Anywhere but here

 I dreamt of soft pink skies and luscious green grass clenched under my bare toes, the sweet lullaby of the ocean waves. Smells of salt and daisies and honeysuckle trees waft through my undone hair and over my senses. But then there were dreams of fast cars, heels, breathless smiles and a life outside a rock.

You live your life through fantasies and distractions because it’s so much better than taking note of your surroundings and the people around you. Don’t get me started on the incessant nagging and “You need to get better marks” or “Lets lose some weight okay” and you just want to run away, run away from the green eyes of envy and the family you don’t have.

I was able to walk with legs and arms bare, my steps were never hesitant and my thoughts were never about my appearance or what was right. It was on how the sunlight warmed my skin, or how beautiful the mountains looked. There were no “black and white” views on life and religion. There were so many It’s okay’s and you don’t have to be afraid.

Your feelings contradict your mind because your room feels like your own personal cage but it’s sickly comforting to spend your nights in. You don’t know how to get away from it but the loneliness it offers fills you in a good way because it’s so bad.

I’m so free in a city of high buildings and busy roads. The freedom to drive a car during sunset on my own, but mostly filled with the laughter of my best friends. I will take the longer routes because I have money to spend on gas and I enjoy making careless decisions. I will get home past 10 (past your driving curfew) but I take the scolding in stride because I’m wiser but also just a kid.

They talk so much about the future and about the decisions they like. You want to ask about getting nowhere in life and you want to know if it’s okay but of course you know it’s not okay so you don’t really ask any questions. You’re always skipping homework and you always think you will be able to finish it before class but you know you won’t.

I speak many languages and I eat spaghetti at the corner shop in Naples, walking over uneven stones.  The flavors that fill my mouth remind me of Nonna that had white hair and a half smile. People shouted from their apartment windows, and there would be music and dancing outside on the pavement. All friendly smiles and dancing just because it was something to do.

A dream is just a dream, no matter how much you believe in it. It’s a beautiful fantasy, but that’s it. It’s a place where you can escape for 5 minutes – or 7 hours. Besides, what would life be without suffering? Without a little suffering and pain, it just won’t be real. We need that pain to make it real. We need it to hold us down when we get over the top. In order to find ourselves, we need the pain and hardship to be who we truly are.

She didn't want to cry. Because tears were a sign of weakness, but crying for no reason at all was simply foolish. The stabbing, aching presence in her chest wasn't real. It's not real. It's not real. Repeat it till all other sounds fade, till you're reassured that that pain was from you imagination. Don't believe what anybody tells you. Just let me spread, until all your fury and hatred for me is boiling over the edge, explodes, splattering on surfaces and breaking things that are not meant to be broken. Break. Break. Break. He whispers, within the darkness, surrounding her subconscious until everything bright and beautiful becomes tarnished with green eyes and red blood.


I can't - I can't do this anymore... She didn't even have the strength to say that out loud in an empty room, with only herself to blame.

You might not think any of this is real. What you see, think, feel. It's all in your head. It's all written in broken words, right? That's what you say to yourself, don't you? Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe my heart couldn't keep up with my mind and then you stopped smiling and going back to reality. Yes. Reality, that's real. But I'm not. I'm broken.

When the light spreads into darkness, or when the earth crumbles beneath our beings, when nothing works and all else fails and the only person standing there is you, with your heart hanging loosely on your sleeve, standing on waves ends, ankles wrapped around waterfalls with nothing but a toothy grin and open hands and your own cup of reality, ready to pour above my head just before I get too deep, the sun would split life and death into two and I would be stuck with a name. There won’t be a You or Me. Or an Everyone In Between. And we won’t live hands-tied-to-hands-with-burnt-cigarettes together.

Because there’s only You and Me when darkness has overcome light.

My in between.

You're my sugar coated smile, with ice tea in hand and the many memories in your bag. You're my I-like-the-beat-you-play-with-your-heart shadow and everything in between.

You always move forward and you dream about answers and blues and impossibilities. You shine like your own personal sun, you glow way too much at night with your burnt cigarettes and smoldering smoke. You shower everyone with exploding colors and they reach peoples (my) hearts, making you forget that you've always said no and yes and made decisions that weren't worth their my time.

You always win, but you drag me along anyway. You tell me, "Sometimes I win - I always win. And that always never changes. You - you - you're changing and there's no always. You sometimes win. But when you lose, you fight. And I want you to fight - for whatever it's worth. I want you to fight."

Behind that shaky, emotional voice - seeping out color as he always does when he speaks - he's holding me up with all the decisions and yeses and no's, holding me close as if I'm the answer. And I nod and say something that I haven't said in a long, long time. Those two simple words could make everything calmer and make you feel like you've done something - even if it's just one day. You've done something right.

"Thank you."

My two minute stranger.

Some time ago, a long time-in-playgrounds-and-pigtails ago, Mom told me to never hide behind feelings, to never give anybody the upper hand of my heart, the heart on my sleeve.


