This blog has now been moved to

http://ambeyatashi.livejournal.com/

Goodnights

I just said goodnight to Nanny;
her warmth will melt all the monsters around me.
And my brother's strength will illuminate
all throughout this apartment.

My best friend is just down the hall,
and his intentions will float through the air, so calm;
and when I pull my covers over me, lit by the night-light and the lamps outside,
I somehow feel like I'm not alone.

This Obligatory Cut-Away...

Everything is blank.
My vision is clear translucence.
Out of focus; like seeing from a far, far way away.

In a house.
I walk downstairs. The brownish,
slightly tinged red
of the wood floor.
Yellow walls.
A carpet too.

Images that have no meaning.
People walking around, childrens' voices.
Happily together?
Playing.
Are they family?
More people.
My perspective
is skewed. Mind shut down.
But familiar. Like a dream you barely remember...

Words fall out of my mouth. Again.
Dribbling down, like a dog with rabies.

Only momentarily do they look at me.

Ah... I want to go home.

The Rain is Pretty, in a Way...

Dipping into sorrow,
without warning or cause.
Downbeat raindrops,

s
l
o
w

tempo
brings me back down from the day...
I can sleep now, can rest now, but at what cost...
Almost at ease, but something
tugs inside of me...

Too tired to move, too tired and weak.
For some odd reason, tears try to push forward,
and fall
out of my eyes...

The world is whispering,
Shh, shh,
And the trees are dripping their quiet condolences...

but now is not the time for grieving,
no,
now is the time...
for this.

So I

f
a
l
l

into melancholy; gathering strength,
as a young seedling, absorbing energy

for tomorrow, so maybe
I can crawl out of bed...

and walk out of this house...


Maybe
I could tie up my hair;
an umbrella,
go on over to see your puppy, the newborn;

we could hold him together in the precious gloom,
we could smile and jest, and be together.

maybe I can be happy tomorrow...
so for now, I'll just let sadness take me...

With every promise repeated over again,
with reassurances I could not accept,
with gentle nothings that I forced upon you,
came this. The obvious.

I knew this would happen, but I clung so hard.
I pleaded and cried in a tiny voice.
I tried to hold you down with my little strength.
But your dual abandonment wore down my heart.

You're busy, you're out, you're tired, you've gone away;
you have homework, are sleeping, or are with someone else;
you leave me here to cry and clutch to my bunny rabbit.
Where have you gone? Why did you go away?

"...He left me here in this awful place..." I whisper to her, her inanimate eyes,
"...He didn't care enough to pull me out..."
"No, baby, nobody loves me anymore."
"I'll just go to sleep now, when I wake up, I'll be fine."

White-away

A clean, blank person, wiped down and waiting
to be decorated, to be scarred, to be filled with experience.

Every child has been dirtied and beaten,
plucked from their innocence and dropped
into a sea of t-r-a-s-h
flowing...
like the roots of that old tree, gnarled and worn down.
The endless game that nobody is winning
will cut away into solidity, and then into peace.

but remember...
how it once was pure; a small seed?
With paper-thin veins stretching into the soil?

Scribles in My Notebook:

A sinking feeling.
Tears
that refuse to fall.
Detached from the world.
Just wandering around,
long, long face; dark eyes, so round.

s
t
a
t
i
c

l
o
n
l
i
n
e
s
s
s
s
s

w
h
y

a
m

i

a
l
o
n
e
.

A single candle flame, a single flicker
Doused now; it's not there anymore
Nobody's home
again
n
n
n.
.
.

No other life in the room,
in the house. Tiny, tiny room gets tinier every day.
suffocating
no one's in here.
no one ever has been.
just machines to divert.
that is all, all i do.
this cage, fucking reason.
The garden is dead.
Dead. Dead. Dead.
I have no real problems.
Just a damaged head.
It's really nothing, just petty suffering.
Why
am I so
pathetic. really.
The tree branches crackle, like a final boss stage.
Purple fucking sky. Goddamn bushes.
Oh, look at me, I am loved because I curse, because I smoke, because I sniff; isn't that hardcore?
I dye my hair like trailer trash, ridiculous eyeliner like I just learned how to use it.
aeropostale shirt, giant godamn sweatpants, boyfriend's jacket, giant cheap ring.
im blank, i follow your ideas. i agree with whatever in contradicting reason.
ha ha, unquestioned faith. you're ridiculous mind, ridiculous.

