entropy

i stare endlessly at black and white pages, flipping to the next only to give the illusion of a fully functioning mind. there was once color. i'm putting up a smoke screen of stability, some fleeting sense of sanity to help remain afloat. there was once life. truth be told all industry came to a sudden and violent halt long ago. i can't remember the exact time frame because it's been so long since i've examined my resolve and even when i did i looked upon it as a reflection of one's own image in a mirror. close to the truth but never exactly perfect, always slightly distorted or exaggerated. there was once reality. i remember looking up into the clear summer sky waiting for a star to wish on. but the summer breeze is full of carelessness and haste. leaves began to fall as the trees lit into an auburn blaze and i continued to look to the stars, but this time with an urgency. waiting and watching hopelessly as every twinkling star turned into the blinking lights on the wings of airplanes, grounding my dreams on desolate and run down landing strips. the autumn air turned bitter and began to bite at my skin. concealed in cascades of white i stood motionless. yet my eyes remained fixed on a grey and dismal sky. snowflakes drifted about and landed softly, melting on my eyelashes. pretty soon i forgot why i was even looking up in the first place, yet my gaze is unrelenting. there was once purpose. as the seas of white began their retreat a new current of air thawed the ground where i stood for so long. life has returned to everything around me yet my sight remains stubbornly steadfast in a meaningless daze. what happens when the neighborhood starts expanding into my mind? when rows upon rows of picket fences encroach like a rising tide. progress has an insatiable appetite and apathy burns with a holy zeal to finish its master's work. together they walk hand in hand treading on my very thoughts. along the way progress feasts upon my doubt and apathy fulfills manifest destiny as it conforms my will to that of its master. i know it's only a matter of time until this fragile structure collapses under all the pressure. and when it does it will shatter into billions of irremovable, colorless fragments. they will lie dormant within my head just as the dust from the trade centers remains a permanent passenger within the lungs of those that stood and watched them fall. i am resigned to my new frontier. a life of tin and ash under a toxic sky. there was once security. i have none to blame but myself.

the range of decay

i can still remember the look in your eyes the day i buried you. a sort of disappointment crept out from behind the wall of tears but there was no surprise. i didn't think i would have it in me to go through with it but the truth is i didn't feel a thing as i covered up the last remaining hole between you and my world. at first, filled with paranoia, i checked over my shoulder each and every moment to ensure that no one would notice you lying there. slowly, over time, i realized that nobody would ever find you and i even forgot the exact spot i had picked out for you myself. i can still remember the day i chose to end the rest of yours. burning hot with rage, your conviction became too much for me to bear. unfulfilled potential created mountains of expectation in my mind. shame curled up next to me and i haven't stopped loving her ever since. i can still remember scrubbing the dirt from beneath my nails. i dug until my hands became raw from the sharp edges of the course gravel. blood ran down my arms and tears ran down my face but you weren't there to tell me everything would be fine. or were you? i can still remember how we used to walk hand in hand. i can still remember clinging to every single word that fell from your beautiful lips, though few they may have been they sustained the life in these now brittle bones. i can still remember the desperation i felt when we were apart, a love both frantic and uninhibited. and then gradually, your voice became muffled and unrecognizable, a noise accompanied by static and scorn. but memory is a funny thing. i can remember every little detail but your last words to me. i can't even remember the last thing you ever uttered and the worst part is i know that it was the truth i need to see me out of this storm i am dwelling in. i'm up to my neck in my own deceit and the irony is the only one who can save me now is buried under miles of forgotten terrain. is it too late? can you still breathe under all those heavy stones of unbelief? can you even move under the weight of the constricting cords of indifference? or are your lungs full of the corrosive dirt of lust? i will dig until my fingers are cut to bone. but will that be enough? am i too late? i just need to hear your voice again before i am welcomed into my watery sepulcher. the deluge has begun, am i out of time?

doldrums

it's been said that reality is the hardest thing to define. constantly changing and shifting shapes with the fleeting motivation. a trickster creating a thousand new worlds. if chased long enough truth will deliver the fatal bite to its hunter. we all need something to see by. it may glimmer like an incandescent bulb but the light it produces is only artificial. we all need something to live by. it may breathe like a man but the air he breathes is stale, he is copied, a clone, a representation. we all need something to swear by. it may sound like an eloquent ebb and flow but the flood that rushes out from behind these walls will bury cities under a serene, blue canopy of flowing currents. a shore without a sea is a wasteland and a sea without a shore is a tragedy. i remember when i put all my hope in finding a complete resolution to this anatomy. in every corner of this skeleton i have instead discovered unmentionable regret. the gap is widening and aimless purpose becomes sole direction. skin does little to conceal the cracks. with such a complete collection of cognitive capabilities all we could come up with are coffins full of prehistoric concepts. if there is beauty if attrition we may not have been so naive after all.

