a crown for a thief

oh, how i begged for a crown to call my own. i pleaded for it to be adorned with precious gems from every corner of the known world.

as my knees hit the sand, i felt the rupture of the earth below me; tremors of a lineage muddled with thieves, blood, and betrayal.

no crown belongs to my bloodline. no diadem to display the dark history of the past that has built me. yet i still found myself imploring that precious stones were created for me.

cerulean jewels stolen right from the darkest depths of the seas; they shimmered with brilliance as the brine of the foam dissipated.

slabs of igneous rock taken from the palisades of the northern volcanoes that litter the craggy wastes; slabs considered holy to the world around me.

so i’ll shatter them into rubble and from them, harvested crimson jewels that burn with a flame so mightily. perfect.

i’ll torch the lush overgrowth that extends and breathes with the heartbeat of the earth below me. choking every last flora to it’s final exhale, grinding the flame to the molten fibers of stem and root. and from the pressure of nature and destruction, verdant crystals that glimmer against the sunlight. unabated by the canopy no more.

i’ll pluck the sun right from its perch above our crestfallen world. oh, they’ll bask in a darkness unknown; and i’ll capture every last drop of daylight. a golden stone. all mine.

and before you know it, a crown of thieves is almost complete. metals forged from the blood of the earth, the salt of the soil, the memories of a life.

and it belongs to me. it belongs to me. this is my crown.

an august anthology: coming soon

it’s been quite a while since i’ve really sat down and thought about what i want to write.

and for most of that time in between, i’ve been completely okay with it; i’ve been so simultaneously busy and also overjoyed with the way my life has been going. and in a way, i just thought that maybe i wouldn’t consider writing anymore until i really got a good idea.

and then i realized that was an excuse to just not write out the ideas that would pop up in my head or that i would start a draft on and never touch again.

so i’m going to change that. starting in august, i’m going to post at least once a week, maybe more. it might be something short, something lengthy, but nevertheless i want to make it a point to get back on here and start exercising my creative muscle again.

leading up to the month i plan on making some preliminary posts as well. ive had some ideas that i basically have done, they just have to be written out. what a task.

i’ll be back soon;

for abby, the reason i count my heart beats

eons have passed since the stars have been birthed
and millenia have gone by since the grandeur explosions marked their graves
the satellites of the void filled expanse we call “space.”

i was never too cognizant of the frigid breaths i’d emit in the winter
or the beads of sweat that drenched the long grasses in the summertime
i never cared too much about the way the ocean waves crashed onto the shoreline
nor the symphonies of the leaves as they rustle in the spring gales

but to feel such a way i have in such a short amount of time
the unexplained phenomenon of love opens another sight
it makes all matters important, all thoughts involving another

you start counting your heart beats
because you count hers as you rest on the quietest nights
and you are grateful that you managed to feel these rhythms at the same time;
through the eons that have passed.

i started to pay attention to the vivid colors of the seasons;
because i realized the colors that served as the backdrop for her glow
parallel to nothing else;
the verdant overgrowth of spring
beaming rays of summer
amber leaves of the fall
and the stark white of the winter.

and i started to understand the luck,
the timing of it all,
the rotation of the earth,
the places we are born from,
and the places we call home.

you understand that the moon and stars have existed for longer than you are able to comprehend,

but i know who hung them up there in that jet black expanse.

when my white sneakers weren’t dirty

there used to be a time when my sneakers, while not sparkling, were never dirty. the mud trampled through, sands kicked up, submersions, none of it phased the pair of always knotted chalky vans. my friends would arrive at my house, text me, and before i knew it, i had one slipped on, my heel crushing the back of it, and the other one in my hand, running my feet across the hot summer pavement to greet them all.

they’d step through tiles of a restaurant, get caught in the tangles of the forests we’d venture through, and fly down the stairs as the night loomed and it was time to rest. i never worried about losing them, i never worried about their quality, and i always found them when it was time to go. my stainless companions were there before my friends, and they remained there all throughout our younger years. i took it for granted, realizing how clean they always stayed.

