Saltwater Room

I contain it in the darkness to keep it from tainting what light I have left in me. And if the day is good enough, it stays still enough that I forget it’s there. I consider that peace.

He asked her, desperately searching for a sliver of rationale as to why she chooses to close herself off from him, from the rest of the world.

She looks at him, her eyes expertly masking the remnants of each heartache, each disappointment, each betrayal. Her eyes are like fully tinted windows, you see it there but you don’t see what’s on the other side of the glass.

She looks at him, not saying a word, not bearing her soul. Her silence pierces through the questions he left hanging in the air, leaving them unanswered.

She has no words. Her words have been lost along with her hopes. Her words have attached themselves to promises that were broken, to dreams that have been shattered, to futures that never came to be. Her words have been lost, along with bits and pieces of her heart that she’s given away over time to people she thought would never break it.

She looks at him, and all he sees is a steel cold stare, like a blanket of frost in the winter, so cold that for a split second his heart stops and grows numb before succumbing to the frostbite.

She looks at him, and all he sees is a brick wall as high as the beanstalk that Jack used to climb. A wall so thick that it takes a few canons to penetrate.

She looks at him, and a look of defeat coats his face, but what he fails to see is the bleeding hand that holds the barricade. What he doesn’t know is that beneath that wall and steely gaze is a woman who just got back from the war, trying to mend, to heal her wounds. A woman who has had to go back into the battlefield repeatedly to retrieve pieces that got left behind. A woman who is no longer whole.

What he doesn’t realize is that she wants to let him in but is scared she’ll come completely undone if she does. And she knows that there will be no going back from there.

Head versus heart

Gut versus faith

Logic versus feeling

The battlefield has turned into a crimson bed filled with remnants of myself

The fighting, the deciding, the scheming, the planning

I am my own general, my own spy, my own soldier

This war I’ve been fighting is relentless

To the point I don’t know what it’s all for

At this point all I want is for it to end

For me to find peace

If I stay quiet enough

I can see past the walls and the tarps and the wooden planks that I used to patch up the void you no longer fill

I can hear the echoes of my tears hitting the pavement and the sound of breaking glass as my heart shatters into a million tiny pieces

I can feel the vastness of the space I filled with all that I’ve invested in you - my time, my love, my joy, my pain, my effort

I can taste the blood that’s been shed from biting my tongue to keep the words from escaping into the real world - how much I miss you, how much I crave you, how much I still love you and think of you like no one else can do

I can smell the bullshit lies I’ve told myself over and over to justify staying for you, to justify fighting for you, to convince myself that I needed you to be whole

If I stay still enough

If I stay quiet enough

I let the ghost of you haunt me into facing the truth

That a part of me is still holding on to you

And when the world feels like it's closing in on me, I'm glad I have my rocks.

It's the ones who knew you when you had nothing and no one... And still chose to be with you.

Allow me to send my excuses

And pay my alibis to you

Pardon the absurdness

I am but a lover's fool

Breathe in crisp air

That are filled with lies

Don't you love the smell of

Heartache after night?

Hopelessly chasing after a ghost

A ghost of an age-old crush

Infatuation has grown to what

I choose to believe was love

Unrequited, it always seems

Too fast, too slow the pace

But once the love is returned

He has been replaced

The chase is over

No more thrills

No more fast heartbeats

No more spine-tingling chills

Too late? Maybe

But I think it's kinda strange

Everything seems to end

You could hold my hand and look into my eyes

Ask me to remove my clever disguise

You could ask me then, and I'll never commit

Ask all you want. But you'll never get me to admit it.

You could yell at me and we could even argue

Ask me to reveal my biggest secret to you

But this, dare I say? Allow my middle finger to flip

Curse all you want. But you'll never get me to admit it.

Call my bluff if you please, and ridicule me too

But it won't get me to tell you how I feel about you

I refuse to care for it's my secret to keep

Pry all you want. But you'll never get me to admit it.

The rumors that spread and find their way to you

Should probably give you some kind of clue

Pay mind to what your hear from escaped lips

It's the small things that lead to the big things. Then when it's big it's messy. And when it's messy you try to clean it up; after all you're in it and you need a clean way out.

The world is twisted that way. You realize things like:

- The people you expect to love you unconditionally don't

- The people who tell you you're a good person think otherwise

- The people you expect to leave, stay

- The people who you feel have limitations for you go the extra mile

- The people you rely on the most are the ones who teach you to get by on your own by abandoning you

But despite the negative side, the important thing is you got something out of it. You learn, and that's the only way you can ever get through life.

You can't choose what happens to you, but you can choose how to deal with it.

And you can't predict when things will go wrong. All you can do is

P R A Y  for a B E T T E R day.

Chasing cotton candy skies

Chasing clear turquoise waves

Chasing that harsh bite of whiskey

Chasing after vivid colors and bold tastes

Chasing after a far-reaching fantasy

The chasing never seems to end

One thing after another

Just to elude the one thing that chases me...

Just so I don’t have to be alone with my thoughts

My desires

Just so my head has a shot of ruling over my heart

Just so I can exhaust myself into not feeling anything, even if it’s just for a little while

Knowing you can take a lot of punches and still come out okay

But that also means

Still taking the punches

Still bruising

Still bleeding

Still hurting

Something poetic

Something deep

Like the pool of your thoughts you’ve safely tucked in the back of your mind

Become so clear you can see the bottom

But you still have to ask yourself

Is it worth the dive?

At one point, we just give it all up and say "I'm done"