She told me with her (old wrinkly) voice that I shouldn't hide the truth from anyone - because when you meet your best friend, your first friendship, you'll be the one afraid yet brave despite the current emotions making your knees weak. And you'll want them to see you as a person. Not a shadow.


Her mother told her to be straight forward. And that's what she did. She told her first (will you be my friend?) best friend and she told her first (will you be mine?) boyfriend.


They might've rejected her, forgot about her, threw her to the pavement with mean smirks, or opened their arms to a life time of happiness. She didn't dare look back after that. Fight now, cry later.

But then she met someone like her. Someone who understood her positive forwardness. Someone who liked that she was brave and small and boiled with anger everyday when the sun is at its highest.

I'm so afraid to show I care. Will he think I'm weak, if I tremble when I speak? 


Someone who took her hand instead of vice versa and someone who said (I'm me, and I want to know you) Hello. She said (I've been looking for you everywhere) Hi. He smiled his bright smile and couldn't help sending him one of her own. 

Throwing away everything she learnt, she pulled him into her arms and said with an inner emotion that could not explain in words, I'm afraid. But I love you. Can I take you home with me even though I'm a stranger? I won't forget you if you walk away. Yet I won't be mad because people are sane and I'm unrealistic. 

Can you live with an unrealistic person with their heart in your hand?

She remembered before her head started spinning from the sound of his touch and the feel of his whispered thoughts. 

I wouldn't like it any other way. Because you're my unrealistic two minute stranger. 

Making things real.

I've always known you were the one that wrote on my napkins and the on the corners of last weeks newspaper. Leaving little remarks that put a smile (even though I don't want to) unexpectedly on my face.

I've always known, somehow, you wrote me letters, letters in your own hand (because it's untidy and messy and I can see your tears from yesterday) because they're more personal and meaningful than something typed out on a computer.

I've always known you were the one that stood behind the door when I stepped out, giving me a fright (with blazing eyes and small pummeling fist coming your way) just so you could see my after out-of-breath-smile and just so I can receive that gentle I'm-really-sorry-I-made-you-die-in-like-3-seconds kiss.

And I've always known that you, (stubborn, funny, way too protective) you always came back to me, (overly, shy, a nervous wreck, happy-because-you're-real) me.

From Yesterday.

I am the one from yesterday. That darkdark day, that twenty-four hour day, that


"You owe me something that you took a long time ago" day.


I was the one; with the chipped nails and shining pocket knife; the one with a crooked smile and sunken cheeks; crazed eyes with the past glowing from behind and the one that spoke softly with pain. Kneeling into the dirt, clenching my fingers into the soil and your gaze shook me and my thoughts. 


Looking at you, watching you stand proudly in your hazy shadow like a ghost, wearing your masked smile (I'm smiling because I don't want to) like a second skin and, 


I said, with a voice I didn't recognize


"You're going to wish you didn't wake up today"


Yesterday was a long time ago.

Crystal Methylin.

By Uncle R.


I can take you anywhere, it’s for you to suggest or determine the route. Its when you seek – for lone and lost that I extend my helping hand and when it seems your saviours arrived, confusion sets in just to find your soul is compensated. 

They say cruel is kind. For I have many names. Labels a plenty, such is my repertoire, a vast misdemeanor a plot to entice all of your kind – I travel with you – and pacify your dreams when dread leads you in and failure beckons. 

I’ll consume all your thoughts and I will call you, “friend”. Fly with you over mountains and glide over tides that never end. And when you fall asleep in that troubled state I’ll make sure you reach your insomniac fate. 

My strategy is simple: NO ONE ESCAPES. 

My enlistment never wavers. No need to be brave. You call my name as crystal appear, you’ll feel warm even loved with no burden to bear. For I am you, a startling choice, a whisper of lies as truth escapes. The calmness I emit when you hallucinate, the speed of your thoughts that races by. I persist with you sharing the wrath, the spiraling circus that you call life. 

For all that you strive for I can embrace, I’m versatile and agile as long as you breathe. Your colleagues and friends with their socials and trends introduce me amongst their peers. For I am everlasting, with no conscience to bear, recruiting them all, preparing for their fall.

It holds no meaning this loyalty brigade as your veins harden and expand, and as you transport me to all of your organs that I have seen, your memory in colours that even you have never seen. 

So rise to my calling, my loyal slave, bow to my power as I dictate every nerve in your system that call out to me, I shall answer.. “you will never be free.” 
As I put you on your path, destructively. You commit only to me. My many cloaks and masks that covers thee, will hide your reflections in the light you cannot see, 

I’ll even die with you, if it means you’ll be safe, such is the trust that you bestow on me. 
In all your confusion and all of your fears, exist no emotion as you profess.
Any resemblance that once was you, my apostle of doom that multiplies every second and each after noon as you die when I leave your soul, crystal exclaims 


“a victory to be told”.

