When I Was Little, I Used To Stay Away From Matches Because I Was Sure I Would Set Myself On Fire. What

Wars end when wars do

Wars end when death settles

The graveyard was ready to receive me

I had so much to do still

I do not think I want to be here anymore

Here, I have found

Here is relative

Here in this life I feel small

To not want to be here is to acknowledge

There are things holding you back

There are things you do not want knowing your name

The battle cry was futile

No one wants to wait 

To experience the glory of all that bloodied violence

I am here

Living past things I was sure would kill me

Here

I am here.

I have so much life left to live still

- A.G.

(you can also read the poem from bottom to the top)

I am a walking grave

Of all the people

I did not let myself become.

This sadness is the only eulogy

They will ever hear.

There are skeletons which live in closets

That have been kept shut

For far too long

And the skeletons need their coffins

And the coffins their graves

And one too many graves

Makes a cemetry

I am the cemetery:

The door that locked its own kind out;

The graves, the coffins and the skeletons.

But I am alive, goddamn it!

Buried within myself

People I did not

Let myself become.

People were not meant

To carry so much of

What wasn't alive,

Coffins do no justice to the living.

Lives aren't meant

To be spent within boxes,

How the hell did

We get tricked into believing

They will do death any justice?

You are alive,

And everything

You could've been too,

Just not here.

But somewhere,

In another universe,

You exist

But are everything

You have always wanted to be,

And perhaps,

Someday in this life too.

Do not let flowers bloom in place of your words. Speak Up. No more shrinking yourself, staying quiet, being worried if you'll step on someone else's toes. They will shred you and they will like it, enjoy it even. Speak Up. Scream. Let it be known that you are here, you are here and alive and you sure as fuck will ensure that they know it. Speak the fuck up. No more hiding.

The sadness made a home out of this body

And there wasn't enough space for the both of us here

I could feel myself become empty,

Feel my body become things it never has been;

I felt the sadness seep in when I was already done getting out of myself,

I wasn't there anymore.

The sadness made a house out of my bones

And I collapsed into things that did not resemble a person anymore.

I am still trying to look for pieces in the rubble

And create a whole person out of all this mess.

They are having a tickle war like they always do; his small body curled into itself, trying to tuck it within its own bounds, to not have to bear this joyful torture.

They are not people anymore, they are two shrieks of laughter. They are an odd sight to look at: a tall girl, almost a woman, and a toddler of six; an unlikely friendship that looks bizarre but radiates so much joy you cannot help but feel warm.

The girl turns into things she isn't; just for this boy, she turns into a sunny disposition, a pleasant version of herself and she has the gentlest voice. She has hands that do not hurt, she has eyes that smile and she is bubbles of laughter come to life.

The boy comes back year after year to meet his sister; they aren't really siblings, they are distant cousins but there is a lot of love here. And where there is so much love, you feel obliged to put a label. So they were brother and sister, and the oddest duo of the lot. As the years pass by, she sees her brother transform into things she resents; no longer a sweet child, he throws tantrums and uses his hands and fists like the men do. But he isn't a man yet, he is just a little boy.

He is nine and he already thinks it is okay to do things you do not like others doing; he thinks that it is okay to destroy what isn't yours because you could not have it or to scream and cry until you hand him what he asked for. These are trivial things, he is just a child after all.

She walks in on the boy destroying something that isn't his and he throws things at her, makes her mad. He takes pleasure in irritating her; she can tell; he takes her things and claims them as his and she lets him. She feels something come over her; makes her way towards him and traps him in her hold. She tickles his neck and she scratches him.

The boy is screaming and crying and she is devastated. She sees herself transform into things she thought she would never become. She sees an image of her lineage in her. Is this what we inherit?

Suddenly, she is small again. She is not herself, she is the little boy. She is nine, she is seven, she is five years old. She knows she is small so she bites the hands of those who reach out because her fists are still a little girl's fist, even though the size of the fight in her is quite big.

She doesn't recognize herself anymore.

Is this what we inherit?

No.

It runs in the family but this is where it stops.

Bless the hands that fed us, and may there be scars on those who harmed us. May we never become the things that hurt us.

She is twenty-five years old now. And there is an odd friendship in her life that no one understands, but there is a lot of love there. There is a little brother waiting for her.

Boo.

To acknowledge the Monster is to say

It is here,

That it has been here all along;

It is to stand in the dark with a terrible thing

Hoping it does not devour you.

To be hopeful is to be terrified

Of anything otherwise;

It is to hold on

To withering threads of optimism

As the likelihood of the unfavourable

Gets the guillotine ready for your head.

To scream Monster is to say

Here stands a terrible thing

That scares me;

You cannot simply

Take the elephant out of the room

And throw it under the bus,

You know?

To be scared is to admit

You have something to be scared of

And something to be scared for.

To draw a monster and ask yourself

What makes one,

Is to ask yourself what you consider

Dreadful enough to be called inhuman.

To tell stories of your childhood

Is to say it is long gone;

It is to acknowledge

Childhood pushed you off the cliff

And ran away.

It is to say you have been

Free falling ever since,

Trying to grasp at things

That do not stay.

To have an inheritance

Is to say that

Everyone in the family is dead.

To scream Monster

Is to stand in the dark beside it

And say you know terrible well enough

To know what a Monster is.

To say you are here

Is to realize there was a time

When you were not,

That there will once again

Be a time

When you won't be here;

It is to say you don't know

What time is anymore.

To be alive

Is to be terrified

(All the time)

And hopeful,

Even if the guillotine

Is getting ready

For your very execution;

It is to turn the lights off

And sleep in the room

With the Monster

And pray like hell

It does not kill you.

- A.G.

Playing God

The Gods, they envy us. 

We get to live and be done with it:

We get to die and leave.

There is no eternity hanging over our heads,

No forevers to roll the dice over.

We will not become Fallen Angels

Even if we forget our own morality.

We get to leave into the nothingness,

Become one with the Earth,

Get trodden in the very soil 

We claimed as Ours once before and then

Turned to dust in.

We become the dust;

The dust that is to us

The same as we are to the cosmos;

We are the nothing.

Galaxies erupt and entire worlds are created,

Stars explode and black holes collide,

So why does it matter that I fell from the stairs today;

Why does it matter that I stuttered in a conversation 

Or that I yelled out the wrong answer in class?

The cosmos are to us

As the Earth is to the dust specs on it;

We will be blown away and it will all still be here:

The Galaxies; the Earth within one such,

Packed with an entire Solar System,

Turning around one Sun,

They will still continue being//

In one form or another.

So why does it matter

That I will not be here

When all has been said and done,

I’d still have existed.