I am, am I?

Other people seem to know me better than I know myself. Let me clarify: they know the person I am when I am around them better than I know my true inner core self. I don't know what I believe, what I have faith in, what I trust, what I feel. All of those are created in the moment to fit the person I am with. The hardest thing is that I am with my mother the most therefore I adjust myself to be her perfect baby angel. But am I? How can I say that isn't me if I don't actually know who I am? I want him to know the true me, not who I adapt to be around him. But, as I have said, how can I be me if I don't know who that is? I've spent so much of my life studying others; how they behave, how they think, how they interact. I'm a freaking anthropologist for goodness sake! But when it comes to myself I know nothing, I am empty. I am a large picture frame made of mirrors, containing a clear pane of glass over a blank sheet of college ruled paper torn from a generic spiral notebook.

Train Wreck

I am so tired. No, tired is not the perfect word. Neither is sleepy. I am exhausted yes, but even that word does not fully express my core's feelings. I am drained. Yes. Drained. I am drained of energy, I am drained of happiness. I am drained of anger. I am drained of hope. I am drained of fear. I am drained of care. I am drained of joy. I am drained of excitement. I am drained of anticipation. I am drained of wonder. I am drained of feeling. I am drained. I feel like a shell; a hollow casing ready to collapse into itself. I want to sleep and never wake. I want to feel nothing and everything. I want to live my dreams and dream my life. If only I had a drive, a purpose, a meaning, a care! I only feel empty and done. Done with this game of playing pretend. Finished with this existence of insecure security. I want to exit the stage and close my eyes for eternity in the green room. The stage lights are too bright and I want to run. If I cannot exit peacefully I will jump off the stage into the pit. But I am afraid of heights. Oh, feelings, why do you appear when I have just denounced you? How can I apparently feel such hate and desperation yet feel so empty and hopeless? I want to laugh, play, imagine, and sing. At the same instant I also want to cry, burn, gash, and disappear. I want to be done! Done with following the rules, doing what I should, following good sense. I want to not exist. Is it that simple? Am I better off dead? Would that stop the hurricane in my mind? Or would I just be subjecting myself and those who love me to an eternity of terror and woe?

Brickset 7623

If life is like a LEGO Indiana Jones Temple Escape set, then friends are the random LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Atlantis, and LEGO CITY pieces that are incorporated into the build.

The directions may show a specific order to create the masterpiece, but sometimes you add more. It just happens. You come across the tiny Marauder's Map, those coins from Atlantis, or even an average 2 by 4 gray piece originally for a CITY police car and you see how they work, how they add to the set or help complete it. That map works to make the story, give Indy more of an edge in your little LEGO version of Raiders. The coins add just that perfect bit of shimmer and luxe and look so good next to the golden head idol. The plain gray brick finishes the cave entrance and makes it a more complete archway.

All of these items made the set better. That is how friends are. You have your little Indiana Jones life and they have their Harry Potter one, but you are both LEGOs so you have the capacity to fit together. (There are of course LEGO Alien pieces that just DON'T fit into your Indy world [Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls does not count. Period.]).

I am looking for a certain Page 5 piece to finish the puzzle/maze floor so Indy won't get shot by poison darts. This person is my someday partner, my lifelong fit. I have to try and remember to not limit this unknown person to a 2 by 2 flat beige piece. They might be a clear-orange flame from a LEGO Castle dragon set. Something that would make the dart-room that much cooler.

How is it that I can see friends and companions as additive parts to my life adventure but simultaneously view this imaginary future relationship as a void only to be filled in a specific and even restrictive Page 5 format? If I am more open to the incorporative mindset will that make this the best version of Brickset 7623 or will I mess it up and want to smash it?

Cacophony of the Mind

I learned something today: not everyone thinks in words. When I think, yes, I see in my mind's eye the image of what I am thinking about, but I also have internal voices speaking constantly. I know that having "voices in your head" is commonly considered a bad thing, but these are my selves; they are not how I imagine crazy-head voices sound. But, honestly, most of my friends and family, and, I realize now, even my dog think purely in images. I often am overwhelmed by the noise between my ears. Music helps to quell the storm, but I sometimes find myself pleading within for my selves to just shut up.

Rubber Smudge

("I have the self esteem of a skid mark." This is a saying some people throw around jokingly to prod at their own self image. I identify with this metaphor but under particular parameters.)

I am a skid mark,
made by someone mistaking a fallen maple leaf
for a small animal in the road
that swerved to avoid it
only to realize mid-skid
their ridiculousness.
I am what was left behind.
A small, hasty, streak of worn tire
unnoticed by subsequent passing drivers.

I am a skid mark,
not the perfect circular brushstroke
of the doughnut spun in the empty parking lot
after everyone has left for the day.
I am not the impressively solid ring
that everyone sees and smirks at,
one stamped for all to admire.

I am a skid mark.
A residual remnant, 
a non-dimensional scuff.

Thermometer

Cold, it touches under-tounge.
Silent, I hold still the inner young.
The rise of prismed mercury
Telling me if sick I be.
Palm of hand, the olden ways
Digital stick of future days.
Six and dozen, add four score
Decimal creep up more and more.
Climbing out towards centi-land
Twist and tilt to understand.
Flick of wrist, all evidence cleared
Hot, the verdict, as I had feared.

Event Horizon

Call upon the howling heap.
Find only tears from out it seeps.
Its coiffed facade trembles to keep,
the grin within where sanity sleeps.

Out the twitching sighing pores
pours the saline flow of fears.
Fierce, the rage is tamed within
but endless the battle waged to win. 

Scenarios of morbidity
Dreamed to tangibility
The alarm at zero still unknown
The weakness stays its only home.

Will it crumple? Submit to the black hole?
Flailing, falling, failing to console
The glint of numb grief growing,
Never showing
the inner flowing
fjords of its pained soul.