five feet of neurosis

In this place between who you are and who you wish to be there is no room for self preservation. So as the light gleams against the wall and the hard place let all your ramblings loose. Just the ramblings of a girl who stands next to people so that no one knows she's talking to herself.

[puzzlingpemberley]

we drag our feet along the sharp divide

clean and crisp in one stroke

scratching and blurring along scuffs

sharp eyes look forward

and wonder back 

[puzzlingpemberley]

it really is me, not you

please don’t hate me

it was great

you were really great

everything was fine

but I wasn’t fine

[puzzlingpemberley]

You, at almost eighteen told me

"The only exciting thing I find about myself is my heartbeat"

You inhale reprimands and failures

Making your breath come in stutters 

And your heartbeat in sputters

But there's a tale in that incessant beating

And I've spent my life chasing stories

[puzzlingpemberley]

A conversation with myself

Why do you do it? I don't know. It hurts. It scrapes at the insides and tries to burn the rest. Why do you do it? I don't know. I guess I never knew anything besides this pain. The compression and the ever so delicate suffocation. Why do you do it? Because nothing else makes sense. I don't know. Why do you do it? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Why do you do it? I'm scared.

[puzzlingpemberley]

that last memory the color of candlelight streaked across morning

[puzzlingpemberley]

Words that shouldn't be on my tombstone

Patient. Gentle. Kind. There's a fuse cut too short, fraying at the edges and itching for confrontation. Bitter and rough. It leaves burns as it sparks and cuts across skin. Friend. Wife. Lover. Webs are jilted, stretched thin or displaced, dropping pieces in a plane of disconnection. I never knew how to trust beyond my own.

[puzzlingpemberley]

He can see her when it's raining. But when light catches the edge of his window and bursts into glimmers, he sees blue The shade that he looks for when it's bright and everything is pale or maybe it's that everything pales In comparison to blue eyes and the quick pace behind his ears But he sees HER when it's raining And she is no drop of crystal glinting before desperate eyes She is not the puff of breath on brisk mornings She is no shade of captivating blue He traces patterns around the window and something catches He's heaving and coughing because she's there in the translucence She's not blue Or red or green or any broken tertiary pigment There's no vibrancy shattered across a page Or broken in the air She isn't lovely Or beautiful She doesn't show him WHAT IT IS TO LIVE She's not the heartbeat that echoes behind his ears. she's not the tint he needs to see. she's not the gasp he needs to breath. She's the moment behind puddles. And the shudder that's trapped in his lungs, She's the reminder that some day HE WILL DIE. And she will be there too

[puzzlingpemberley]

in fits of delusion and hazy imaginings you mean too much to me and i find myself shaking and stumbling but you filter through effortlessly will it end when you're gone? will i think clearly? will i forget? will i breathe again? when loose hopes are terminated and there's nothing except what i wish had happened i wish it had happened

[puzzlingpemberley]

nothing works anymore.

hands,

trembling and useless.

feet,

stumbling and misshapen

eyes, dumb.

ears, blind.

mouth, deaf.

mind?

what a fucker it's become

[puzzlingpemberley]

in the sliver of time between midnight and a minute past

there is nothing but the sound of your voice

and a nostalgia i have never felt before

it's apprehension and sadness and an overwhelming anxious desire

pulled together with a dash of inexplicable giddiness

compressed inside a fragment of time 

i grasp frantically at fleeting emotions that wrap themselves around a slow beat

those that linger throughout a muggy day

but at a minute past,

it's just smoke and a scent that fills me

[puzzlingpemberley]

it's one in the morning and this has happened before

i can feel routine etched into my skin

but slight grooves have gotten deeper

and there are dimensions swirled around a stretched complexion

i know this feeling

i've felt it bubble beneath my chest and trickle from my eyes

but it's strange all the same

it's a word

pounded and abused

a sliver on your tongue that flits gently between your teeth

repeated so many times that 

suddenly it's foreign 

with strange accents and a different emphasis

familiarity has overstayed its welcome

and all at once 

i know nothing at all

[puzzlingpemberley]

love

one day she met a boy

they fell in love behind thick lenses and stacks of books

she loved the way he slipped his pencil behind his ear

she loved the way he shook his leg when nervous

she loved the way he loved her

innocently and unconditionally

….

but boys are not stronger than hunks of metal

and the heart she stole stopped beating 

soon even thumping inside her chest was broken

though there wasn’t much left in the end

….

she met a man years later

and he gave her desire

so she gave him a child

under wedding bells and sheets of white

he promised to care for her

to care for them

all her petty human desires he took and carried

but not the love she wanted

she craved his affection but it was sparse and fleeting

soon eyes were wandering and chips of her heart flew away

….

months later she met a child

with her eyes and his hair

little and squirming about

but she felt nothing

there was nothing left to give

because all pieces were broken and gone

and for all of her efforts

she couldn’t love this child

….

she knew three loves in her life

the one she lost

the one she desired

and the one she couldn’t give

[puzzlingpemberley]

when the lights finally dim 

and all i see are dull shapes outlined faintly by dying stars

i can hear the faint drumming

maybe it's my heart beating a little too loudly

maybe it's the neighbors

but i hear the anthem of our desperation

the things we used to be

and the things i desperately wish we were

it fills a quiet room

rebounding from my dresser and desk

smothering and seeping into my fingers 

it's the jilted rhythm i can't help but tap 

when my hands refuse to be still

do you hear it?

[puzzlingpemberley]

I’m so tired of feeling alone

Because there’s so many feelings and fears that bounce around in my head

And sometimes they hurt

Because there’s too many somethings where nothing should be

And there’s too much nothing where I cry for something

There’s a barrier between what I see and what I am and everything is so fucking exhausting

Nothing’s wrong though

I should be happy

Why aren’t I happy

Nothing is wrong. Something is good.

But I’m still lonely and tired and everything is beautiful but I can’t feel anything.

I want to talk to you to remind me that I can be something more

That there’s more than the words that keep me company while turning me insane

Talk to me.

Take these words away from me.

They hurt and I’m tired.

[puzzlingpemberley]

Please forgive my terrible lack of eloquence because this place this terrible simple and awful place has driven me insane. I can no longer think properly and it should be outlawed for decisions to be made after midnight for one so utterly neurotic and ridiculous as I. Such choices ought to be demolished and forsaken for fear of irrationality. Irrationality. The terrible and awful thing I suffer from now. This very stupid moment now.

[puzzlingpemberley]

We are the time of confusion and pain and an endless procession of blinding colors

Cutting and pasting parts of ourselves to fit the puzzling spaces of the crowd

Iridescence bleeds upon futile attempts to forget the parts of us broken and torn apart

As remnants of lighter shades rub off the pieces left behind

We are the time doomed to loose ourselves

To fade into inexplicable mass of forgotten traits and chips of paint

[puzzlingpemberley]

The buzzing of the ever massing society clamors and demands attention But openings and placements are oft concealed and moments of uncertainty dangle beside those comfortable few Complacency beckons and solitude brims of soft amenity Such that is never nurtured among the tatters of esteem and those that delight in their deconstruction Oh, to be young.