You're home alone,
Or your parents are sleeping,
and your brother is out,
and you're friends can't talk now
or don't answer their phones.
Tiny breaths, tiny, shaking, and white. dusty.
everything. stuck in the past.
Falling out
for a moment,
a very, very long breath.
You can't sleep.
Clutch your head,
you pathetic wretch.
no reason to.
no reason at all.
no reason.
stop playing it up.
stop crying.
stop.
stop making excuses.
you're not worth a dime.
Write those words in blood,
carve them onto flesh, just to see them.
Wishes: IT'LL BE ALRIGHT,
and scraps of words: tired, sad, find me..., i want to go, ...allegro agitato...
Getting older.
Your body
becoming stiff, shrinking and wilting.
Alone, forgetting to blink.
Not caring.
A roaring headache that you made up.
Losing my structure.
song lyrics, because i can't write my own.
polar bears keep me warm
in the lost penguin winter.
notes, notes, notes, margin.
where does all that pointlessness lead you?
to more work. more money, but so much goddamn work.
according to a book that i read in sixth grade,
dolphin's songs last for hours,
like me, like this thing.
nothing better to do, there never is.
being redundant.
repeating myself.
constant loop.
repeat: one.
sleep: 30 mins.
all songs.
scroll.
play and close eyes.
repeat.

Fall asleep without realizing it.
dream a ludicrous dream, and wake up.
hope and mild humor get crushed by mom's yelling,
by long, droning hours
of silence.
by the time you see your friends
youve already faded out of the day.
just go home and sleep.
----------------

Cloudy Daydream Wishes

A pastel, washed-out bunny rabbit
walking along the shore.

Long ears have fallen now, gentle ears, trailing lightly across the sand.
The absence of nothingness, but the lack of substance. The water washes on her paws.

The air isn't salty. There is no wind, no uncomfortable breeze, no disagreeable smell.
No squawking of birds. This place is not unpleasant. The clouds are not dreary, but comforting...

It is morning, a very soft morning. But yet, it is lacking something. The day stretched thin.
She feels a stirring in her chest, but does not know why.

She longs for... what is it that she longs for? What is she searching for?
She does not know. A stranger in her own heart. But she collects her scattered thoughts to wish for... to wish.

She turns her head to the horizon. White against dull blue.
She can see a place across the sea. Far off. ...Perhaps she could go there someday.

Perhaps it is warm there, perhaps, perhaps... Perhaps it is sunny and defined.
Perhaps it is bright there. Perhaps she can smile, pouring out colors like a spectrum.

Perhaps it is a good place. Not perfect, but normal.
This is what she wishes for...

Make plans to build a boat. Distant and hopeless plans.

Scuffed knees, dirty face.
Hug them close to your chest.
Body shivering under your cloak.
Eyes seem squinted from crying all day.
Red cheeks and dried tears are the remnants of feeling.

You've made your decision.

Back against the hard brick wall, in the alley.
Reach into your pocket and grab salvation.
Trembling hands hold the tiny pills,
Bittersweet salvation; can you reach it?

You once were a person, but now you're just this.
You once wore a smile, but now you wear static.
You don't deserve pity, yet you pity yourself.
A loathsome creature.
You took it all for granted.
No one left to care for you now...
No reason to stay.

Close your eyes, steel yourself.
Take a deep breath.
Swallow.

Unfinished

The soft gray light
casts upon the unlit room.
An almost eerie silver
lines the windowsills and washes on the rooftops,
fills the scenery with its numbing tinge; spreads out like sunbeams.
Watery green drips, the vines
snake around this endless place, creates substance; the trunks of trees. Fills the scene.
A dark mass is the sum of this lonesome world,
the addends are senseless.

Giving Up

She's picturesque perfect,
a red-headed angel.
She is good company,
can make people smile.
She is admirable, she is a socialite.
She is beautiful.
You must really love her.

I could never compete with her;
I don't know why I even try.
I am not beautiful, not particularly well-liked or special.
I am not a nothing, but I am awfully close.
I don't deserve you.
She deserves the moon.

I must force down the fluttering in my heart,
I must swallow this feeling.

Because if the shadows around me amount to a darkness,
that I could fall into at any moment, like a canyon,
then I couldn't handle the collateral pain,
no matter how childish.
No matter how stupid.

You are Dearly Loved

A flighty, breezy late-spring day
in which the air is warm and moves right through you.
You can feel the drum of your heart beating,
you can hear the sound of your lungs filling
with air and breathing in and out; a comforting rhythm.

