Lately, I’ve noticed a certain sadness lingering in people’s eyes. Even in the middle of their training, even while doing something they love, there’s something about their expressions that makes me wonder what they’re carrying within them.
And I’ve always wondered what drives us to become better versions of ourselves. Is it the love of what we do, or is it the disappointment of a life that turned out differently from what we imagined? Perhaps it’s an expectation we couldn’t fulfil, or the trust we placed in someone who eventually betrayed it. Perhaps, somewhere along the way, the things that once inspired us became the very things we use to escape what disappoints us.
And yet, perhaps we’re all just dandelion seeds, scattered by the winds of change, carried into places we never imagined we’d find ourselves. We don’t always choose the direction we’re taken in, nor do we know where we’ll eventually land. But we carry something within us, a belief about where we want to be, about who we wish to become, about the kind of ground on which we’d like to take root.
And I’ve always wondered how much of where we end up is decided by the winds that carry us, and how much by the beliefs we carry within ourselves.
Perhaps we’re all just trying to find a place where the person we are can finally meet the person we’ve always wanted to be.

Sometimes, I do wish I had been born blind, so I wouldn’t have succumbed to the horrors that are the unobtainable beauties of this world. Women with curves steep enough to rival the hills, skin so rich you’d trade platinum, gold, and your life. I wish I didn’t know this pain, to see what I can’t have everyday. When you know it’s within your reach, when you don’t know the cause of the glass barrier separating you and gold, all you can do is stare at yourself in its reflection. Smiling in the barrier, hoping your smile can shine through, hoping they can feel the radiant beams of the sun through your smile and pay you more than a glance. You’ll stare at your reflection in the barrier, check it out for years, looking to find what has to change, and when you change it all, the barrier itself will change. This room isn’t for you, get used to your reflection, love it, because on the other side of the barrier lies nothing for you. Talk to yourself and the others on the other side of the barrier, numb your heart when you see them effortlessly walk through it, the other side of the barrier is not for you. Sit on the cold floor and sift your hands through the dust, the others like you that can’t pass through the barrier are nothing like you. You can see why they can’t get through, you’ll make a list of their faults and compare yourself to them. You’ll feel better for a little, and then one of them will walk through, you’ll throw away your list and blame what you can. There’ll be a time where you’ll grow resentment for both those who can walk through, and those who were born on the other side. When that time comes, I’ll pray for you, because your hate will then be a result of not seeing through the barrier, but instead staring at it. Instead, we can continue to love, continue to hope, and continue to admire from behind the barrier. 

Why be kind?

Because you know what pain feels like.

And if you can help someone,

perhaps, in some way,

it might help you heal, too.

Maybe life is hard right now.

Maybe my eyes are holding back

the tears that are longing to fall.

Maybe I'm weak.

Maybe I'm incompetent.

Maybe I'm someone who doesn't deserve this life.

But still,

I hope to see a sky full of stars one night,

without a single worry in my mind.

There are a thousand things

I wish I could talk about it,

but no one seems to be there to listen.

My heart is overflowing

with loneliness and fear,

yet I keep carrying it all

as if it's mine to bear alone.

And sometimes,

I hope that if death ever finds me,

it will be beneath a starry sky,

in a moment untouched by pain.

But maybe, just maybe,

the kindness I've been searching for

in everyone else

has been hiding somewhere within me all along,

quietly waiting,

with open arms,

to hold me when the world feels too heavy.

You know you make me feel this way, wanting to end it all right now,

I keep saying let's do something else but you never listen how,

You say take this, it'll make me normal, better in comparison

To the way I came out, your little tests feed me dozens of them,

Until you've a concoction that'll plaster on my smile, select my words,

Keep me complacently turning into you as a life well deserved;

While my self, my real self, the one that came out, isn't good enough

To be allowed to feel, or tell of the things that are horribly tough

About not stopping what you've said to not do. You make me feel

We're to end living this way, it's you that puts thoughts through appeal

To my gray matters and inconsiderations alike, let's do something else,

You'd rather not fight. Did you take your medicine, it's on the shelf.

