Ryan James Keane

You see, it is entirely possible for the hypochondriac to break free of his neurosis and find that there is nothing of interest beyond the mirage. It is entirely possible for the selective cynic to sink into total misanthropy and admire the way it systematically numbs her heart. It is entirely possible for the amnesiac to settle down in their lapses of memory, for them to find routine in their cognitive decay. In certain cases, we aim to improve ourselves, to become closer to the sensory again, only because those around us tell us we should, or because the rational side of us realises there is very little life in abstraction. Sometimes we’d rather just sit and stir upon the edge, immerse ourselves in the sporadic torrents of its anaesthetic. In essence, it is entirely possible for us to become quite comfortable in our emptiness.

I fear I am too much of a closed book to arouse interest in other people. Unless they revolutionise my world, I fail to open up, and by this point most of them flee. I have nothing to offer other than my own enigma. This is the curse of introversion.

I am armed with a pretty song, a voice of kaleidoscopic proportion, and the capability of change.

It is nice to know I was nothing more than an obligation.

I told myself to stop loving you, as though it was that easy.

You have sunk into me with ambition for years, forged your signature in the folds of my skin, grew roses for my despair. But your departure still seems as likely as the sun setting this evening.

Poetry does not have to come from heartache, affairs, explosions. It can be birthed from the everyday. It can be found in friendship, in trips to the coffee shop, in seeds before the sun and its magic gets to them.

You looked at me. Everyone else looked through me. In your eyes, I was no apparition. I was magnanimous, bold, brimming with porcelain potential. Yet even in my prime, I was nowhere near enough.