Never have you ever opened your eyes so wide;
never have you been so alive,
running through the sunny street
in your little white dress and large sun hat.

You belong here to make me feel less alone
to take up space in this spacious home,
and the people you love nod towards you, check on you,
Their bodies bobbing in and out of the rooms, like felines.

The typed words carrying through the phone,
the short recordings playing just for you...
a momentary lapse in time means nothing;
we are system of smiles turning towards you, we love you.

We love you, we love you,
just know that we love you.

Mirror Observation

She is sickly, she is sad.
Her attempts at normalcy are all but feigned.
She lies to herself, she tells herself a fairytale
so that she may perhaps sleep through the night.
Her smile is a facade; her pain is endured alone,
and she chases a shadow she can never grasp, never reach, never catch.
Her eyes are insincere, her reassurances mean nothing, and her voice is inaudibly trembling.
Her life is a joke, her fate is a tragic comedy, her words are blasphemy.

Over the years, her bones have sunken into silence; she has submitted herself to the irrefutable, inescapable truth.
She sits on the patio on a cloudy, humid Sunday.
Where are you, dearest? Where did you go? is carried on the nonexistent breeze...
If she could feel that person's touch, then surely, it would all be okay.

Strong Child

For Nanny

Sitting on the playground swing,
all alone.
Shadows in the late afternoon.

Golden color spilling out on the ground. Orange-y. Getting darker, slowly.
Light is still escaping
from the clenched fist of the sun.
A feeling of dread at the base of your chest.
Your aching heart.

Soft breezes on the May green leaves.
You want to tell them how you feel, but there is no purpose in doing so.
Her words echo through the back of your head.
The endless footsteps of sadness sound, like rain on the rooftop.

The Part that's Missing

blinded, white-out.
gray words on black static.
i don't want to see or hear or feel all this crap,
all these useless images and sounds
filling my mind and body.
i don't want this life
a soft breeze touching my cheek,
or a raging wind;
i just don't want it.
all of the pretty words, the cheap condolences, the disappointing faces.
yeah, yeah.
i'll try to feel better.
as if that means anything.
as if that helps.

i just want to hear her voice.

Distracted

Rhythm schemes become tangled in the evening treetops,
and the sunlight is pretty, but it washes out our rhymes,
and the wind gently shakes our metaphors so that they become strange,

and do not fit into our mosaic masterpiece.

Oasis in the Desert

I miss you, and I am starved of your touch.
My need for your comforting words
is the dry back of my throat, the parched desert ground.

Your memory is a mirage, but a pleasant one, and
my dream of a life with you is an oasis.

The sands are hot, and the air
singes the hairs on my arms,
burns my feet.

I am dying, and time
has evaporated and left a riverbed.
I am dying, and lost
in the sweet insanity of my own loneliness.

The Other Side

I stare at that brightness
through a window.
It blinds my eyes, and I cannot reach it.

I want to be enveloped
by all of that light out there;
but it hurts my head, and now I cannot see it.

The afternoon is peaceful, and waiting on the other side...
static fills my ears and a sharp scent stings my nose;
in here is darkness.

I stretch out arm, underneath the crescent moon
glued to the ceiling, and receive a small taste of it...
I sit in this darkness, and I'm waiting, I'm waiting...

Waiting for these shadows to fall away,
and for the barrier to break...

until this side and the other side unite as one,
and in the place of this feeling comes normalcy, a happy glow.

Pointless Hope

Clauses left hanging after the comma,
as if cut off-- left to ellipsis...
The remnants of emotions translated into words
are gone-- you have none,
you do not exist.

Awoken from a Dream

Now I pull the candle flame closer to me,
as warm as a crowded-around hearth.
My brother plays his guitar erratically,
and the brownish-yellow lamplight
within the hopeful night.

...I awake, and my peculiar
nightmare draws to a close.
My teeth no longer chatter against the cold,
lessened to slight chill, and the spring cherry-blossoms.

The sky is real, an indigo color, and there is a whole world waiting underneath of it.
I lift my eyes up to it, a little dizzy, but whole.

Sydney Carton

The jackal has shed his skin--
or skinned himself.

His spirit, always dwindling,
now shudders, finally alive, in the brisk of the morning--
blossoming from the headless corpse.

The golden horizon
gleams in his hindsight
a thin line of beauty, of divinity;
separating the ground from the sky.

