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The Decay

I’m staring at the boxes of paper Strewn across the floor. The contents of which are supposed to represent A hell of a lot more. It’s all the knowledge that I’ve gained here. My time and sweat and tears, It’s just a few dusty boxes, Whose contents span the last eight years. There’s a lot of information on what I shouldn't do with someone’s head. As if I was even capable Of rewiring all the sickness they’ve been fed. But nothing in there has showed me How to fix broken souls. There’s nothing in there but tiny bandages To cover up some holes. I’m sitting here in my room that’s A little bit bigger than the one I had before And all I can think is “Oh good, Now I’ve got a little bit more”. A little bit more room. A little bit more stuff. A little bit more furniture to hold the little bit more stuff in the little bit more room. And I start to feel the burning. I start to feel the gap. I start to really register how sometimes my life really looks like this crap. Some days I get up and I do so many little mundane things That I can’t tell whether yesterday bled into today Or if was just a lack of definition between the two in my eerie, purposeless dreams. I can’t tell whether I’m suffocating from the inside out Or whether the dry rot’s just working its way in. Is this a small forage through the desert of doubt Or symptoms of a bigger sin? All I know is that freedom can shine dull like the pillage of a foreigner forgetting his homeland. Our value quickly trickling out like quicksand. Our identity stands neglected like Joseph as a Midianite. We sell our soul to consumerism and tomorrow looks just a little less bright. We slip rather quickly into the 9 to 5 trap like Sampson’s head lulled asleep resting on Delilah’s lap, slowly being sheered of all his glorious might. Had we seen our slow decay we might have put up a fight But the rot was too slow and our allegiance too trite.

Neat Little Boxes

I sit with my hands folded, neatly,

neatly to contain the insanity

neatly to pretend that I have everything under control

neatly to ground the left to the right

neatly to let the emotions peel and curl in a nice, neat pile

neat stacks of emotions forming orange peel ringlets at my feet.

Neat like the letter piles, crumpling inward, glowing orange, brown, and black.

Neat like the memories, semantically arranged in my mind.

Neat like our bodies lying next to eachother, this limb neatly folded over that.

Neat like our good-byes, softly spoken through streaming tears and damp hair.

Neat like the phone calls, the deafening silence, the words sticking to our throats.

Neat like the sickness in our hearts, the nausea, the confusion.
Neat like the ghost dreams of ghost feelings in a ghost house 
with a white picket fence.
Neat like the numbness holding back the tears.
Neat like the promises that echo back the lies. 
Neat like the lingering pain tied up in neat little boxes, 
someone else's mess. 
To you I was always someone else's mess.