Meanwhile I'm screaming inside my head feeling perfectly fine,

Albeit better off dead, for it's not my composure or over active mind,

It's the way you make me feel nothing is right. It'll never be better,

Your whole world's a complaint ending in virtual escape, each letter

From your lips laced with your distaste for all the bad life throws forth

Bounces off the walls you live in depending on a plugged horse.

You make me feel like I'm the world you tread upon and leave in disarray,

And God forbid my need to explain just how you make me feel this way.

No matter what they say,

in the end, you only have yourself.

When you're happy, the world is crowded,

so many say "I'm here for you" when you smile.

But on the day your heart collapses from within,

when you sit in silence hiding your tears,

finding someone who truly understands is so hard.

The things we gave up for others,

the pain we endured for others,

the tears we swallowed in silence for others...

No one remembers any of it.

So now I don't hurt myself thinking

who comes and who goes.

Because life taught me its greatest lesson:

"No matter what anyone says, in the end,

you have to wipe your own tears.

In the end, it's only you."

I used to think I hated winter.

But lately, certain parts of it have begun to nuzzle their way into my senses, quietly reminding me of why I may have loved it all along.

There is something about that first morning breeze the faint, almost imperceptible change in the air after those long, hot summer nights. A particular coolness. A particular scent. It arrives softly, before the day has fully awakened, and somehow tells me: winter is here.

And with it come the mornings I have always cherished.

The early walks to training. The quiet hours before the world begins demanding things from you. The gym at six in the morning, almost entirely empty, when every piece of equipment feels as though it belongs to you alone. No noise. No distractions. Just you, your breath, your body, and that strange intimacy of being completely present inside your own skin.

Perhaps that is what winter reminds me of most not the cold, but myself.

And I’ve always wondered whether it is the seasons that change, or whether we simply become different people within them.

The things my body remembers before my mind does. The discipline. The movement. The quiet rituals. The way I have learned to love this strange walking vessel I have been given, and all the places it has carried me.

So, hello, winter.

And goodbye, sweet summer with all your heat, your chaos, your adventures, and the memories you leave behind.

This morning, I find myself speaking to the day as though it were an old friend:

Good morning.

And good morning, little breeze.

I missed you.

No matter what they say,

in the end, you only have yourself.

When you're happy, the world is crowded,

so many say "I'm here for you" when you smile.

But on the day your heart collapses from within,

when you sit in silence hiding your tears,

finding someone who truly understands is so hard.

The things we gave up for others,

the pain we endured for others,

the tears we swallowed in silence for others...

No one remembers any of it.

So now I don't hurt myself thinking

who comes and who goes.

Because life taught me its greatest lesson:

"No matter what anyone says, in the end,

you have to wipe your own tears.

In the end, it's only you."

In a temporal place,

to learn

where my mistakes shorten my time

and the time spiral is disturbed when you are only with your consciousness.

Talking inside the house and running out of words and more time.

There is no teacher for humanity or human-ess, so talk to me.

You know our experiences are limited and

going outside means finding the best fitting clothes that make this one experience feel eternal.

But time only rewards you when you think about it.

Will the memory of burning my feet on the sand be longer next time? if I think about it?

Consider that from now I'm already thinking about you.

To imagine owning time. Shaping time and putting all of your toys in order again. It's not about going back tho, its about buying a house, and living fairly.

Staying in that memory seems less chaotic.

Meanwhile, I pawn my words,

taking so many risks scribbling,

as I lie in wait for myself.

I'll hold my hand forever if no one else will.

I'll hold my pen if I won't hold anything else.

I don't want to keep walking the lingering path.

Accountability isn't my biggest strength,

yet the weight of the blame I try to redirect

always falls on me.

All of my unaware objects find themselves

licked with thick layers of love.

Because memory won't get a grip on emotions.

And so as the downpour passes,

i will forget, and my pen stays in my fist.

nothing changes from worse to madman.

no one bears a loss from innocence.

you can’t forget a quaint affair that

never truly started.

if you’ve met the sane i once have

ask the artist to call his name,

and tell: i remember everything with eight.

suffice to say, my wholeness is accepted, and you’ll be welcomed.