The sunrise approaches-- O!--
and he goes.

She will smile, someday, far away from this time.
And her hesitant sunshine will engulf the Earth,
left in the hands of his mirror image.

Animals in Afternoon

My fennec fox friend told me,
off-resentment in her voice,
"Life sucks and then you die."
And my brother the fanged bear said,

"You don't know what
suffering is."

And the transparent and wide-eyed canine thing
--a girl who resides in a bright, false haze--
--skinny and odd, yet lingering, with head tilted--
told me it was all
"unnecessary."

My father, the starving and bald
eagle
scoffs, ruffles his feathers, and sits down,
sets down.
He squawks an idiots' squawk.

My mother,
the awkward Persian cat,
swishes her tail in a half-interest;
she licks her paw.
Meow, she meows
quite plainly, Meow.

A few parakeets tweet their pleasant tweet
for a pleasing moments' pleasure before they must go.
The sunlight sparkles on their wings, but then
the sun sets.

The smiling yet melancholy
adolescent tigeress'
eyes turn
to slits.

She still grins.

And my claws protrude from my hands
and retract,
my fickle ears shoot up, fold over, and disappear;
my tail snakes around my human thigh and flickers.

Blood pours from my mouth,
black blood.
And I wonder where
the innocence went; I wonder where
my memory has gone.
Where has childhood fled to?

And why have we all turned to animals?

Radiohead - Karma Police

"This is what you get.
This is what you get.
This is what you get
when you mess with us..."

Now is the Final Act

The scene cuts away, and the camera pans out.
I take my final bow.

A faint melody is playing in the background,
the musings of a distant piano player.

It is 12:12 AM. The room is dark now, finally. The play has finished.
Now I may rest.
The lights are dimmed.

The crowd is filtering out.

They have prepared their testimonies, written on paper,
their prosecution and defense.
These are my sentiments, on the stage,
and this is the reviewers' backlash.

I am the playwright condemned,
the freelance
writer.

The fleeting muse has taken flight,
and the production has been swallowed.

Encore, a soft voice cries, encore.
But the voice is wholly ignored.

Now is the Final Act.

Winter

At the end of this road, there will be no more winter.
From December to March, those months are better spent sleeping;
Let your heart find rest in this forced hibernation.

The warmth that was once spread across this grateful surface
retreats, crawling back into the sun.
And the wind that once tickled your skin
and turned pinwheels,
now whips and rages, taming
the unforgiven land.

The doe, with wide eyes,
scrapes her hoof across the snow,
but the grass is frozen over;

Some tigers have been stalking her,
now with a snarl, they pounce
and she goes limp and is no more.

Kagamine

We stand,
distracted,
little marbles and rubies
of desert sand
hollowing out our stomachs.

A similar tear,
perhaps,
falls from our eyes.

Back to back,
we stand,
an arm's length through the Dream Mirror,
the strange scarlet Connection going unbroken.

The ground shifts beneath our feet,
and we go along with it, hesitantly,
two wines of completely different brands.

But still, these two human
beings are
of the same flavor,

diverging from the same path.

A similar tear.
Is shed.

Lullaby Reconsidered

Twinkle twinkle,
Little Gem,
the fairy-dust shimmer at the end of the road,
the lone tear of the mountain fox,
just now turning to leave.

The abandoned abode
where dreams reside,
the slumbering hope of a new world-- a new life,
the beautiful sun beam within the moonlight,
O, twinkling
Little Gem.

Someday do you think
we will finally grasp it? The strange
speck of decency as it dances,
it dances.

The odd
faint pulse of the man in the coma?
The twinkling
Little Gem?

The Interlude

It was beautiful.

My heart beat rapid,
staccato drum beats
and my perspective became strange,
more adult
and skewed;
The walls fell apart and my joints disbanded:
it was scary

but beautiful.

The Times are Different Now.

The Fireflies are dead.
The city lights still remain
but suffer no loss or humane shimmer
as any star should.

The doubt has evaporated,
but the basin has dried out:
and the Metropolitan has grown dimmer,
The ever-shivering blackout.

Sickly, the morning mist
and aching eyes leave nothing to the blue-gray,
only invisible-- I cover my eyes.

The radiance of those nights I once knew
--the luminescent breath of the city at your window--
--your beautiful smile as we drifted into dreams
is gone--

exists only
behind my eyelids;
the erratic R.E.M.
and the eternal fever.

