Tenderly 1: Your Seat

Tea, cake, laughs.
Everyday we spend in glee
That’s all it really takes
To decompress from math.

“See? Take a photograph!”
This is how much fun it can be,
When we’re here to play.
The memories we can make
In just a year and a half!

“Look, hey! Someone new!”
“Have you read this book?”
“Tell me about your day!”
“It sounds like lots of fun,
I’m sure you had much to do.”

Took away one or two…
Chairs, “I guess she’s off the hook,
I really shouldn’t be afraid…”
“I know tomorrow she’ll come
It’ll be just like before!”
“I hope so too!”

“Just wow, really? No kidding!”
“You have to tell me, you must!”
“Yes really, I’ll show you now!”
…
“No need to worry”
“Oh?”
“She’s visiting the city.”

Is there something I’m forgetting?
When I see all of us come and go
It just feels like such a pity
I can no longer see how
It used to be with just us.
“Oh wow, really? No kidding…”

And I wouldn’t have had a clue,
(It’s too hard to ignore),
That I would miss you a ton.
When you went on your way,
Something inside of me shook.
“How many more? One or two?”
“Hey, look! Someone new!”

In that year and a half,
It takes all that I have:
The memories we used to make,
The laughter, tea, and cake,
To remind me how fun it can be,
Whenever your seat was empty.

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Unbespoken 3: What if we could talk for an eternity?

I struggle to smile, I should’ve known.
What was on my mind,
I find that it’s just so hard to pin it down,
Would I drown?
Whenever I try to conceal a frown?
But I guess it would be too hard to twist it now…

What if I just started over? I hesitated for a minute,
Starting out is hard, but it definitely pays to begin it.
Sometimes I pull away just to see if my heart was still in it.
I know it’s gonna hurt, but it’s not so bad to test my limits.
Feels like I lost but I knew if I tried hard that I could win it,
But that’s fantasy, right? No matter how I choose to spin it?
Wasted on the timid, the kinds word given,
I should’ve be listening, but showing your concern,
I can still see what you meant within it.

I think about how this conversation could go on forever, what if,
I could talk to you for days upon hours and hours until it
Ain’t bright outside, the sun sets over the horizon.
Getting lost in you, feels like it could be an eternity,
But when finally you turn to me,
It feels like all of the worst in me is gone for a moment.
It feels like time is slowing down,
So please accept my condolences
Your eyes are just so calming,
Wait, no, sorry was that alarming?
I just want want it to stop storming…

I’ve been like this longer than I knew what this feeling is.
But I was hoping you wouldn’t notice this;
I was hoping it wouldn’t be like this,
But when you ask what it is that I’m feeling,
Then I have to explain to you,
Because when I think about it…
I see that I’ve got no other choices.
Something inside of me hurts more than I care to admit,
It’s like if the world and everything else, to my senses,
Feels overwhelming, the light’s too bright,
Brighter than my eyes could ever bear and it’s
Hard to get up in the morning, all I can do is stare, I’d submit,
What’s the point of it all? It feels like my mind just wants to quit.

You’ll be shocked when you hear how much I wallow in my pity,
It’s the pits, remarks is pithy,
But let’s get down to the knitty gritty.
You’ll be more appalled though, it ain’t pretty
When you see how deep the pit goes.
Its darkness is even darker, blacker than any shadow
The darker it gets, the more my insides feel hollow.
I know it’s hard to try and follow,
It’s a tough pill for me to swallow,
But sometimes it’s the only way I can go to bed at night,
But oh, I’m just talking melatonin,
I think my loved ones wouldn’t condone it
If I was still popping sleep medication,
Maybe they’d fear I’d try and end it.
A lonely slumber forever, a somber somnolence,
I would never try, that’s no condolence.
It’s too soon to say goodbye,
But maybe it’s because I really am too scared die,
I just know it.

It feels like everything I do, there’s just not enough to gain.
Putting my burden on anyone else is just gonna cause more pain.
Just the thought of revealing that is like a blade right to my veins,
Bleeding until there’s nothing left, the guilt’ll make me go insane.
So that’s why I feign my true feelings, but it’s all in vain,
Because here I am now, but I knew that was your aim.
Sorry, I just I didn’t expect this, my feeling’s for you are the same.
But call me a little skeptical, are you as caring as you claim?
No, your actions aren’t what’s to blame,
I just want to take this chance to explain,
Existence is penance, a literal life sentence,
But for you I would be more than willing to make an exception,
I just want your presence.
Because all I could ever ask from you is just a bit of acceptance.

