The Way Back.

I found a shadow beneath you

and I crawled inside, deep and dark

I curled my body unnaturally, 

Bent and twisted and knotted

I asked it to carry me through

I hid there and waited for the answer

The shadow whispered into its belly

One word, one word, one word, one word

But if it replied, I never heard

The longer I crouched within

The darker it became, the deeper I fell

“Will you come back?” 

If there’s a way back, I can’t tell.

Reason To Run #33:

(Numbers arbitrarily assigned, depending on how sober I am.)

There was a time I thought I knew for certain not who I was, but who I hoped to be, and who I could work towards being. Then, you held my hand and I let go of the idea long enough to watch it free-floating from the outside, to see as you see. Now, it’s as though my thoughts are a dense forest; snaked with fog, shifting and morphing. You see, that version of me I knew so well is incomplete; naked and grasping at leaves for cover. I spoke the answer, but couldn’t see the question well enough to understand why it was being asked. But you found it, and cleared a path so that I might find my way to certainty. And I can’t even tell you. I must run to preserve that which I do not want to know: myself. Because I might not ever feel good enough to ask the question first. 

A Fuss. (Excerpt)

The idea of time, for me, is a bit confusing. I don’t remember much of my childhood, or my early adolescent years. And it’s not because of drugs or alcohol – I don’t even know Chelsea Handler. Disjointed memories are my forte. The banal and mundane don’t stand a chance, because my eyes don’t absorb the shapes and colors of their already fading existence. I remember the strange, the random, the forgettable, and the inconsequential.

One day, I just woke up, and was. Simple. Easy. Without fuss, I came into being as an infant in a man’s body, unprepared but somehow eager, and in a hurry. All that preceded my marathon race to adulthood was blackness and confusion, a smeared portrait of some other person I don’t recognize; maybe never even existed. A very important woman in my life once turned to me and said, without irony or pretense, “Sometimes I wonder if you’re my son at all.” Just like that, I knew the one and only truth I will ever need to know: time holds us hostage until we’re ready to understand our purpose.