T.M.

My initials.

Planted on a whiteboard next to my poem,

It’s a simple reminder to myself that I exist.

To others, it’s a trademark.

a bunch of scrunched-up letters of terrible melancholy

and twisted messages of holy symphonies.

I do not exist.

The art of being invisible starts when the chimes stop ringing,

and the bell no longer tolls.

It’s the silence that bids the awaited farewells a restless goodnight,

and the stammering steps an awkward kiss.

The T stands for tenacious and the M stands for more,

because I want to be more tenacious.

I want to be more.

And as if dipping my hypothetical pen in a symbolic river of ink,

I write my T’s in endless curves and whispers.

I write.

I write.

I write.

I stop and turn my keys to more.

Because there is more to me than just a trademark.

I take ownership of my flaws.

With every indent my body makes,

I bow my head to the future.

She is an almighty deity whose hands reverse and intertwine.

She is beauty.

I pave a path and walk in a straight line,

I stretch out my arms and pray for the light to make me shine.

I want to sparkle,

to be a sun that slowly fizzles out,

to leave my initials.

To leave

Tragic and morbid.

To leave

T.M.

I once read a story about a man with a flower.

He had picked it from a field of poppies for its petals were wilting.

He carried that flower for days,

sacrificing his own water to help it grow beautifully.

Eventually, he reached his destination

and watched the flower wilt.

He harvested the seeds and planted them at his mother’s grave,

for in the years that followed,

he would watch the blooming flowers give life to the deceased.

I think about that story often.

How the man gave beauty to the ill-fated.

And I think about us.

I too was once a wilted flower in a field of poppies,

until you gave me a chance to bloom beautifully.

She was the object of my infatuation.

She was everything and nothing.

and she was perfect. 

in every-which way 

my god, she was perfect.

She walked on clouds and winked at the moon. 

She danced amongst the shadows through June. 

and she was broken. 

in every-which way

my god, she was broken. 

 

She touched the ground like golden silhouettes. 

She sang away my last trace of cigarettes. 

and she was beautiful. 

in every-which way

my god, she was beautiful. 

 

She had long and slender hair that hit the light at intervals. 

She had wells of tears that flood through my walls. 

and she was kind. 

in every-which way

my god, she was kind. 

 

She had a voice that sold sweet sorrows through paper trails. 

She had a breath that weathered my storm through every exhale. 

and she spoke. 

in every-which way

my god, she spoke. 

 

But when winter’s longing cast a spell . 

And her dreams no longer fit my well. 

She was gone. 

in every-which way

My god, she was gone… 

 

And now the object of my infatuation she remains. 

for paper dragons and perfume 

Her ghostly figure here she stays 

with freckles 

that kissed our moon.

My world is caving in. 

The roads I take to self-clarity are fading into the abyss, 

And the only thing I can do besides watch this ending unfold is attack my brain with vindictive thoughts and confide in those causing the issue. 

The people living in the prison of my skull have resorted to cannibalism while those on the outskirts don’t know the gravity of the situation.

And in all honesty, I’ve given up on caring. 

Slowly but surely the smoke of my blown-out candle carries with it the last remaining speck of hope while I become a machine, unable to perform without being programmed, and I become another number on society’s list of fucked-up teens. 

Another number of those who left the pages of their novel untouched and unfinished. 

Clarity is an interesting thought.

It’s not something I was able to see or touch yet there was an ounce, somewhere in my body, that helped me live rather than survive. 

That being said, the dripping droplets draining from the waterfall of awakening are drying up as they descend onto my lap and onto the page I write on. 

I can see the end, it’s as near as the hand I wipe my cheeks with, yet I can never seem to truly reach it. 

It’s a dome of ecstasy my body is rejected to, and like the repulsion of magnets, my negative will never be any closer than a few inches to the negative of my final curtain call.

With the thought of this being an interlude, that the real Ragnarök is only a tale told by those who never truly opened their books and saw that this catastrophic mess leading to the inevitable path of oblivion had two roads with another reaching their second act, I come to terms that not all clarity can be lost. 

Those who gave up on the battle long before it started had the clarity of sanity, and those who somehow continue to live their lives on the battlefield had the clarity of courage. 

So I stand before these roads, one broken, the pavement cracked, a doomed pit of darkness at the bottom with just a few logs of wood to climb across and a long winding road ahead, the other, a paved path, beautifully made with red bricks, saturated trees and rose petals guiding the way, I choose to face my fears and climb over the abyss pulling me down. 

The road is dark, winding, and absolutely terrifying, but what lies ahead is nothing compared to the fact that my world is caving in…but my story hasn’t reached its ending.