a fragile form

no matter what my unstable mind conceives:
my hands will always shake,
my bones continue to break.
my lips won't stop quivering and
my eyes can't stop wandering.
the walls of my heart are made from stone
ive been constructing my own personal babel
from the shattered pieces of eden.
words have all worn out their meaning
may the blood running down my arm be atonement enough.

joshua's modern petition

i've heard it said that the end will come like a thief in the night but i never thought i'd live to tell of it. it came like a swift wind and it was met with open arms. no cohesive resistance was formed by a disillusioned and pacified generation. left mesmerized by flashing images, we are slowly wasting away in our favorite recliners listening to someone tell us the ten steps to fix our broken marriage while our spouse asks to borrow a pen to sign the divorce papers. we are a society of sleepwalking children conditioned to reach for our security blanket at the first sign of conflict. the size of the battle does not matter because we have no war worth fighting. bullets left littering distant deserts are mere substance of myth, some vague recollection from something we were read as kids. we are not armed with guns and grenades at the front lines, instead we fight the evil at the check out lines equipped with coupons and tabloids. the blood spilled on normandy's sand slowly drifts out to sea where the sharks feast on the lost memories. this has evolved into an organism whose sole purpose is to perpetuate its own existence. all foundations are eroding under the weight of fear. marx may be buried under london's streets but the grave cannot keep him at bay. while we sleep the bible belt is altered beyond recognition. they slip in undetected and craftily rearrange the words, "the republic so loved the proletariat that it took complete control and whosoever believeth in it will not die but have everlasting life." we are tolerating ourselves into destruction. our hope lies in this universalized morality to see us through. if this is progress may the sun and the moon become as paralytics in the expanse.

a compressed life placed in a shrinking space

line up and wait patiently. time is irrelevant now. this is the march that transcends borders, an indiscriminate procession that only requires the breath in your lungs. some limp wounded, some stumble blind. some are brave and walk alone. some claim to see through the clouds and some jostle to lead the parade. some run fearlessly to the edge, some dig their heals into the soft soil. i am only a passenger on this spinning merry-go-round. for now i walk on its back but soon i will be under its skin. nothing will be left but the evidence that i was anything but invincible. the end result is all the same. the sky may fall but it will never rust.

id rather hear about her day than kiss anyway

what is a mile? it's the basic makeup of measurements, the building block from which we construct our understanding of distance. everyone knows what a mile is but yet it has this very abstract definition. according to the system it's exactly 5280 feet. that doesn't seem too far, in fact it's only 63360 inches. simply the distance between here and there, from the grocery store to your house. what a small world. sometimes this world does feel like that age old cliche that the dolls at disneyland are created to sing about all day and all night. but sometimes our perspective changes and we can feel like tiny little vessels trying to stay afloat in the vast ocean of life. what happens when miles start to feel more like an incomprehensible and unattainable distance? a goal so lofty it seems childish and a waste of time to even dwell on such things. what happens when love finds you unexpectedly and then just as mysteriously and quickly as it entered, it exits? hundreds of miles away. so many inches, it would make any mathematician who dared calculate it mad. what then? that's when we have to ask, what is love? it's the very blueprint of who we are. it's what motivates and inspires us at our very core. everyone knows what love is, yet it has this very abstract definition. according to the system it's an emotion that we are sold and would do anything for. it's a timeless feeling we are taught to search desperately for because we are told we need it to amount to anything. it's a measure of our own worth. but when love is put to the test we see what it's really made of. that's when love expresses its truest form. it sheds its pretty, romanticized exterior. all the little butterflies die and cupid takes his place back in the pages of fairy tales. this is reality but this is where love exposes its most raw and beautiful anatomy. it becomes an action. it becomes a prayer. it becomes a gentle whisper. it becomes a lonely tear. it becomes that emptiness inside left only from giving your whole heart to another. it becomes an aching in your soul too hard to explain. it becomes a bridge and it becomes a purpose. it becomes what it was intended to be. so although it may be strained and somber, love will never give up. it lives deep within our hearts and it will never let go.