i seem to live a thousand lifetimes

from the comfort of my own room.

sitting in my bay window in the dark

i grieve with people that don’t exist

and feel love i fear

will never be my own.

i have found the courage

to climb mountains

and conquer kingdoms

but still can’t find the words to speak

to the very people

sitting right in front of me.

i am danger in a safe place

love without loss.

i live vicariously through these

figments of my imagination

so much that sometimes

i fear i have become them.

but that’s how it works isn’t it?

every day

we take a little bit of something

and become it.

everyone is a melting pot

of so many things

that it would be impossible

to trace a soul back to

just one starting point.

my things are just

a little bit harder to see.

as life moves forward

i live 100 years

dancing with ghosts.

i exist between stanzas

i live my countless lives

through nothing but an idea

in someone else’s head.

i have lost count of the days

since i have felt anything.

the lines carved into my wall

marking the rising and setting

of the sun

over

and over

and over again

i am running out of space.

soon the lines will overlap

with each other

making shapes that will eventually

spell out the words that i always feared

they would tell me.

when you are not friends

with your own reflection

the person looking back at you

feels so distant that you might as well

be looking at a stranger.

it will whisper things to you

that you already know too well.

it will grab you by the throat

and crack open your skull

and reach into your brain

until it finds what it was looking for.

your stranger will

twist it’s fingers around

and in doing so it will jumble up

fact and opinion

until you can see no difference

between the two.

it will put its filthy, cracked, rotten hands

over your ears so when the outsiders

shout that it is safe to finally leave

you will only hear the thoughts

that your stranger carved into

your brain with the knife that you gave it.

i feel like i’m walking on a line.

balancing carefully

shifting and veering and hinging

from side to side.

never falling.

on the edge of a cliff i look over

and i can feel what it would feel like to fall.

let go.

sometimes i get close.

too close.

the ground crumbles under my palms

as i reach and reach

for a closer look.

let go.

i could, you know.

it would be so easy to just fall.

the wind will carry me down

whispering through my hair

my neck

my chest

all the way down

let go.

and that would be it.

the waves would hold me

sing my name

lick my wounds until

there aren’t any left to heal.

let go.

but i don’t.

i don’t because it’s not that easy is it.

it’s not that easy

you can’t let go because

there is still a line to be walked

i don’t because at least up here on the cliff

you can still see the sun set

and the seasons change

and your hair grow longer

and your brothers age.

i don’t because the wind will not whisper

and the waves will not sing.

they will cast me into a darkness

where there is no line

no cliff

no decision.

and so i will walk this tedious score

that has become all that i have

to prove that i ever

even took a breath

in this world.

i will walk

because now

at least

i made a choice.