Strength?

Is tolerance strength?
If, over time, you learn to tolerate something, does that classify as strength against it?
I'm not quite sure if they are one in the same really.
I'm more apt to believe that after years of the same bullshit-
you become numb to it.
Is it strength to turn the other cheek and let the pain wash over you?

In a way I sense this longing for an end.
That perhaps when the river floods, this time it will not recede.
The water will overflow, filling each crevasse.
Until the pressure is so great that the tiniest cracks become great fissures-
and the whole will become diffused.

Wicked Days

A sensation of trying to breathe underwater.
That is one of the best descriptions of my depression.
Weight settles into your chest, fire billows through your lungs-
you struggle, clawing desperately toward an unseen point in time.
You know that if you give up the weight will pull you into the darkness,
the fire within will be an all consuming self loathing that simply eats you alive.

So you struggle. You keep taking gaping mouthfuls of water.

Praying that one day-
you will find air.

Lonely Travel

Scraps of clothing and a new suitcase.
The first steps to the trip are laid afore the girl.
A wistful smile plays her lips but the eyes, sir the eyes are hollow.

Too long this treachery has circled-
a buzzard in the hot sun of a dusted landscape.
She chokes on, too dry for tears.

Cookie Skin

3am approaches fast and here I sit.
Tomorrow morning I will pack bags but tonight-
tonight is for cookies.
I could almost call it cookie hell.
Only 4 different batches but they took me all day (and night!) to achieve.

I've been in my kitchen a lot today.
I've been yawning a great deal since 1:45 and now I'm just praying I don't fall face first into my oven.
I've easily healed some weird and intense burns, but nothing that intense.
My mind creates an image like dripping candle wax and I can't help but shudder.

Did I really think I was going to make 6 different kinds of cookies today?
At some point, yes, I think I had convinced myself of that.
Pfft. Just call me Patsy.

Knowing

Sometimes you just don't know.
People will ask questions, things you should easily be able to answer, but nothing comes.
Your brow furrows and the gears spin wildly, but nothing comes.

Mostly these questions are personal.
Requiring that you look deep within, scratch your moral fiber, descend into your sinfulness-
and figure it out. Tout de suite!

"I can't answer you right now" should be a valid response, completely acceptable.
But it never is.
They always want to know, to fill the gap in their mind space with your vitals.

Sometimes I just want to scream and hide behind my arms, shielding the agony in my eyes.
"Don't you think I want to know! Don't you think it matters to me!"
But they don't care ... and they couldn't if they tried.
Not in the way you need them to.

Silver Bells

27 years brought my first gray hair.
I wasn't sure when to expect it really. Or them. It could have been droves.
It's been there for some time now.
Nearly six inches long, with two added inches of my natural brunette for records sake.

Some would be flabbergasted.
"How could this have happened to me?!"
Others might be ashamed.
"I have to cover this up! No one can know!"
And there is always denial ...
"I'm too young! Woe! Youthful, pre-thirties woe!"

I, on the other hand, am proud.
You see, I earned this.
Years of my own torturous thoughts paved the way for this single silvery showing of persistence.

In another 27 years ... I better at least have two.

*laughs*

It Was Cold When I Woke

I am forgetful. My memory is akin to a 20 year old often used cheesecloth.
The more I have to do, the more I forget.
The more responsibility I take on, the less likely I am to seem responsible.

I am late. All the time and for just about everything, I am late.
Need me at 4:00pm? I will be there at 4:05.
Make it a point to tell me that the world will implode if I am not there at exactly 4:00pm?
The universe conspires against me and I shall arrive no earlier than 4:15.

Thus, when I manage to get things done correctly, and on time-
I have a sense of satisfaction that can only be trumped by coitus.
Deadly serious.

High School Influenza

Hunger pains and a Texas sized appetite have got nothing on the Flu.
*sniffles*
For the past few days I've been a bundle of sniffles, coughs, and stomach pains. I want everything I eat to taste the way I know it should, but it all ends up tasting like the cafeteria 'goodies' of my high school days. I know, yummy. Maybe this means I should go back to a steady diet of Cheez-It's and Cherry Pepsi.
Why does everyone believe that the years we spent in high school are our glory days? Folks spend the rest of their lives wanting to get together at ten year intervals to meet up with people they haven't spoken to in exactly that long so that they can re-hash all of the most meaningful moments between 14 and 18 years of age. Is it because people truly believe that who they were in high school is the basis of who they will be for the rest of their lives?
Well pardon me John Hughes- but I disagree.