I appreciate your attempts to comfort me or protect me, but you forget we do not have the same problems. I did not care about my weight, my acne, my hair until you told me there was something wrong. I did not care to watch not what I ate but how much I ate until you started commenting. I do not need to hear "don't you think you've had enough?" or "is that skin?" or "I've found...for you to use." I did not ask you to become my largest critic because of your own insecurities. I loved myself, my body, my hair until you began to "help."

I did not need to hear your constant comments on your weight and your body. They've begun to squirm their way into my mind, and now they wait until I have let down my guard.

I did not need to feel your fingers subduing my locks, teaching me that I had to hide a part of myself to look presentable. It's taken me years to accept my mane.

I do not need to hear your constant whisperings of what I should and shouldn't eat, and lately, how much. I wonder if your problems stem not from eating too much but not enough.

I do not need to hear your constant critiques of everyone around you. You're only teaching me how to be impatient and angry.

I love you, mother. I really do, but sometimes I wonder if it's me you see or only a younger you.

i remember learning

facts and opinions

that one was absolute

the other, subject to change

but,

as i've grown older

i see now

that was just an exercise

to follow fiction and nonfiction

so that which the world believed

would be identified as truth

while my reality faded

why not?

was never good enough

until i became "educated"

but,

why not?

was what you tried to erase in the beginning

and in the end

it is what you praise

i've learned now

Truth is what "I" believe

what the Self believes

the World just gets to the Self before we can

fact

opinion

they are

whatever you decide they are

so long as the world agrees

I know there must be an Eternal Truth

But,

For humanity,

We prefer our own kind

so we twist the "facts"

facts are opinions

opinions are facts

fiction is reality

reality is fiction

there is no difference

if we don't want there to be

Before I fell in love with words and sounds, before I was enthralled by Tolkien’s work, I was as passionate student of codes. Codes only keep a young child busy for so long though before she wishes to start using her own.

I was not an outgoing child, and only had a few friends that I chose to interact with everyday. Those girls stuck by me in everything. They put up with me teaching them ciphers, and pig pen, and morse code, and soon everything we did was in code. We carried pen and paper everywhere in the event that something would need to be encoded or decoded, and we grew bored. We began to convene in our hideway beneath the surface, and we held secret meetings in the woods. Our new words took the form of simple ciphers, and our simple shift took on new forms until we had a new language spilling forth from our lungs.

It wasn’t long before our secret language brewed a secret society, and to fit our little world, our names had to change as well. And N. L. Nosleni began her adventures.

Do you know how angry

I was the day I learned

That the spelling I'd been using

ALL of my life

Was considered wrong?

"An archaic spelling"

Really?

Do I look a day over a thousand?

I'm sorry.

Despite popular belief,

I am not a vampire,

nor a witch,

nor am I a sentinent robot or stone.

Last I checked,

It was 2019.

And it's pidgeon

Not

Pigeon.

I heard you today a little.

Not from your mouth but another.

I think, though,

It was what you wanted me to hear.

It wasn’t a wave

Breaking on my head

Or a fire in my heart.

I didn’t weep,

and my eyes barely glistened.

But, I think you began to answer some of my questions.

It’s not heart, and it’s not head.

It’s a process of neither

Feeling nor Thinking.

It’s a wearing down,

Not of my defenses,

But of my identity.

And I think I’m okay with that.

I’m not sure of who I am anyway.

Only who I want to be,

And that is subject to change.

After all, I’m still a little confused.

Writing used to be my escape from the world, but now my mind takes care of that. I had to separate the two a while back over creative differences. Both were too messy to really get along as roommates. My writing now, well, it's the expression of any thoughts and feelings that I cannot address, anything that I've tried to explain before and had others not understand, or anything that I've dissected to its smallest components and decided to just let go. When I write, I scream into the void. I don't expect the void to remember me, one of its many pilgrims, but I know it'll gobble up my offerings with haste while I gain relief. My writing is the excess of me.

Come with me

To the looking glass

Do you see her?

I see her

From time to time, but

Only a glimpse

Iron Ore

Pupils, peering in

Look closer, please

A shimmer

Of golden tendrils

Wyrms on her back

Do you see?

I’m trying to warn

you. Look closer

Oh! See now

how her fangs have grown

Sharper than steel

Do you not

See what lies beneath?

Please, just focus.

That dread smile

I see it now. She’s

Spotted you now.

Go now, please

I can handle her

Why? Don’t you know?

That wolf there

Is me. And she will

Be till the end.

You hate her.

Don’t you?

I know I would.

Everything comes with a price.

You tried to warn them.

I know you did.

I think I would have.

They never listen.

Do they?

I know.

They want proof.

They always want proof.

Do they really think we didn’t have any?

You and I

We’re always prepared.

We see ahead.

We know.

They don’t,

So they question.

They let anger consume them.

Everything comes with a price.

It’s lonely.

Is it not?

To know,

But for them to doubt

Until you question who you are.

It was meant to be a gift.

Most days it is a curse.

I know.

Did you see me,

Struggling in your example?

I see you,

In my mind’s eye

Just as I see Her.

Her intentions are hard to judge.

I know you.

You want to believe in her intentions.

You fought of the haze of emotions

Like me.

We all succumb

In one way or another.

Tell me,

Was it worth it?

Were you lonely even then?

Is your gift inside me now?

Would it have been better

If you doubted more?

When I take the gift,

Will it become my curse?

Or will I save

What you could not?

I think I know, Sister.

It will consume us.

I think you knew.

Everything comes with a price.

I was told

"It's not supposed to make sense;

It's just a feeling."

But then,

"Don't trust what you feel. Emotions are not Truth."

Next,

"He doesn't necessarily speak to you in words;

Sometimes it's a feeling, a pull on you heart."

Now I don't know,

I don't quite feel normal.

I don't quite comprehend normal.

I think the message has been lost in translation

From brain

To heart

To brain.

It's not in my brain, it's not in my heart

What am I not getting?