I think about how this conversation could go on forever, what if,
I could talk to you for days upon hours and hours until it
Ain’t bright outside, the sun sets over the horizon.
Getting lost in you, feels like it could be an eternity,
But when finally you turn to me,
It feels like all of the worst in me is gone for a moment.
It feels like time is slowing down,
So please accept my condolences
Your eyes are just so calming,
Wait, uh, did I come on too strong?

For once I want to feel like I’ve won,
Just to show you how far I’ve come,
Since you know where coming it’s from,
But it’s ridiculous to think that running away from everyone
Could help me escape all of my problems,
Now I know I’m not the only one to feel completely alone.

I think about how this conversation could go on forever, what if,
I could talk to you for days upon hours and hours until it
Ain’t bright outside, the sun sets over the horizon.
Getting lost in you, feels like it could be an eternity,
And that would be worth it to me…

Unbespoken 2: Why do I miss trust?

I leave you alone for five minutes.
Look at all the shit you’ve done
Almost went and destroyed all of the hard work
Look at all the havoc you’ve brung
All the things you say about us.
You can’t even separate it from reality
It’s never as bad as it seems
But you just make it so much worse than it oughta be
That shit in your mind?
That you keep locked up?
But those remarks is gonna haunt you
The longer you’re zipped up, it’s fucked up
And as soon as it’s all that you can take
Our mind’s gonna break.
Harder than your fist against that hole in the wall
A hole in your soul and you think you gonna fill it all
Telling no one about the anger, frustration, and disappointment
I’m appalled.
That you can even think you’re even a functional person at all
If loneliness is just a payment, then the debt’s paid in full
The longer you think we’re normal’s gonna take it’s toll.
You’ve never had a good thought not followed by a premonition
It’s almost as if these invasive thoughts are your religion
You worship them, searching for the answers, your salvation
You never listen to anyone else but them,
Listening to no false witness
I always take care of business,
but the pain is too much with this
I can’t even think straight.
Stumbling like I’m drunk, sipping on depression
I still get lost in the information.
Overwhelmed in an idea infestation
Manifest mutation
Problematic proclamation
Destitute destination
Interrogatory instigation
Just praying if there’s any hope for any reconciliation
Finally at my worst, I stare at the mirror in desparation,
I ask.

…

Is all I hear, could it be more clear?
Seven years bad luck ain’t no price paid over blood and tears
The glass shatters, unable to still or steer
My inner mechanism’s continuously grinding gears,

My illusory phantasm reappears,
A solemn reminder for when it gets severe.
A living nightmare, that I’m holding dear,
Burns and sears in my flooding fears,

I desperately want to persevere,
And I’m being sincere,
But in trying to interfere,
I just end up choking myself
In my own atmosphere,
Until there’s nothing left of me;

I disappear.

The silence echoes far beyond my ears
And now nobody else can hear.

…

Why do I gotta be like this? My mind goes to the worst
Sure I’ve been hurt before, this ain’t the first
But If I can’t trust anyone, then why bother
Trying to convince my mind to try another
Getting close is gonna painful for me
It’s getting to be too much for an old disdainful me
It ain’t because they do anything to make me distrust them
It’s because of my predilection towards mistrust, I misjudge them
I’ve mistrusted this trust, I’ve missed trusting this trust
I’ve been too unjust, I’ve always too cautious
And I’m afraid it’s gonna hurt you that I’m so untrusting
But I wanna give you a chance, I’m adjusting
I wanna believe you’re the one I’m entrusting
You with a piece of my mind, just a piece, so you know
That it goes a long way for me to even begin to show
My side that just wants to be careful of you
As you should be, but at least this side is true
You’ll never see this side of me do
Anything dishonest or anything to hurt you

Anaesthetic 12: Undelivered Love Letter

Dear love, -the words I write cannot pen your significance to me.

My thoughts are incomprehensible to describe your inner beauty.

And so my every thought of you I’ve attempted to compile,

In this letter, is my failure to express anything worthwhile.

When I look at your face, oh where do I begin?

Just the thought of your smile and wide grin,

Brings my belly butterflies beating their beautiful span,

Floating petal to petal, eight in total, again and again.

Your strong hands I held that revealed a ragged love past,

Hand in hand, working towards making this modest love last.

Offering each other simplicity was all I could ever ask for,

And a soul to talk to at night when stranded in a downpour.

Looking longingly at the moon, I wondered my little game.

If the mysterious moonlit sky for you and I was the same.

And when the sun shines through the fog in the hazy dawn,

You wanted to ask me to brave the fog on your front lawn.

Oh how I wanted to be there arm in arm in the early morning

And wander aimlessly without any direction, without caring.

How happy we were, it seemed to go on without end,

I thought I had truly found love, and my greatest friend.

With love… 

The list we made of all the things we wanted to do together

Will likely remain a memory in this little letter forever, however.

If you had just left me to wonder, would I still be the same?