Children

The children understand.

They are relatively quiet;
they look away for a moment
as if preoccupied,
off to daydream cities;

but then they smile again,
turning their bright eyes
back to you.

Let it not be known what stole their attention.

Drowsy in Twilight

I am the goddess of yellow fires
flaring in the sky on oddball afternoons
mildly sunny,
but dull as dusk.

On days mild,
with settings matte;
as if the wolves weren't crouched in the shrub:

but I can see them there,
as I am a goddess
of this land long abandoned for clearer thinking.

Abandoned by most, that is.

Either way, the drugged feeling
wreathes around the atmosphere;
it eats and devours,
it festers strangely,
it growls hungrily.

The creatures dash from cover to cover,
they gnaw on the corpses in the clearing;
and all the while, the gases fume;

the goddess of this place is sent into a lull.

The leaking fog is everywhere, and the wolves
the deserters, the beasts, the jackals
swarm about this dreaming
Landscape
called

"Consciousness."

Quote of the Day (Sort of):

"The hours passed slower than days, making empty spans of time drag ad infinitum."

--Respuo, a Lucky Star fanfic by Mark Ryan.

And no, it's not porn. For once. At least I don't think... huh. It's actually pretty good.

One-Liner:

Are there any amongst us who still know
the righteous wealth of sleep?

Judgement-- Derailment of Thought

Things have since changed,
haven't they?
Since
those
times?

It used to be
crystallized clear,
and "pure." Very "pure,"
indeed.

It was as if through a looking glass,
as if curiosity and ignorance
were the standard for happiness--
but they were, weren't they?

Ah...
now my doubts have bubbled over
and have begun to froth,
like boiling rice.

Why do the words
"right," and "wrong,"
seem too harsh, too worrisome?

Dark is not "evil,"
and light not "good,"

not necessarily...

Armies of ant-people
militant and crude,
line up to condemn me
and curse me
and spit...

they are like shadows
in the deepest recesses
of
my
mind...

Either way,
"judgment," is relative
and irrelevant,
so I will be at peace,

and live.

Yes, I will live.

The End of Days

"Order," is
nothing more
than controlled chaos;
all hours within spent my breath
are graveyard shifts, to me.

"Discord," is clearly worse than hell,
than "proper" ways of being:

it deadens the corpse;
it silences the mute,
and brings about the snowy
Armageddon--

the slow crawl of days
becomes constricted
and estranged from reality;

is reduced to
a "comatose" heartbeat,
the "comatose" woman suffocating as she "sleeps,"

and the frost begins to collect around my toenails,
dead yet still forced alive.

I turn my gaze up to the clouds and know,
with an "unwell" longing in my eyes
that the End of Days is far off,
but in existence,

and this knowledge brings me some false sense of peace.


The end of Days is a Blessed thing.

"I'm painting an abtsract."

My skin
is burning;
it's turned sickeningly Yellow:

I'm drowning like a rat in my own saccharine toxins.

Daisies and pinwheels turn to blood-tipped finger nails,
smeared under my eyes and trickling from my mouth;
my sheltered eyes have learned not to look away,

and oh,
oh.

Yes, that too;
I've learned to clamp down and keep my mouth shut:
the blood is everywhere, the lack thereof is in my mind;
and I'm raving and screaming,
"There must be something!"

My wordvomit-stench and my hopeful child self--
they all prove disappointing, embarrassing,
and simply stupid...

There's no where left
to take refuge,
not is structure, not in sonnets;
not in deep, empty stadiums--

there's just this,
this--
but where did it go?
I'm sitting here, staring,
chased out of my own life.

Slowly ticking awa-
y.

...

He appeared awake,
my brother,
but he was sleepwalking.

I asked him
what was he doing.

He told me that he
was "painting an abstract,"
and on it was written something like, "Freeze."

The Young Shopkeeper

A wistful yet wishful glance at the sun,
A storekeeper smiling
sad-
ly;

she stands outside
of her darling little shop
in a Tokyo suburb,

and she begins to sweep.

Broad
and powerful str-
okes, she pulls
the dust
close to
her heart.

A tiny circle forms at her feet, and someday
the ground
will finally be clean.

She sings, she sings
qui-
etly,
in the peaceful yet heartbroken day.

Her life
so far
has been wonderful,
and terrible,

so she supposes it has been okay.