Nothing big, nothing special.

By Lara Evans


I would only like a nice life
A milk-and-one-sugar-please life
Just a fish fingers-and-All Gold life
Nothing big, nothing special


I would only like a quiet life
A white-sand-seaside-holiday life
A Sunday-out-with-Daddy life
A Labrador-called-Molly life


I would only like a safe life
A steady-fondly-married life
A knitting-pattern-warm-milk life
A picket-fence-and-hatchback life


I wouldn't like a magnificent life
A trips-to-faraway-places life
A foolish-falling-head-over-heals life
A suitcase-and-paperback-poetry life


I wouldn't like a significant life
A Nobel-Prize-winning life
A Piano-Concerto-No.21 life
A Theory-of-Relativity life


A would only like a small life
A tidy-shoebox life
A bed-before-nine-thirty life
An insignificant, happy life


Nothing big, nothing special. 

What starts, never stops.

I'm the beginning
of the end,


with my deathly fires that burns light into space, and chains with locks that ties along my
world with a satisfying 
      click. 
I'd be stuck with you and breathe with you at the end of the beginning

with memories that pass and thunderous 

         shudders that 

shake my being.

And when I end with no more beginnings I'd drag a knife down my chest, between my 
          ribs and explode with the air and happiness,
and I'd rest in solitude and peace when 


I'd start over, with You. 

At the beginning with no 


endings.
  

My definition.

Butterflies full of tinker dust passes our heads 
when the world sinks 
to the 
bottom 
with a thud that scares birds from trees 
and imagination that makes the sky pink. 


Reality is what makes those holes in the ground 
while hope gives us wind and a parachute.  
Courage is what holds your baby and fear 
is what ties your dog with a leash.  


Beliefs are what makes us stronger 
while it can also turn us into the Hulk, 
and love is when we feel that warmth the sun brings as it rises and vanishes everything else except your hand and mine.

Falling from my sweetheart building.

I like this world
where people are nice.
They say Hi to me and
hold open doors.
They'll even let me pass through
first.


He listens and helps
me.
He makes songs about peace
and love.
He built a house and
bought flowers.


Then she cut
me
in half and carried a
part of me
back to reality.

My little robot boy.

My little robot boy
Bring sounds of rusted metal
As his emotions scrape the ground.


My little robot boy
Never looked my way
As people stole his sight.


My little robot boy
Had no heart
but always left his heart on his robotic sleeve.


My little robot boy,
"please don't be sad"
I said as if I had a chance.

The air and my consciousness.

My feet skip and jump
while little letters catches up to me,
 it follows my footsteps.
And it jumps around my feet like a ping-pong ball.


My hands trail paint on walls 
while letters create
themselves and 
they follow my hands like string and kittens.


My breath breathes out fog into daylight 
and my letter follows my breath like life or
miracles.


My hands reach out to the door knob
and they ask me
"Is this the beginning or is this the end?"
And I pause and tell them with a smile on my face,
"I don't know.

But its up to you, to dream."

The Grave Diggers.

As I dig up your grave with the same old face, breathing and frowning. The way you've always seen me. I'd never tell you what I was thinking when the soil of your grave seeped into my shoes, or when I couldn't stop digging until I saw you. The only thing you'd ever know, was when I saw the sun and your dead face at the same time. You'd always be real to me.

Im the person behind the curtain.

I've let myself become friends with you because I know that if I can't accept the things you don't offer I wouldn't accept this reality.

And sometimes, when you write about things, I let myself become vulnerable and think "Maybe he was talking about me." But there's always that small little voice inside my head saying "You're invisible."

You've heard it. Now. Listen.

I smile, when I put my foot in the luke warm pool.
The wild brown mane on my head hangs loosely,
tips trailing in the mystifying water around me.

The wind blows and the water shivers.

I breathe in. 1, 2, 3.
And fall under.

I was about to get out.
It was getting dark and as I put my foot on the step,
I looked up to the sky.
And decided not to.
I float back to the middle,
watch the clouds drift pass my vision
with a touch of blush on them.

And then as the sun's rays made way,
the water, something I forgot about, rushed through my ears.
Blocking any insignificant sound and I heard.
Nothing. Pure silence.
And I,

Listened.

Untitled.

Day burns down to Night.
Burns the edge of my soul.
sparks of suns
and become fires end.
The dust of bones . . .

In the Night I see
The real concealed
In the days bright LIE.
Eyes stitched shut
WHITE TEETH SMILE.

SLEEP walks
AND talks
AND feet
Marks Time
to the drumless beat.

From movie, The Invisible.

That Thing.

I miss that thing we used to do. When we were together.
Remember, I used to laugh about it when we threw it around us.
Between us. Over us, like a secure blanket that warmed our skin and heart. Remember.

Love. Yeah, I remember.

That Thing.