Would my mess of a life be nearly as messy if you never came?

The only way we realize our own loneliness

Is to have it in stark contrast with its antithesis

Staying locked away hours writing the words I write

Waxing reflexive on this page all day and all night

I think it is finally time to end what I held so dear

So I can finally vanquish the very thing that I fear

But now in the present I can finally thank you so much

For what have I learned since we’ve last touched:

I thought I wanted my heart ripped out,

torn to shreds, bled red in my death bed.

What need was there for it after all this?

The fear of being the only one able to hurt you,

was the same fear of you wounding me grievously,

And yet I feel completely deserving of that pain.

I thought I would rather the blow be dealt swiftly,

Lest my heart be able to love again.

It would be better than the cold bitterness I felt thusly,

It once was a dull and pulsating pain,

An aching anxiety that never once could leave me.

The fear of losing you was the only thing that mattered.

Hopeless, helpless, useless: How futile they are

in describing this despair of my loss.

But my true loss wasn’t the loss of you

It was the missed opportunity to change someone’s life.

My true despair I fear is that strange feeling.

So rid me of your memory, for my mind was rushing

with the regret I’ve carried since we last spoke.

I was helpless to help ease our doubts about us,

Useless to sate your needs, appease your anger,

and worst of all, hopeless to ease your sorrows.

It left me feeling unable to be a person again,

when you left me in my misery, in silence.

So I ask you, without you, would I be off better:

With love, or without this undelivered love letter?

Anaesthetic 11: Butterflies

Oh the butterflies, they’ve never left.
That fleeting feeling of their flight
Felt in my every fluttery breath.
You do still feel it, right?
With our thoughts alight,
Wondering if it was worth it to write
All those things I said to you that night.
Tell me, can you hear my heart’s plight?

My heart is still rapidly beating,
To the rhythm of their wing flaps.
When I was dreaming of our meeting,
I wanted your heart, too, to race laps.
If I were able to say what was on my mind,
I would make you the most flattered person on earth.
Not a better love you could find than mine,
No other love could even begin to compare their worth.

But how does our love compare to a butterfly?
Whose wings are as delicate and fragile since it began,
That which is just as doomed to die,
As long as the emperor’s average lifespan,
Or perhaps a monarch’s, but how could anyone plan
To cut short something so beautiful, so why try?

I try because I thought you would be worth the chance,
Because nothing was ever accomplished without trying,
But for the short time our love, along the petals, danced,
And I didn’t want to stay a pupa without the joy of flying.

Anaesthetic 10: Only Eight Petals

He loves me…

A picture of us under that tree that warm summer day

The smell of dewy leaves and shady earth.

What’s a love that’s faded before it’s come to saturation?

A photo that’s discarded before developing is proof that –

He loves me not?

That which wilts before it blossoms, the eight petals I pluck,

Silenced before the first whisper – the first utterance of love.

Surrounded by curious daisies that seem to sway back and forth

To the rhythm of our heartbeats, I remember it all too well,

Back then, he loves me!

I agonized over that precious gift I gave to you,

The meticulously selected locket of sterling silver,

But it was tarnished before it was even worn,

Seeing it collect dust, I could have sworn that-

He loves me not!

Burned before the initial ignition,

At the mercy of a hasty decision,

Sabotaged before anything was even planned.

It was almost as if you wanted it to end before we started.

 

How could I even think, – “He loves me?”

Excused before I was even accused of any of the worst

Like damage control, and I was some unintended casualty.

Can we truly break up without being together?

But could we be together without you truly broken up?

He loves me not…

How busy we both were when it was hard for us to meet,

Had nothing to do with your inability to love specifically me.

We talked about that woman you used to know.

You said she didn’t matter, but she clearly did,

And yet, – he loves me?

How your friends and family wouldn’t accept the way it was.

It’s awfully convenient how none of those reasons involve you.

Knowing that you couldn’t love me given the circumstances,

Why didn’t you just answer before there was even a question?

“He loves me not…”

Anaesthetic 9: By Far the Most Insulting

By far the most insulting thing, of course,
Is to abuse a friend in my presence.
And how can you in good conscience,
Say as such when it’s also a friend of yours?

You go to such lengths to make us miserable.
I’m appalled that you would even try,
When you could just as easily lie,
Without saying anything stupid at all!

How can you justify the damage you cause,
Adding layer after layer of insult without pause,
When the impact is so clearly visible,
And you try to pretend it’s not irremissible?

And what more will you bring down with your words?
The way they’re weaponized as merely a means to an end,
When you don’t even understand the meaning behind them.
And yet somehow, it’s an unintended consequence of yours.

The grimace of discomfort is not enough to let you know?
Or perhaps a more emphatic approach is necessary,
Even the most subtle insult would at most seem ordinary,
When you put little to no thought into the feelings you show.