because things changed, and the wear and tear began to loom behind my shoulder. as the garage door closed behind me, whispers of loneliness and anguish slipped out with the breeze and under the cracks as it slammed shut. less and less friends were waiting for me in the driveway. the restaurants were quieter. the forests weren’t traversable anymore, and the birds sang different songs that none of us really knew anymore. i would lose a shoe one night, only for it to appear several days later. as time went on, the length of my once spotless sneakers disappearance would grow more and more.

the stains on it were so prevalent. it was reminiscent of the past i had once cherished so much and would come to forget as time traveled forward. the mud splattered across the laces and left unwashable stains that were as permanent as the lacing i had made for them when i first bought them. the waterlogged soles began to really wear against the traction, and i found myself slipping and stumbling more than i used to. i found myself alone when i fell.

the most evident blemishes were those of my own tears that drenched all over.

because while i always believed i would wear those stupid, cheap, always laced, spotless vans, i never imagined they would’ve gotten so dirty and shown how my life had changed so much.

the laughter i had once heard just echoed the whispers of pain and torment that was following me so close behind for so long. i was just too young to see it. the times i had shared with my bestfriends was fading away like sand filing through my fingertips, dissipating into the wind and eroding at my memory. the bonds i had shared were broken and thrown away, tossed down the stairs of a dark basement that no one could ever find. i tried for so long to keep these white sneakers so clean and hold it all together.

and now i have to burn up the night sky just to let them see me one last time.

those pink clouds that mix in with the falling sun, sherbet and pineapple billowing titans of the sky looming over the darkness that is always chasing you and always winning. you keep running every single night. the problem for you is that you can’t go upwards. you’re all stuck here on this rock, rotating over and over, losing to the nightfall as it drapes the cloak that has chased me all my young life. the birds aren’t singing songs that you don’t understand, they’re laughing at you as the sun rises again because you believe that maybe today you’ll escape dusk; maybe tonight you’ll join the clouds.

maybe. but probably not. and i can’t wait to see the look on your face when you watch the jet black expanse of the atmosphere blindingly explode when i leave. it’ll give you that false hope that you escaped. daylight and candescence are all yours. the blissful feeling of the sunlight permanently washing over your skin, the warmth pulsating on every pore, the light dancing across the hairs on the back of your neck, caressing until your breath is emanating with heavenly light.

but it’s just me. you don’t get that. night will envelop you as soon as i break the first layer of the atmosphere. and the smokescreen from the exhaust of my ascent will remind you of those tangerine colossi that loomed over your heavy soul.

and i hope the bottoms of those filthy and disheveled sneakers remind you of everything i was there for.

those rotted soles won’t slip anymore where i’m going. the laces will float and dance as they’re tangled and bound, while the dirt floats off and dissipates in the vacuums of my new home. and those tears i left? they’ll break off, twinkling like crystalline stars that you always found yourself staring at.

i kept trying here on earth. i know i sound angry. and in a sense of the word, i most definitely am. but i’m not faultless in all of this and i know that. there were so many earthly and trivial nuisances always pulling us apart, my friend. i can’t let that happen anymore.

so keep watching those stars glimmer at night, and keep talking about them. you’ll always see one that’s brighter than all of the rest of them. just know you can’t come with me. those shadows of anguish and discomfort will always follow you now. and whenever you look over your shoulder to see those apparitions become reality, a tinge of laughter will glide through the air, retelling you of the past.

the cotton candy clouds are scorched up like cobwebs to the flame. the birds sound like a cacophonic chorus of my laughter and torment. the restaurants are always filled with strangers and hopeless phantoms just begging you to join them. the mud pulls you down like quicksand, keeping you grounded to this endless cycle. and the night will just envelop you with its grim cloak.

just don’t turn around anymore. don’t try and reach for me, i don’t really get that great of service up here in space.

