[practically-apollo]

Rose Colored Glasses

An expression to say you love someone/something so much you cannot see it without that filter, right? What if my world is tinted pink and my words are drowned in petals? What if pain smells sweet and the darkest parts of the world have a light shining underneath it all? What if the glasses tainted every part of me and removed anything dull? Am I just a bias, a walking filter? How come the world cannot exist without a filter of just, of beauty? Maybe everyone else wears sunglasses, blocking out portions of the light. Maybe the world was meant to be beautiful, even through the worst corners of it, even through the darkest of nights.

[practically-apollo]

Oh how can I judge a person for just being human. How hypocritical would that be. I am no god. I am nothing special, nothing to worship. I have fallen in love with hatred and have comfortability in the hellscape of illness. People are just finite creatures gifted with consciousness outside our comprehension. We have the abilities of a deity so carefully placed in an easily harmed structure. How else are we to handle the overwhelming responsibility? We cannot know right from wrong without someone first living it. We cannot understand without living it ourselves. We have been gifted creativity and curiosity but stoned with standards and judgement. Oh how hypocritical life itself can be.

[practically-apollo]

If I am to die, burn all my writings. Burn them until the last word I wrote taints the air and suffocates the stars, for the beauties of the universe should know the pain and visions of humanity, of authors. But if you are to disregard my request like Franz Kafka's friends, then you watch as my image, my works, falter beside him. If you are to publish my name next to a deity and expect the same results then you, too, have the expectations of a mere mortal. Even a god was disobeyed and forced into the eyes of the public, how can I assume that I, half of a person in comparison, will be treated any better. | An excerpt from a novel I will never write

[practically-apollo]

I was born at the wrong time.  Because, yes, my marriage is legal now.  And yes, I can love out loud.  But I never needed either.  I would rather live with a gun on my hip and a small limp from where I was shot last spring.  I’d rather walk into the saloon on a cold Sunday night.  I’d drink on the day of the lord until I forget that my heart yearns for something He’d never be for.  And I’d stare at the man next to me, chugging away the same belief.  We’d share stories of duels and talk about guns.  I’d ask for another shot and attempt to down the full glass.  He’d take it straight from my mouth and pour the rest in his.  The whiskey isn’t what he’d want, but the bartender could never know his love.  Our eyes look at each other with more intimacy than a married couple with kids.  The saloon won’t know why we left.  They won’t realize we left with our pinky’s hooked together.  They’d never see us in the field a mile and a half away.  No music, no lights, and yet we still dance.  Slowly, intimately.  We’d dance together until morning.  A spark brighter than the sun coming up over the horizon.  The type of love a woman could never provide for me.  A touch, an understanding of each other left unspoken. And I’d yearn for that love every Sunday night when I walk into the same saloon, sit in the same chair, and wait for a man that would never show again.

[practically-apollo]

Hero or Pathetic?

Dying for someone is heroic

Would you not agree?

But if the guilty gun

Is wielded by oneself

That becomes pathetic

A line so thin, so bare

No structural reason

Just a different title

For the same action

Romeo once said

“What is in a name”

And I can’t help but agree

What is in a name?

What is in a title?

That by which we call pathetic

Could’ve been their savior

The only way out

Maybe Romeo isn’t the best option

He did write his own death

Footsteps I’d idolize

But not many would sympathize

Maybe the weapon

Isn’t even wielded by them

The emotion, the drain

Pulls the trigger instead

Hero or pathetic?

The world will decide for you

But you will be gone

Another name in the air

Another debate left unfair

[practically-apollo]

Haunted

Oh what it’s like

To be haunted by someone alive

To see their life play out

Right in front of your eyes

And feel their warmth behind you

Only to turn around

To a hug of cold wind

Or hear their voice speak softly to you

Only to realize;

They weren’t the one singing the tune

A footstep behind

An inch too far away

Right there in all the wrong ways

A ghost that breathes

Who will never leave

A ghost that stays;

Haunting me

[practically-apollo]

Mirrors

Mirrors.  They scared me.  There's worry and insecurity.  It’s a gateway to hell.  When I looked into a mirror I saw what other people see; hair that breaks gender norms, a build normal for a woman, a face too softly defined to be a man's.  I saw pink and pronouns that don’t fit me and a name forced onto my skin and a box I’m confined in.  I felt immortalized in skin that isn’t mine that holds a brain that doesn’t fit.  They showed me a person I do not believe to be, but now they show me who I am and what I am to me.  My hair is normal for a guy, my build is a little chubby for one but nothing the gym can’t fix, my face is just… different.  I see blues and he/him and a name for me and, instead of a box, a door.  I see myself as a man, someone who I am proud to be, someone who doesn’t need to slice themselves open to see that I bleed the same blood as every person despite feeling alien.  The mirror transforms me, makes me see myself as if my brain and body matched.  The parts that don’t fit get blurred out.  It’s hard for me to imagine the person I used to see, the person who was not me standing on the other side.  I haven’t seen that person in years.  Maybe they died, buried with a name our parents would be glad to see on the stone.  Maybe they survived in a deeper part of me, making sure I do not forget from whence I came.  It becomes confusing when people see her, see the mask of skin that apparently shows in this plain and not the one in photos or behind a mirror.  When people call me by her name, confuse me with her.  All I want to say is she’s gone, I no longer wear her skin and her hair and pronouns and name.  I wear mine.  The ones I was meant to have, not the ones society chose, not the ones attached to my mask.  While mirrors and even photographs lead to me, apparently my skin will be tainted and branded with a person who won’t ever be me, who was never me.  All society chooses to see is the outside, something I’ve tried so hard to hide, so maybe it wasn’t the mirror tainting my view and making me scared.  It was the world and their unfair stares.