Why do you say what you say?
For merely the sake of conversation?
Your words exit your mouth,
But not enough to exceed escape velocity.
The gravity of meaning causes them to come crashing down,
And yet you’re surprised by the size of the crater at the end of the collision…

Anaesthetic 7: Converse-Interrogation

If my life was as easy as a questionnaire, 
I wouldn’t be spending my time looking for the answers. 
Would it not be too simple being spoonfed these answers?
Now, if I were to simply give all my the answers away,
Then there’s no fun or challenge, right?
But sometimes I don’t even know what questions to ask myself.
So what makes you think I’ll have an answer to anything you say?
Who honestly wants to be interrogated?
Then, as soon as I give you an answer,
You instantly have an opinion on what I said.
Why must you challenge any of my answers?
You’re the one who asked!
Honestly, please let my answers lie. 
Because if it’s truth you’re looking for, 
Then I can’t be the only one putting thought into the conversation.
Lest you might somehow overthink what I say.
Why do I answer at all, what do you have to gain?
Here I am asking questions, when all you wanted was to learn, 
and I just wanted to be taken at face value some of the time, 
but I’m being constantly derided for answering the way I do. 
And if you wanted me to just shut up-

Fine, but think about this for a moment.
I answer these questions because you’re so curious,
But you can’t even answer mine!
Now, that doesn’t seem fair.
Is it really a conversation if only one side asks the questions?
Come now… 
And listen close to all the answers you didn’t want to hear:

I was not put on the earth to smile for you.
I am not your puppet, nor your doll.
I don’t want your hands on me.
I have no shame and much less left for you.
Don’t use the illness of your head to imprison me
I will not be a hostage, a prisoner to your will.
Don’t tell me I was the best you’ve ever had,
It’s obvious I was, but I was the one smart enough
To escape the hopeless situation I was in. 
There will be nothing calm about my talk
When the pain in my calves I wish was cut in half.
Chalk it up to bad timing for my walk,
My legs balk at the thought of taking anymore steps,
But I would gladly do so in order to walk out of this
Converse-interrogation.

Anaesthetic 6: The Curse of Her Doppelgänger Sorrows.

She sees you everywhere she goes.

Every single part of life that she knows,

Deeply entangled in proof of your existence.

Your doubles haunt her, their very resemblance,

Even in a perfect stranger’s passing semblance,

Sends pangs of regret through to her stomach.

The engagement ring you both hand picked

Underneath the tree at a summer picnic;

The park’s memory inescapably tormenting.

You cannot stop her incessant remembering

Or ease her fears, for her body trembling

is the only response she has to her haunter.

So my dear Ex-spectre,

Do you really expect her

To simply move on so fast?

When she found out she wasn’t the last

And how much you lied about the past,

“How could she ever recover?” I ask…

When in the light she wants to bask,

but wears her heartbreak, an eternal mask,

To hide her grief, disappointment, and shame.

But who else is there for her to blame

When everything reminds her all the same?

“That’s just the curse of her doppelgänger sorrows.”

 

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Promise 9: Exist

Desperation is not something I wear on my sleeve.

What I want is to truly be loved, not lost.

And I, having given you my few choice years

the very few that I have to give to another person,

Perhaps made a grave error in trusting myself.

My desparation is not one borne of a need to find just anyone;

It’s the fear of making a mistake and I feel you were my greatest,

But I will not pretend, not even for a minute, that what we had

or rather, what we worked towards was anything free from flaw.

I hate to feel that way towards someone

whom I’ve grown to love so dearly.

When someone who knows I exist

tries to treat me like something that does not,

It sickens me. I’m hopeless for getting so close

And offering things I can’t possibly give.

It gets to a tipping point where I want to get closer,

But I will end up hurting both of us.

But it is not time to say such things.

You had to have earned this sentiment,

As I once had to in order to earn the privilege of doing so.

I wished to learn more about you and I reserve the right

To be careful of you as you have the right to be careful of me,

but it can’t hurt to at least be kind now, isn’t that so?

If only…

I still went through with it that despite that fact.

And I gave a piece of my heart for you to do with as you please,

And though that piece could bend and waver,

and my heart was kept from harms way.

My solemn hope was that you would make my heart whole again

But that piece has never returned,

It remained with you,

Never to be seen again.

What kind of life would I lead if I just wanted

to stay in such a safe distance away from it all.

where no one truly knows anything about me

                                                no one can destroy me,

Where :                              no one can doubt me.

                                    no one can prove

                              non-existence,

I never wanted to hurt anyone and I never wanted to, but-

I never would have dreamed I would ever get this close,

that I would ever get so close to wanting to destroy it all.