Maybe My Thoughts Are Just Nightmares

My poetry and innermost thoughts

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

It’s sprinkling today

I woke up into the world and it was already sad

I don’t have an umbrella

But I don’t need one yet

My feet are getting wet

I don’t know if it will get worse

It’s raining today

I hold up my umbrella

But as always

I still get a little wet

I could hide inside and wait for it to stop

But I don’t know how long that will be

And I have places to go

And things to do

It’s pouring today

So I stay inside

I don’t want to go out in the rain

Because I don’t want to be drenched

I wait it out

Not knowing how long it will be

I hide

I hide

I hide

And wait

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

I’ve been dropped in the water,

Just a puddle, but it feels like more

And I’ve been here for years and years

And the puddle’s stayed the same,

But I’ve gotten smaller

And weaker,

I try to swim out

I try to breathe,

But I’m getting deeper and people are walking through the puddle

Stepping stepping

They don’t see me.

How do I survive

When this puddle feels like a lake,

An ocean,

I’m paddling and drowning

In two inches of water;

Why do I feel so small?

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

I’m so tired

In the morning, in the afternoon,

In the middle of the night when I can’t fall asleep

I’m so tired

I’m so tired

But I can’t go to sleep

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

My eyes are burning as I stare at a screen

It’s been hours and hours yet I can’t sleep

My hand is cramping and my head is pounding

My body cries out for rest while my mind whispers

Will I ever be happy?

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

“It is two in the morning and the sky is pink

I wonder why it’s not black

Like on other nights

I tried to find the source

But it’s hard to find the moon with only windows to look through

But as I look out at the pink sky

It reminds me of my mind

As I try to fall asleep

Never fully black

No matter how late it becomes

It does not seem like the sky will ever sleep

But hopefully I will”

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

“I really don’t enjoy being a disappointment

It’s my least favorite thing to be

But it seems to be the role I play

Most often

In this theater production of life

I don’t live up to someone’s expectations

Here

I don’t live up to my own

There

I’m a walking disaster

Too much so to even be the comedic relief

Where’s my relief

I try so hard

But I fall short

I fail at trying hard to try

I can’t even start because there is no energy to begin

There used to be

I used to only have to wrestle with sustained attention

With finishing a task

With figuring out the pieces to the puzzle

Now I struggle to start the task

To gather myself

To tap into what little energy there is

Instead of starting with puzzle pieces

I now only start with an unopened box

And when all everyone else has to do is glue the puzzle and frame it

Taking it out and starting with the edges is exhausting”

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

I want to be a poet again. I miss the days when words flew from me in beautiful phrases, so shamelessly. I could create so relentlessly, breathing words onto the page like life itself. Then somehow my life became something else; There was no longer shameless breath, but shameful life, constricted airways, blinded eyes. The words no longer came, stuck somewhere in my deep subconscious, buried, buried, buried, trying to claw their way back to life, taking years. I want to be a poet again because my words are finally back, the words are back and they want to flow, but the breath is not quite shameless, the life is not so alive, but that is okay, words and words and they can live by themselves, without the guidance of my breath, of my hands. They will guide me, so all I must do is write and write and write, and they will create themselves, and I will realize that I don’t need to be a poet again — I never stopped.

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

I can hear my skin calling to me

bleed

bleed

it wants me to bleed

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

for a society that so often condemns the past we spend an awful lot of time repeating it

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

Sometimes you hold out glue when someone else holds out scissors. And sometimes, you are the one with the scissors.

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

I feel a fear crawling through my body. It reaches, reaches up, up to my mind; It claws at my thoughts until it holds them in its grasp and whispers, “Mine.” Each time I start to feel control, it’s there again, tracing its finger around my brain, that light touch reminding me I am not my own. I belong to it. It owns me. It drowns me. It takes hope and dangles it in front of my face and then eats it, right in front of me, savoring every bite. It taunts me with its words and its promises, making me think I can become something else, something separate. But then it whispers in my ears. It tells me, “Free, free, you’ll never be free,” and, “Mine, mine, you’re all mine.” And so I do the only thing I know to block it out: I don’t feel. When the options are to feel fear or nothing at all, I choose the easier one to live with. Because each time I try to use my own claws, every time I try to climb, it holds me with its fragile hands, cradles me, shushes me, tells me, “Don’t you like it here? It’s safe here. What will happen if you change? What will happen if you know more? I have the answers. Trust me with your questions. I know the answers.” So I do. I do, I do, I do. I forget that I have questions, forge that I am in search of answers, if only for a little bit. I trust the fear, the not feeling. I let it cradle me in its long, spiny fingers, let them snake around me, claiming me as its own. I allow its possessive fingers to hold my own. I let it shush me, quiet me, until I am only softly crying into its chest instead of weeping, instead of wailing, instead of crying out, “You monster!” Instead of learning to be free of it, I learn to live with it; and that is not living at all.

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

I am a shark, traveling aimlessly through the ocean, wondering what would happen if I just stopped swimming.

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

would I

die

in the arms

of

no one?

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

Sometimes, when it seems like the world hates you, it feels like the only response is to hate yourself, too.

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

I live in a cage in which society holds the key. The cage is glass, so it's easy to miss from afar; and afar is all there really is. Those who get close can see the shimmer of the glass. They can see something's wrong, Or maybe they notice the cage. And they say, "Come out, come out, come out." They don't hear, "I can't, I can't, I can't I can't." They could use something and break the glass if they tried hard enough. But, you see, I have my own tool. I have a gun. But I don't know if I want to use it on the glass or me.

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

The world is bleak today, a reflection of my mind.

MMTAJN

[maybemythoughtsarejustnightmares]

All the time I should have spent doing something else haunts me. The wasted minutes add up and sit on my shoulders, pushing me into the ground.

MMTAJN