I'm Still The Same Size As I Have Always Been. It's Just The World That's Gotten So Much Smaller Than

They told us to aim for the stars, that even our failures would be rich.

They didn't tell us that in exchange our victories would feel cheap and lifeless.

I have to fail to feel.

Always stuck somewhere between too much work and not enough

I can't start until I'm desperate

I can't stop until I'm burnt out

I hope I'm one of the things you hold close when your feeling empty

Hurt like you

There's something about sea salt and brine and the way it sits behind your eyes.

Bright and blue and full of sorrow.

I know they only romanticize your pain; as if it's some great achievement.

They say they want to hurt like you, not out of ignorance.

Only because they don't want to hurt the way they already do.

The salt it stings and the foam dyes you blue.

But for them it's soft and soothes their burned to hurt the way you do.

She tastes like the metallic burn of blood.

She smells like the pop of wood as the fire consumes it.

She feels like the static that clings to your clothes.

She looks like lightning as it cracks the sky.

And he fancies himself Zeus.

Sometimes I catch myself not breathing.

No air filtering in through my lungs.

My brain fuzzy and slow without it.

My chest still and my shoulders hunched.

Like some subtle subconscious part of me just decided this was it.

Time to give up.

Greedy are the trees

"Haven't you ever seen it?" She asked me.

"Gnarled roots pale as bone crawling their way through the underbrush. Pushing aside new green ferns and beds of decaying leaves. Each root peaking for long lengths from the damp dirt. Anchored maybe by the earth or maybe by thorny vines, sharp and thick with red-tipped spines. This is the work of the trees." She whispers this all to me in a conspiring way.

"You'll see them reaching with knothole fists towards the waters edge. Thirsty for what the spring has to offer; as if the ground isn't soft with it already." She pauses smile turned sharp and condescending in the way a mother's does when sharing stories of her child's mischief.

"Greedy things"

Comparing children is like comparing planets.

Being different doesn't mean one is better than the other.

Except when one is better than the other.

Matter cannot be created or destroyed.

that's the rule of the universe.

You've always existed in some way.

and no matter how many times you get blown apart;

The gravity of your atoms will drag you back together.

Tearing your self apart is futile.

It's nuclear fission.

You only salt the earth in your despair.

Tear open the black hole just for the gravity well to drag you under.

The only escape is expansion.

I was never meant to have a body.

My tethered little pet.

So much responsibility to look after.

So much washing and clothing and tucking away.

I was never meant to rot so slowly.

From diseases, I will never know.

So much tending to my body needs.

So much aching and soothing and drugging away.

I was never meant to hold it's hand.

Like a mother holds a child.

So much guarding it needs.

So much hiding and cherishing and giving away.

I was never meant to have a body.