The stars in the night sky shine brightest and the game is to decide which ones are still alive. From your knees towards the skies, I’ll trace the outline. To make constellations of those freckles that fall in line. Obscure shapes made to represent the fates of women and men, and ordinary beings; of smoked celestial greens and the paved over abandoned streets we walk to find a place where the ambient light doesn’t shine and we’ll feel for the first time that everything will be all right. Though the night is dark and full of terrors, let the strength we have inside serve to shield. Even when it seems that it’s growing brighter, the world grows darker someplace else and we can’t prevent what happens next. I’ve taken every breathe with knowledge each could be my last but that doesn’t stop me from breathing. The actions that define a life are not in what one couldn’t do, but should’ve, could’ve, would’ve done, but exactly what is done from now. I’ve tried to forge a way to make my own name, to break apart and away from the cycle that enslaves us all…but to this day, I have failed.

These streets we walk on will crumble under the stress we carry under our tongues, and the weight we hold in the syllables that get out. There’s so much talking and it’s so loud. Maybe loud enough to drown out all the sounds we don’t need a language to make? I was right before until you told me otherwise. I tore down walls that you built. Those bricks were stacked so softly. The things you can’t take with you…and realize that’s always the case. I won’t live forever, I know now to keep the nerve to love and forget all the shitty things, to forgive but remember there’s more to life than these petty issues, but I’m only human and my pride takes more than 2 years to recover and feel there’s room to clear the air. It ends up like this every time because you shout and wave your arms and pout and stomp your feet like a baby, and throw your tantrums as if anybody cares. You won’t be a footnote, you won’t be anything. Was it worth it in the end? Because I’m still here swinging. Was it worth it in the end? Because I’m still here singing.

“My everything, my very self. Could our love exist but by sacrifices, by not demanding everything? Can you change it? Look upon beautiful nature and calm your mind about what must be. Love demands everything and completely with good reason. That’s how it is for me. That’s how it should be with you. There are moments when I feel language is nothing at all for myself and for you as well. Forever mine, forever thine, forever us” is what his letters said but still they go unread by the eyes for which they were meant. Breathe in the lungs can’t hear your heart give out and lose it’s pulse in a passing breath. “Why this deep grief where necessity speaks? Man’s humility towards man is what pains me. And what am I when compared with the one called the greatest?” Oh, the things he forgot to mention in his letters, like those beautiful knees and how they long to part but move like mountains. Erode the pathways.

To a princess of the imaginary realm: what is the possibility you’d open and let us in to see the parts of your reality? I feel like I’m flying back to return to where I am, not where I was going, nor where I was, but the very moment of I am. With more knowledge in my head until it swelled and the thought that this is once in a lifetime and then we’re dead slowly I sunk farther into that bed. Deep, down and in between the coils of metal that give it the spring we need to regulate the motion. I lay horizontal to feel everything. And then the memory of those knees, our hands in the dark, that night I lost my keys and the regret that builds deep inside till it overflows and comes pouring out of me. I repeat over and over and over this is just a dream. I’m imagining… Everything is never really as it seems. Awake in a bed, unsure if I’m dreaming of the woman floating over me. Unexpected, to say the very least. She spoke to me, I strained to hear, a sense that’s failing me. Among other things such as the teeth and the fear of something greater or that this is all we have. I’d be lying through gaps to say this was enough for me. That feeling always comes back the one that feels like I’m being shrink-wrapped to be put upon some shelf, and that buzzing in my ears makes me fear that we’re all just full of shit and we’re totally fucked. Meanwhile, back in my dream, I looked back at my life and began to laugh at all those silly things that seemed so impossible if I only had the courage to believe. Can you believe (I wish I could express) The things we could achieve (the many different ways) With will to remain but the courage it (manifests) would take still (itself) seems so impossible When you build your towers tall, you best prepare for the risk you take cause there’s no net to catch your fall. I fly through the sky with no fear in my drunken eyes to be distracted by the parked cars and the traffic lights coming through in Technicolor, neon bright. If I had to repeat, a thousand times, my life would play over and over again the same way every one thousand times until I entered oblivion.

As I drive these miles across state lines, I feel the divide that separates us from our chance at eternity. In time, everything will return to zero; and the planes will no longer contain the will to matter to exist in a place of contempt with the structure of design that destines there’s only one way this can possibly end, and that’s what keeps me up most nights. The life I’ve lived may not matter one bit but it suits me fine. The last one to go to sleep always wakes up drunkest in the morning; so lay down your head and go to sleep.

The love in my heart will never grow faint the distance that separates will never secure a place to negate all those memories in my head of those summers we spent and how things will never be the same again. But that doesn’t stop me from reminiscing, and I never stopped dreaming. Nor should you with your new life, everything works out and is okay. Through all the years we’ve grown to know that all things change and not for the worse or even that much better. Just know it’ll always stay the same with us. The stories we could tell about each other will outlive the music we played together.

I keep my head down while staring at the ground. Till my eyes dry out or they return to the color they were when I was born. So bleary, and teary, bloodshot and red. Nothing like the blue they were before. I don’t know where this is all going but I know how this will all end. I prefer the flame to the cold hard ground. You can spread my ashes in the wind to carry me across the lands, and across the seas. Into the times and spaces we’re unable to see… As I age the energy escapes and I fail to remember every time, and I miss the chime, the starting bell to the race to defeat time but I can’t change the past. I’m tired of fighting the clock. It runs me down. I can’t stand all this noise that was created by some hive mentality. I can’t stand the crowds of people, shifting incessantly and buzzing, all I hear is their squawking mimicry, I grow tired of the constant ring. I keep my head down so you can’t count out loud the lines that signify the days of sleep I’ve been missing, not counting sheep for fear of feeling insane. If I ever said I’d understood the meaning of regret I’d have to say I lied through my missing teeth.

You can convince yourself that the past was just a blunder of lesser men. The secrecy of your pacts will only to serve to further the end. It’s more than just a cushy way of life but the way you conduct your covert business, behind closed doors they allow this madness. There’s innocence used to mask your purpose, you’re bent on destruction and you act like it’s worth it. As if it ever will be, not to say that I care for the fate of humanity, we’ve been doomed everyday since our birth, but the process so far has been negative, with only governments deciding what is worth. Can the pawns be controlled when the truth becomes known? Their voices carry the fuel to flame the discontent to warm till our hearts can mend. For what it means for what I care, I don’t believe it matters if I don’t take a step towards the future with hope and magnificent intent to change the pattern of the advent of the future.

“Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life,” you expect from the words in quotes that tend to not often be wrong. Now I’ve picked myself up from too many places near the bottom to stand on my feet as calloused as they may be, I walk with experience to prove them all wrong. With all of the stress on the crack it might be enough to shatter the pieces that hold it together. Behold and make known as they expose the temper I once had from holding on to lost dreams and wondering if it was all make believe. Take a last glance At life passing Every moment Leaves you behind.