She's lost,
she's lost
so many things

that
she
loves,

and she reflects this pain in her song...

But the melody
also ho-
lds
a pined for
fragment of hope,

for she knows it will not always
be that way.

Currently, she
does not live,

but she
is not dead;

her wounds are mind-numbing,
and they ache...

she lives for nothing,
but one day,
one day,

she will live for everything.

Her dream...

her dream...

her dream...

her dream...

one day,
it will be realized.

One day,
she will venture from her comfortable shop,
and will take herself away.

Survival Guide:

Harden your heart.
Close your eyes.
Do not smile,
but do not cry.

Do not live,
but do not die...
do not move your feet;
keep them grounded
and still.

Ugly, Bastardized, Nightmarish Raving

I wanted you to stop me in the hallways
and ask me what was wrong.
This time, I wanted you
to actually
care,
unlike the previous ones.

---

I now sit on the opposite side of this wall,
miles and miles away from you.

Delusion and wishful thinking produced your figure,
standing seamlessly outside my door.

I can hear the ticking of the second hand.
I am wasting away my life.

I stare through computer screen
--though I make it do nothing--
I have no where to dwell,
even within its depths.

Hours tick by.
Click clack click click.

Days, months, and years go by.
Tick tack tick tick.

You were my one and only salvation.
Hic-- sniff-- sniff-- sniff--

I'll proabably never see you again.

And I can't live like this.

I want to cry.
I want to cry.
I want to bridge this million-mile gap;
I want to see you;
I want to hold you;
I want to cry
in your arms.

That will never happen,
but I want to cry...
I need this "closure"...

And I can't live like this.

Even my poetry has degenerated
into ugly, bastardized
nightmarish raving.

I
...
will
...
...
wait
...
...
...
.

But
...
some
...
...
day
...
...
...

I
...
will
...
...
find
...
...
...

it
.

Midnight of the Amateur Poets

All words fall from us now.
Any purpose we had means nothing.

We bide our time
and bite out tongues,
and wring our hands in silence.

We wait for something to strike us.

The frustration tolls like heavy bells,
the boom boom boom of our ears' drums;
The salvation we seek is a trilling melody
from a silver flute.

Midnight is approaching,
and we stand, sit,
bury our faces into our knees.

We can hear something, but
it is mundane, normal, hushed:
the passing of a car, the couplet barking of a dog,
the brief loading and unloading of a garbage truck.

Then, after hours that fall away in minutes,
midnight has passed. And the schoolhouse is calling.

We stand as scarecrows, melt into the dawn
and harvest the fruits of our suffering:

Amateur, easily outdone poetry.

And we prepare, as starved workhorses, for the day's labor.

Again and again.

Again and again.

That said labor is something
that never ends.

Something was Rustling in the Wheat Field

The moon was a fleeting,
still-born soul;
the quiet village kept, and
all seemed to be well...

The mothers had long since moved on, moved on
and villagers cared no more, no more,
and the river swept on, the minnows wiggled on discreetly
in the stream every night, as part of the scenery.

The cries that would never be heard were silenced,
the air that would never be breathed became cold;

the soul that wasn't there ascended into the sky
and began to rove with the invisible angels.

the village slept undisturbed, no longer aware,
but something was rustling in the wheat field.

The stars and the sky filled the allotted slot
as the dear child-- the moon's-- friends and foster family.

I Feel...

I feel like I am smiling
faintly and weakly; perhaps
I am awake in some artificial state.

I feel like I am asleep, but maybe, perhaps
I am being being preserved in
some insomniac capsule.

There is an air of content and dull
happiness
about me,
I wonder if it's real?
Genuine?

Or perhaps
I am drugged?

I want to write some pure, sweet poetry, like,
"... and everyone was happy,
within this moonlit melody,"

but all that comes to me is morbid
and wrong.

This is a weird state,
like play-dough,
like jell-o.

I'm sitting here and rotting in it all,
but I think there's a smile upon my lips.

ひきこもり by Night

Cradle and hold the unwell and sickly;
encourage and humble those who are not plagued;

I am one of the former group,
I am one of the dying.

My pain is not caused by my disease.
My pain is my disease.

"...like nocturnal animals, hikikomori grab what they need to [fill] their sheltered lives, and quickly return home before the morning light cracks and the working world reappears."

"Please Take Care of My Kitten, my Darling"

The one I love abandoned me.
She left me all alone in a cardboard box.