Sirius A was the brightest star visible from your planet.

don’t stare at the night sky too long;

you’ll go blind trying to find me.

restarting the cycle

like i said, i will be writing again.

and here i am. but tonight, i am not going to write a particular piece. i just want to jot some thoughts out on this digital sheet of paper and get my brain restarted in a writing mood so that when i come back later this week, i’ll feel comfortable typing in this blank expanse. i have had actually a lot of good ideas, and i still have one that i crafted in my notebook from my english class.

speaking of class in general, man did i take it for granted. correct me if i’m wrong, but it’s hard to believe that it’s been almost two months since i stepped foot on campus for an in person class session. my last semester of college, and it was all stolen away from me. i’m not mad at anyone, and i know that it was necessary for the safety of everyone i love the most and for the general population, but it didn’t really come to realization until it was taken away from me. i wasn’t worried about commencement or walking the stage, because i was doing it for my mom and family to see and to celebrate how far i’ve come. and now that it’s gone, i am incredibly sad about it. i couldn’t stop laughing when i first attended my online spanish class, and my classmates were all in there asking how we were all doing, my professor just laughing and asking us questions about what we’ve been up to or how we’ve been feeling. it is very surreal. and it just really hasn’t helped me with my inability to grasp any kind of accomplishments or achievements i’ve made in life.

like yeah, i am going to have a bachelor’s degree in less than a month. but then what? does that really mean anything in the grand scheme of my life, the world? what have i amounted to so far? if i were to die tomorrow, would they talk about how many credits in college i had, or how close i was to a degree? what would they say for me?

i have been struggling with my own identity for quite some time now. i am fairly confident that in the past couple months, i have been losing the ability to empathize or be a compassionate person. several of the writing topics i’ve been crafting in my own head have dealt with this particular affliction. have i been spreading myself so thin by trying to talk to everyone, trying to be there for everyone, that i now have no idea who i am? or is it because i’m thinking so inwardly, and trying to revert the course of my own life and mind that i’m driving myself in the completely wrong direction? i just don’t think i am the person that i want to believe i am. and even if i were, i wouldn’t believe anyone that told me otherwise; i can only hear all of the negatives, i only pay attention to the faults i make, and i can’t help but feel like for the past six months i have just been on a raging inferno of a warpath, abandoning those who loved me and fighting off affection from every single direction. someone i know told me “you don’t allow yourself to feel anything for anyone.” and maybe they are right. i get this very strange feeling in every corridor of my body, from the pits of my own chest up to the clouded judgement of my own brain. it’s happened to me long before i dealt with this issue, but beforehand i just ignored it and kept pushing… but it always seemed to return. it has twice before. and now it’s just been lingering permanently. and i confidently believe that because of my inability to just project emotions or feelings in ways other than in my own head, i have been indirectly and directly hurting so many people around me.

like some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, i’m just driving a wedge so far between myself and everyone around me that so when i’m all alone, i have no choice but to disappear from this. so how do you fix that? i love that when i write these diary entries, i spend half of them just asking questions to an empty expanse of paper. like shouting from center stage in an abandoned amphitheater. but seriously, i don’t know what it’s going to take to stop thinking this way, and to just stop being such a bad person towards those around me.

if you didn’t notice a trend in my writing, i was actually on complete fire before the whole shutdown occurred. i was really just churning out writing, and it was a combination of feeling good about my life and writing poetry and prose in my english classes. and i felt like it was good work, and i was so happy to share it and people were actually reading it. i posted on facebook a week or two ago that my website has surpassed views and almost writing pieces in this short span of time than i did all year in 2019. regardless of how i feel in my own brain and about myself as a person, i have infinite love and appreciation for those that read my writings and check my website, and click on my links, and ask me about my creative processes and just the silly things i do to write. but the whole shutdown really just threw me for a loop, and it really threw a wrench in my mentality. i wrote “the panic button in my brain” shortly after all the news broke and it helped me some, but there was just nothing i could do. being stuck inside the house all day and only going out for necessities and to work seldomly just don’t really strike the imaginary irons hot. but this is just the initial part of getting those gears turning again; writing out some of my thoughts, and getting my brain and hands used to typing and staring at this blank canvas. so let’s hope this works. i’ll wrap it up soon; i don’t usually expect anyone to read these anyways.