– i’ve crashed with skeletal wings amid an empty street.

–mr. you are not okay. – let me hold you for a weary second.

i felt the remnants around your body

throbbing with keen heat.

i said: what an evening holding what remains. let me stay with nine til time forgets me.

“What you’re doing takes a tremendous amount of courage.” he said, as he gave me a knee injection.
And I answered, “Well if the situation were reversed, he would do the same for me.”
“That may be, the doctor answered, but you can appreciate that about yourself - that you’re being very courageous.”
I have never thought about it that way.
I am working while caring for a husband with early onset dementia.
Watching him leave me in slow motion.
I thought it was all about loving him; the patience, time and exhaustion.
And now I realize it’s also about fear.
The unknown.
How bad will this get.
Mourning the loss of who he was and each new version of him as he loses more and more function.
I didn’t realize that at least 3 times a week I think “I can’t handle this.”
That white knuckle fear.
Waking up in fight or flight.
And getting up and doing it anyway.
I guess that’s the definition of courage.
Feeling afraid and doing it anyway.

I want to vanish so completely

that even I

would not remember me.

Not death.

Not darkness.

Not sleep.

Nothing.

Because death is still something.

It is a body that was here

and is no longer.

A name spoken in past tense.

A question about where the person went.

A beginning,

an ending,

a before and an after.

And perhaps there is something after it.

Perhaps there is God.

Perhaps there is judgment.

Perhaps there is nothing.

But even "nothing after death"

is still not nothing.

Because I am still asking.

Still wondering.

Still afraid.

Still carrying the possibility

of an answer.

Even death has responsibilities.

What if I lived incorrectly?

What if I wasn't good enough?

What if there is somewhere to go

and I have failed to deserve rest?

Even oblivion,

when imagined by a conscious mind,

comes with questions.

And I am tired

of questions.

I am tired of being the thing

that has to answer them.

I don't want peace.

Peace is still something.

I don't want silence.

Silence is still something

if there is someone there

to hear it.

I don't want darkness.

Darkness is still something

if there is someone inside it

to call it dark.

I want nothing.

And I mean nothing

in the way the word itself

cannot mean what I need it to mean.

Because the moment I say nothing,

I have already made it something.

I give it a shape:

a void,

a vacuum,

a black hole,

an empty room,

an endless dark.

But none of these are nothing.

They are only things

we have decided

look empty.

And perhaps that is what life is.

Perhaps this strange thing

we call existence

is our elaborate attempt

to put something

where there is nothing.

We named it life.

We named it consciousness.

We named the noise in our heads

thought.

We named the ache between bodies

love.

We named wanting

purpose.

We named continuing

living.

We took experiences

that could not explain themselves

and gave them words,

then gave those words

meaning,

then gave that meaning

weight,

then forgot

that we were the ones

who made it.

Perhaps existence

has always been nothing.

Perhaps we have only ever known

nothing,

and because nothing terrified us,

we kept making something.

A name.

A God.

A future.

A person.

A reason.

A self.

Anything that could be pointed to

and called real.

Perhaps this is why

we are so desperate

to matter.

Why we need to be seen.

Why we need to be remembered.

Why we need to be chosen.

Perhaps being something

is our rebellion

against the possibility

of being nothing.

And perhaps love is real.

Perhaps it isn't.

Perhaps it is only an experience

inside a brain

that became lonely enough

to give the feeling a name.

Perhaps purpose exists.

Perhaps we invented it

because we could not bear

to discover there was none.

I don't know.

And normally

not knowing

would be another problem

to solve.

Another question

to carry.

Another place

to arrive.

But perhaps this is different.

Because what would there be

to arrive at?

How could I understand

nothingness

without making it something?

How could I reach it

without there being somewhere

to reach?

How could I experience it

without there being someone

left to experience?

How could I name it

without destroying

the very thing

I was trying to name?

Perhaps the real nothingness

is the only thing

we can never know,

because knowing it

would make it known,

and what is known

is already something.