It was wet
and cold
in that December night when she did so,
as if the needles of rain would freeze where they fell,

and my box
(which I was left in)
became soggy with empty hopes
divorcing themselves from the sky.

I was nothing more than a mewling kitten, back then;
the box seemed ten feet tall and stretched upwards to the heavens;
it was bigger than me, and I was dwarfed by its might,
trapped, crying, and with fur that became sodden.

I was small,
vulnerable,
and kept apart from the world
by the walls of some odd container
(my box).

And try, try, and try as I might,
I was nothing more than a rabbit
trapped
in a snare,
a lonely, falsely accused prisoner.

For you see, at first, when I came to,
and found myself within that box
I clawed frantically
at its walls
with my little kitten claws,
and called for a savior to take me out of it
and adopt me;

no one ever came.

So I waited
and waited
--I could do no more than that--
and time crept onwards in my limited world.

Slowly, the stars
were fleshed out of the deep,
indigo night,

little flecks of hope
that were too far to touch.

I wondered if I would ever
be free
or happy
again,
and thought of the one I had loved.

The morning came, and the day passed, and
the next night arrived.
Still no one had come, and the stars
were still too far away.

The next morning came, and
the next day passed, and
the next night arrived.

Still no one came.
The stars were intangible,
and the pattern repeated
again and again.

Months, years;
all remained unchanging,
and I matured, an abandoned kitten into
a forsaken cat,
with hardened claws and
sharpened, bleached-white fangs.

One night,
as I lay
in the familiar, cramped space,
a shooting star crash-landed
atop of my kitty head.

I blinked
and yowled in surprise
upon impact;
I winced for a moment,
and I got a bit hurt.

But when I recovered,
I was amazed to see:
a star!
In my box!
A star I could reach!

It was beautiful
and round,
and though it had caused some pain
it proved to be sacred and precious indeed,
even more so than the first night they were visible.

And with that fallen star came,
to my shocked delight,
a warm, loving person
in that warm summer night.

She was different
and kind,
and reached with outstretched hands;
she picked me up and took me out of the box.

The fallen, brilliantly shining
star
illuminated
all within my line of vision.

That beautiful person gave me a home her heart
--by some strange and unlikely miracle-- and,
I worried no longer about the troubles of the past.

But just for a moment,
for a brief, solitary moment,
I thought of that gone, lovely face...
and wondered if she had ever loved me.

As we walked away from my prison,
me and my savior,

I looked back and saw a note attached
to the box.

"Please take care of my kitten, my Darling,
Please take care of my Love."

I Just Have to Go

there, I just have
to Go.

This desire has spiked,
this longing has hit it's peak;

I can take it no more.
I am going there, I must.

To quell my mind's thirst
and to soothe my heart's rage
I must go to this place

where I will dance in the streets
and speak
the tongue
of angels.

Where am I going, you may wonder
and ask?

I am going to the Land of the Bold yet Mild-Tempered.
I am going to the Land of the Connected by The Red String.
I am going to the Land where Everyone has a Friend.
I am going to the Land of the Foreign, but not Odd.
I am going to the Land where the People Will Get Me!

I just have to go to this land.

From all angles,
from all
Three-hundred-sixty degrees,
it is where I belong.

I will be one of
the brave
and the many,
I will be one of the
pioneers!

The journeying pioneers!

I'll set my feet to work
and walk across the oceans.
I'll set my hands to work
to bring about my means.

I am, even now, preparing for the day
when I can go to this place.

I am off
to the Land of My Dreams!

Thoughts on a Rainy Night:

Part 1: A Feeling I'm Used to:

It's okay,
but not really.

It never will be.

I smile upon the faces of hollow waste-bins,
I leap across the forest of worthless slum buildings,

I cry with humiliation at a sophisticated me, I
wish I could be more like her.

I really do wish
I wasn't such a crybaby;

I really do wish
it wasn't so hard...

But if the plip-plop of angel tears
beating quietly on my window
and the hurricane of the storm drain

have anything to say,

then they say,

"it's okay."

(But really, it's not.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 2: But who?

A reoccurring figure is
inhabiting my daydreams.

She occupies the memories that
I won't let myself remember.

But who is this person,
preoccupying my mind?

Is imaginary,
real,
--photoshopped?--
or a spirit?

The answer is simple,
and really quite sad.

She exists, but I just haven't found her yet.

She is the girl of my dreams.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(...) part 2

(Life)
.