[practically-apollo]

The Boy With A Door In His Mind

I've met a boy

One with life in his eyes

But not one you could read

A life unknown to me

For everyone has a story

One that shows on their skin

The way they hold their hands

Or how they look when they win

I’ve always thought I could read

The words unspoken

Let out in a sigh

Ones without deception

I thought I could

Until I met him

Whose life

Was a secretive hymn

There was always a smile

A laugh

But behind that, a door

One you could not capture in a photograph

His eyes were gates

Ones closed shut

With gaps of light

Something on the other side

But you couldn’t quite tell what

Maybe that’s why I was so interested

In this boy, unknown to me

In this life I didn’t witness

So I let out a plea

“Please let me see

Through those gates

The ones in his eyes

Or in what he illustrates”

I said this in a whisper

To what? I did not know

Maybe to myself

Or someone above or below

Regardless, I waited

For a reaction

An answer

Something for this unfaltering attraction

And with time my answers came

Like the slow trickle of rain

A closeness between us

And eventually, a key to his brain

Crawling at first

The obsessions within

Like with space and fish

Or something akin

Then taking steps

Pushing the line

Prying for more

And finding a gold mine

Stories I did not know

Places he had been

The person he wore as a mask

Suddenly wore thin

I saw the real him

Something generally unspoken

Generally unseen

Which had been awoken

The interest did not fade

In fact, it grew further than before

Someone who was a mystery

Became someone to adore

His eyes became readable

His actions like glass

And I found myself

Staring in class

An addiction had formed

To know more

To know everything

Be someone who will not ignore

Interest to admiration

Admiration to addiction

Addiction to love

And love to non-fiction

There is more to see

More I yearn to know

And I will not know everything

But I’ll always listen

Like it’s my favorite song on the radio

[practically-apollo]

The Language of Me

I bleed lines Ineligible to most And cry tears That fill my lungs Not paint my face But drown me slowly And scream silently Pleas for help That can’t be heard My heart shatters Inside my chest Invisible to eyes My thoughts swirl Tunnel downwards But will not be spoken My body breaks Effortlessly, silently Without a cry I’m deteriorating From the inside out And help cannot be sought This cannot be fixed Oh for someone to read The invisible ink Or between my screams For someone to speak The language of me

[practically-apollo]

Red Lights

I used to run every red light I could

The second I stopped,

The thoughts would return

Building up in my skull

Waiting for me to break

Every time they seeped back in

I wanted to become roadkill

Wrap my car around a tree

Make a beautiful red mural on the road

Recently,

I found myself thinking differently

Those thoughts are there

Always will be

But now there’s a new one

One where I think of you

Care about you

I’d rather be with you

Not let you suffer

Than be roadkill or crashed into a wall

Now I find myself begging

For those red lights

To think of you

And when you’re in the car?

There’s nothing I hope for more

I won’t run another red light

I’ll stop unless it’s too late

Just to have you for a second longer

In person

Or in thought

[practically-apollo]

The Bike, The Freedom

(This is not about me, just a goofy poem I put together)

A month ago

We were on the road

Speeding down the highway

Never looking back

Only forward

Not to the future

But the road ahead

No other thoughts

Speed, each other, and the open road

Maybe today I would’ve done that too

Sped to my destination

But the highway is 65

And going above 70 makes me sick

So I’ll stay in the right lane

Beeps play in my head

The sound of the ventilator

And stay right at 65

The road doesn’t seem so open

My mind isn’t as clear

And I don’t have my road buddy

To keep me happy and reckless

But maybe that was where I went wrong

Letting myself

And him

Get reckless

Just to feel

Today I don’t need to feel

Not more than I am

I feel enough already

Anger and sadness

As I round the corner

Park my bike in an open spot

Cursing myself

For giving him that bike

And that freedom

Because maybe

Just maybe

He wouldn’t be

Six feet deep

Without me

[practically-apollo]

