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.