abuse. Take me. So, Take me for what I am and what I wish I could be.

I’m guilty of it all. My mind never stops wandering back to the room you trapped me in. But trapped isn’t what we were at all. The warm embrace and faint smell of sex and alcohol won’t leave my mind. That cave is where I want to go. If only you knew.

I have seen my own shortcomings turn to long standing pride. The shoulders I have climbed on continue to hold true as I stabilize the platform just a little more. Slip, fall, get back up. Fight your way out. There is no greater love than that of a man who loves himself. A man who strives to be the best him that he can be. But no man achieves greatness alone. No matter how much he may think it, he is never alone. The tribe will always come to your aid. Find your tribe and grow. The great forests do not stand alone. They are intertwined and meshed to build each other up. So, come as they may, hard times will be endured by hard men. Hard men will defy the odds of their own failures. Never lose sight of what this has meant to you. Never accept the minimum. Never quit. Keep this fire burning.

I am here. Over 20 years later I’ve found out what my thoughts were really telling me. For so long I’ve struggled to know who I am. I can remember breaking down. I was only 11. 11 years old and I knew I wanted to die. But I kept going and I never knew why. I never thought anyone would care enough to see me live. Then I found love. I found love in the waves.

You feel like the cool ocean breeze on a hot summer day. Like the radiating heat from a log wood fire on the beach during a cold night. I have tried for so many nights to think of ways to get passed the things you’ve said. But your words are what I loved the most. You remind me of the billions of shining stars that light up the sky on a calm and windless. All of my worries leave me when I think of the warmth of your smile. Tossing and turning in my bed, I can only find peace when I think back to that cave of a hotel room. I wish we could’ve stayed. I wish I could’ve stayed. I read books that have even the slightest mention of love and I think of you. I get lost in creating my own worlds and realities that keep me there with you. For months I have floated aimlessly in a sea of mind numbing sounds that distract me from everything else around me. The reality of this place is like the purgatory for the sins we did not even get a chance to commit. But still the only thoughts I have are of home. But home is what I thought would be you. You. Standing on the front porch waiting for me one day. Or maybe you. You sleeping in my bed as I crawl in with you after both of us have had a long day. I am only a dreamer, but I know how to make my own reality.

Do you even know me anymore? I’ve been running so fast, I never thought you’d keep up. The smoke and dust is clouding my lungs and each day I struggle to breathe. But the bridges I’m burning were supposed to keep you away. Now my eyes have been deceiving me as you continue to steadily creep back towards me. My melting heart has done all it can to keep you away. But now it yearns for you. It yearns for the years of pain because it only knows pain the best.

Listen to me as I softly whisper in your ear. I am gazing upon beauty no milky way can ever match. Billions of bright stars millions of miles away illuminate only second to you. The galaxy above me only dances for the likeness of who you are. Shooting stars fire across the abyss in hopes they might get a glimpse of you. Oh, lord. Take me there. Take me above. Take me out of the reach of this choking gravity. Let me go so that I shall Speak for the Dead. Send me into a cosmic fury that bursts into thousands of brilliant stars. Just so that I met match that brightness you illuminate.

Don’t wake me up. This longing nightmare has gone on for so long. There are hands holding me through an unforeseen pathway. The wicked and the righteous walk hand in hand through hollow tunnels of death. My heart is the beating center of a decaying wasteland. I sleep through paralyzing dreams that I don’t bother to wake from. The winds that flow through my desolate dreamland leave me shivering and haunted. These are the only things I feel anymore. Days feel like weeks, weeks feel like months. Time is a misunderstood concept of reality that leads the weary of heart to turmoil. Aching joints and blistered feet are the only things I’ve found on this search of my own heart. They keep taking it from me. Lovecraft has written this story before. I spiral into madness, searching for and end. All I can find is the burning hell of my own thoughts.

I still feel you in my skin.