(It is being robbed from me,)
(robbed)
(from my house as I sleep,)
(sleep,)

(thinking myself safe)
(in bed)
.

(Life is ticking away)
(as I wait)
(and sleep)
(and doze)
.

(I get up, out of bed)
.

(but nothing can mend)
(my empty heart)
.

(So empty)
.

(...)

(Amber is a nocturnal soul.)

(She talks about herself in third person and
writes things on her hands in the blackest of sharpies.)

(Amber is bored.)

(Amber has nothing better to do.)

(Goodnight, Amber.)

(Goodnight, hopes.)

(Goodnight, raving loneliness.)

(Goodnight, raving lowliness.)

As I Ponder my Solitude, the Eagle Dies.

It is quite sad.

I feel odd,
and solitary like
a dying,
once-proud eagle.

He once stood brave and proud, with wings
that scooped
up the heavens themselves.

A whole, spacious world,
with mountains and rivers
--a little bit chilly, but steadfastly beautiful--

existed under his feathers.

The eagle was always alone, however,
with the aforementioned universe seen from a birds-eye view.

He never came down to Earth.
I guess it was just fate, or cold feet
that willed him to remain apart.

It is quite sad.

Because the eagle is finally
dy-
ing,
after all these lone years,
dying all alone
(as custom for
this troubled one),

on the steepest of precipices
high above the world
of normalcy, one
of envious quality.

I look away; my smile falters; I am Smitten

I see a water-colored image.
But all of the watery colors are black
and gray.

I am not fully sure if this image is real,
dreamt,
or perhaps even photoshopped.

Still, the watery, wintry, translucent image
is beautiful,

if not a little dark.

Dingy lights shine
amidst the din.

Someone is standing there, but the colors
are too slurred to see the face.

All is shadowy in this odd watercolor.

It is a feminine figure.

And runny, thorned roses adorn its head.

The water-color is like a stain
on my brain.

I look away from it,
my hopeless dream.

My smile falters.

I am Smitten.

To any Victim of the Haitian Earthquake, any Family Member Thereof, or Anyone Relatedly Afflicted:

From a spoiled little white girl
in the heart of America
--the fatted, noisy cow forever kept from the slaughter--
comes this poem, to the poorest,
most unfortunate of people,

far closer to God than I will ever be.

My words are construed on the finest of devices
(as compared to the sodden, creaking cot that the dying,
sickly, wounded, or otherwise afflicted
lay their throbbing heads,

crying eyes,
ringing ears;
and nostrils flared
with the reek of death)

and my feet are kept warm with patterned,
purple slippers
(ridiculously decorated, as compared to the bare,
twisted, or otherwise crushed digits of the wound-
ed)
.

I spread this poem to the corners of the world,
and cast it out into the sea with the single stroke
of a key;

I make my voice heard and fear no reproach;
I sleep safe and warm within a prospering household.

I have a future, a school, the opportunity
for a job,
--and moreover, I have
so-called "dignity"--
--(and more interestingly, I have
so-called "equality")--

and society loves a spoiled,
white
American

girl.

I, however,
am far less cherished
in the eyes of my Savior.

Blessed be the ones who have died in this quake.
Do not let the light die, for He will
not forsake.

This is my world, as seen through a foggy window, when it's raining outside:

I am, for the most part,
not a part of this world,
nor am I a part of any other.

I belong, simply, to nothingness, not
to any one institution
or any one person.

No one knows just how deafening the silence can be
as it screeches and caterwauls,
gaining in slowly in decibles
every second of the day; as if

worsened on
particular intervals.

Yes, yes, it seems that

I am not dead,
yet I am not living.

That I am not asleep,
yet not fully awake.

That I am not in pain,
yet do not feel well.

That I am not frowning,
yet I am not smiling.

Yes, yes, it seems

that I am imprisoned
in a grayscale city bereft of its luster.

This is how "it" began.

Everything I do is like a disease.

One simple action manifests
itself
in the back of my mind.

The feelings of wholeness
and hapiness caused
by that one simple action

make me feel so good
and complete.

I can't get that action out of my head
or the way that it made me feel.

Still ignorant of its evils I
stoop to its wallows,
bend down to reach the bottom
of its pit.

I didn't know,
honest,
what I was doing,

but I had a feeling that it wasn't well.

Even still,
I didn't
know.

It became
commonplace,
my habit
and adiction;

But it began with just one
simple,
innocent,
ignorant action.