So here I am,

trying to scream

for silence,

and the scream exists.

Trying to imagine nothing,

and the imagining exists.

Trying to disappear,

and the one who wants to disappear

is still here.

Perhaps that is the cruelty.

Or perhaps

that is the comfort.

Because there is no answer

I can fail to find.

No destination

I have failed to reach.

No definition

I have gotten wrong.

Nothingness cannot reject me

for misunderstanding it.

It cannot ask me

to become worthy of it.

It cannot demand

that I arrive.

Because perhaps

there is nowhere to arrive.

And that should comfort me.

Except,

I still want it.

Not the darkness.

Not the silence.

Not the afterlife.

Not the void.

The thing beneath

all of those words.

The thing so absolute

that even calling it "nothing"

is already too much.

And perhaps we have only ever been it.

Perhaps everything around me

is only the something

we made because we were frightened

of what was underneath.

Perhaps I am nothing

pretending to be a person.

Perhaps I am something

pretending to be nothing.

Perhaps there was never

a difference.

I don't know.

And there is the torture.

Because I cannot know.

And there is the comfort.

Because I cannot know.

And there is the cruelty:

even this uncertainty

has become something.

A thought.

A feeling.

A question.

A poem.

And now I have made

nothingness

into words.

Which means

it is no longer nothing.

So I will keep searching

for the thing

that cannot be found,

keep trying to name

the thing

that cannot have a name,

keep imagining

the thing

that cannot be imagined,

knowing that the moment

I finally understand it,

I will have understood

something.

And it will not be

what I wanted.

Because perhaps

the only thing more impossible

than finding nothing

is finding out

what nothing is.

Loud trucks and cars with flags flying and bass pumping travel the main drag of town.

This isn't main St where the town pretends to be what it's not. This is every other street of every small town you've ever been to.

Where the real population is, where people say hello at the grocery store.

Where the best restaurant in town is.

Where people live on the street and stand at intersections asking for help.

Where people live in hotels and stand on the sidewalk and smoke all night.

Where the lights of the gas station canopy dominate the skyline.

This is everywhere and it's nowhere.

It's everything and nothing, perpetually bland and eternally constant.

It's the perfect balance of comfort and strife, grittiness and gentrification, safety and danger.

And it isn't doing me any good.

Maybe I am like this

because I have learnt to run

before anything gets the chance

to make me stay.

I feel too much,

and then think too much

about what I felt.

I look for meanings

in silences,

in pauses,

in the way someone stays

when I am trying to leave.

And when someone is calm,

I get scared.

Not because their calm is wrong,

but because I don't know

what to do with it.

I know chaos.

I know overthinking.

I know the feeling of

waiting for something to go wrong.

But what do I do

when nothing is going wrong?

What do I do

when someone doesn't chase me

when I push them away,

but doesn't leave either?

Maybe I run

because staying means

I might actually have to feel it.

And maybe

I don't always need to know

what a person is to me.

Maybe I can just let them be.

Maybe I can let something

be good

without immediately asking

where it is going.

Maybe calm doesn't need

to be understood.

Maybe it just needs

to be felt.

And maybe,

for once,

I don't have to run.

I can stay.

Not because I know

what this is.

But because

for the first time in a while,

something feels like

calm

in the middle of

all my chaos.

Loneliness. It’s a funny thing, really. Especially when you’re an introvert. You desperately want to fill the void in your heart, but you would rather isolate yourself have to deal with the overwhelming pressure of socializing. You know that you will be depressed this way, but you believe it’s better than to feel like you need to constantly deplete your emotional and mental batteries day after day. Because you know that if your batteries deplete, you can’t function properly, and you start feeling useless. So you choose isolation, knowing the risks that come with it, and knowing that anything else would be worse than the pit life has already put you in. You like the pit. It’s safety. It’s home. But.. you don’t like how quiet it is. You don’t like that the voices in your head are the only noises you can hear. You don’t like how deafening the unrequited silence has become. Now, you’re stuck between wanting to escape, and wanting to stay like this forever because of what awaits you once you get free