i wish i had all of the answers for my life. i wish i had the penultimate ability to believe what people told me about myself, which is ironic because i am usually naive about everything else; i feel like i trust everyone, i give everyone second chances, i just want the best for everyone, not just the people around me. at the risk of sounding selfish, i garner the most satisfaction out of seeing everyone else succeed and prosper. i have never been one to care that much about myself. i think maybe that isn’t the most humble thing to say in a way, like i wouldn’t just go around saying “yeah i just don’t care about myself” or “yeah i just want to see everyone succeed” because i feel like it sounds cliche and most people would not believe you anyways. the point is, i wish i knew who was telling the truth and who was just putting me on a pedestal. i wish everyone would just tell me the truth about how they feel about me, and stop beating around the bush. but i believe that happens to me so much because i think i do it too. i have started to realize that a lot of what occurs to me in social situations and just in life in general is because i reciprocate that same behavior. and i’m trying to become better about it. my mom always likes to say “oh honey, you are just like me when i was your age,” and it’s usually when i’m avoiding confrontation or standing up for myself. i don’t feel very strong most days.

last night, one of my old coworkers told me i take humor too far because i’m just looking “for another laugh.” i can’t erase it from my head, and even though i was drunk, i remember every single second of it. i’ve known for a while now that humor and laughter is a tactic i have used as a crutch for so long. and there are jokes and comments that i make that are hurtful to others, but because i think it wouldn’t hurt me, i am unable to recognize that. and THAT is one of the biggest aspects of my theory on losing the ability to empathize with those around me. not everything is about me. not everything i say is funny or not hurtful just because it doesn’t hurt me and it makes me laugh. that’s narcissistic behavior, no? my father. what’s stopping me from becoming that man? is this just the beginning of that, and while it’s just humor and light conversation now, what’s stopping it from becoming toxic behavior that destroys people and ravages social spheres past an irreparable state? look at what he did to my family, look at how he treated my siblings, my own mother. everyone always loves to tell me i’m just like my mom, but it feels like the darkest, most unrecognizable and toxic aspects of my identity are inherited from my father.

i’m losing a friend. i spoke about it a couple months ago, and it’s become an issue again. he’s just too scared to admit it. and like i do with my reciprocating behavior, i am too. but i know it, and it’s just a matter of time. it’s going to be impossible to avoid. it’s inevitable, and it’s incredibly sad. i’ve tried so hard, but i haven’t been perfect. i don’t wanna touch on this topic too much, it’s just not something i’m interested in doing. i just have so much conflict and hurt in my heart.

i’m trying to gather the pieces of my own heart and put them back together. many themes of my writings in the past four years have been about how there are people all over the place that have pieces of my heart, whether i gave them away, they stole them, or i just simply lost them. but now i’m trying to repair myself, and stop spreading my brain everywhere. i want to be the person i want to be, the person i have in my head that i think i can be. compassionate, empathetic, caring, and non-problematic. but i’ve got to reset. i’ve got to gather myself from the center, the deepest pits of what remains in my heart and what logic i have left from the clouded sections of my brain, and reboot the cycle. because i want to allow myself to feel. deep down, i’m fighting that barrier. i don’t know what caused it, and i don’t know why it’s there. but i’ll break through it. and i’ll be intact when i do shatter that glass.

if you have, by some rumination of your own insanity or just caring about what i have to say, made it this far in my writing, thank you so much. while i am trying to care more about everything going on outside of this little website with my ramblings, i have never stopped loving writing and every single person that reads anything on this website. about 5 years ago i really started just writing for no reason other than a weird desire to express worlds that i had in my head, and somehow i’m still here doing it. and so many people have come and gone and read what i’ve created, and so many people are still here reading it. i care for you. you have always been important.

i will be back soon with some writing pieces. i’ve got a lot of time of my hands, and i’ve got a lot of ideas that i’m bringing to life.

love ya.