Ideal Life

City lights and big skylines

Taxis and the chatter of the city

Never calm, always moving

The perfect place to blend in

A background character

Never much meaning

Existing but not recognized

No name, no age

Go to the same coffee shop

Or the diner around the corner

Give a fake name

Something like “Shadow” or “Fan” Something clearly fake

Walk around the city

Match its energy

Never stop moving

Bring the dog along

Let it out of the studio apartment

Capture the never ending movement

A still photo

A picture with chaos and noise

Life forever frozen within the frame

Pick up a night job and a day job

Bartender and whatever gig I can

Use a name clearly not my own

Different at each place

Only let the managers know my name

Use a flip phone

One with barely any numbers inside

Don’t use it often

Only when needed

Let life create a movie in front of my eyes

Not from behind the screen

Not from a filter of fun

A never ending cycle of brainwashing

Read the books I never got to

Explore the world from the front seat

Not the back

Be myself

Be part of the city

Walk with the chaos

But never let them see

The true me

[practically-apollo]

I'd Choose Villain

A key difference between heroes and villains is whether they’d save the many or the few in the end. A hero would save the city even if it meant their family had to die while a villain would save their family whilst watching their city burn to the ground. So how come it didn’t feel so “heroic” knowing my family would save everyone at the expense of my own life?

Growing up I was told I have a “perfect family” and that my parents seemed so nice. I felt like when we walked outside of the house suddenly everyone became fake. My dad became sober and my mom became reasonable. They’d smile and pretend like “love” was a common word in our house, like violence was something from fantasy books and horror movies. They never dropped their mask for a second. Inside our house, however, hate ran down our throats like a bitter liquid and the air so thick with tension it could suffocate anyone. A cabinet filled with almost-empty alcohol bottles and an imaginary board hanging on the outside with 200 house rules and no one daring enough to break them. A 6-year-old who knew all too well how to dial 911 and a 14-year-old who knew how to run from a drunk. Those were me and my brother, respectively, about 10 years ago. Two kids afraid of their dad, wondering when this torture would end and whether it would be from death or divorce. It was neither. Eventually, our dad outgrew drinking but the trauma from it never outgrew me.

My brother turned 18 and quickly the attention shifted to me, this time from our mom. Guilt-tripping, manipulation, and emotional abuse were actions embedded into me, welded against my skull. Every suicide hotline link went from blue to purple, every crisis line knew my name. Each hour inside my house felt like five and nothing got better. I knew the walls of my room better than my family because at least these walls kept me safe.

[practically-apollo]

Mosiac

Fragments of the people I once knew I’d be nothing without their impact Yet somehow I still found this A path lined with staggered footsteps Uncertainty tracing each one Where every soul that took it Is not one I knew before

There’s no map to get here No street lights or signs Stray enough from the path The place you were meant to be And you end up here

Heavy hearts and heavier feet The stench of whiskey and vodka Old beer and stolen rum Knowing the blackout feeling Or the numbness Is better than the emotional pain

The feeling of ghosts run rampant Either people who died on this path Or the connects that faced the same fate

A knife on the side Lighters too Maybe some scrap metal An erasure or two

Maybe the lighters were for something else Cigarettes or weed Something to take away the stress Ease the tension Release the pains

Music blows through the trees Loud enough to make you deaf And loneliness sings a tune Only these travelers can here

Random medications Some off the shelf Painkillers or cold medicines Prescriptions with names not your own A loose pill or two Some illegal ones too Whatever to distract

Loose cash and coins The feeling of debt Poor money decisions Inability to control yourself Burner phones to reach contacts A fake name to deter the police If it ever got that far

Actual help is left behind A forgotten factor in this game of life

A detour not taken by many A path not found by the majority Those who take it don’t want it Many find themselves lost among the turns Within the addiction of alcohol or music

If I am to be a mosaic of everyone I’ve met How come I was led here? A place full of strangers Those who share my life My experiences Those who I will never meet

Somehow the people here Despite only knowing their shoes Or their taste in tunes Maybe even the alcohol they preferred Feel more like me More like family Than anyone else I could ever meet

[practically-apollo]

Your Eyes Are My Sun

How can your eyes

Bluer than the sky

Be just like the sun?

How come every time

When you look at me

I see flames of love?

Why is it that

Whenever we make eye contact

Their brightness is unmatched?

Why are we told

Not to look at the sun

When it's so hard to look away?

Even if the sun

Was a fraction of your beauty

Staring would come easy

And I say this knowing

That if I went blind

For staring at you

Whose eyes carry more light

Than every star in the sky

Then I’d be the luckiest,

And blindest,

Guy alive

[practically-apollo]

Marriage As Told By Me

If we never get married

Bound under law, I mean

Then at least I’d still have you

Jack Daniels late at night

Under the stars

Dancing in the rain

Waking up to lazy kisses

Falling asleep in warm arms

Our hearts connected

Like it was meant to be

And if that’s not marriage

Then I don’t know

And I wouldn’t want to know

What marriage could be

[practically-apollo]

The USA Today

The FDA takes bribes

And is the country even safe?

When that’s our food

And our drugs

What keeps us alive

And it’s based upon lies

The trans folk are dangerous?

Drag queens are predators?

But the guns in the schools

Those are fine… right?

Cause otherwise

It’d infringe your rights

The country is crumbling

Has been for years

There’s no way to save it

Not even blood, sweat, and tears