Listening to Home by Cavetown over and over, Rereading all 200 episodes of Boyfriends for the sixth time, Nestled in headphones with my cat and two layers of blankets.

I’m just trying to cope. And it’s still not working.

“Okay” is always just out of reach.

hands clasp hands but the other pulls away it was too soon, the touch the familiar feeling of home in a single moment it doesn’t matter what day of time or night it is we’ll always find comfort in our current help is reaching and pushing and falling and screaming it’s all so close like my thoughts on a loop, glued to my side what a way to cast off what they like to call ‘attention’ but it’s nothing but a simple and kind gesture from our brains when they feel like working in the right way see no one sees when it’s really there help is here but the people are so out of reach and they always make it up to us to yell first

I wonder Do you know how much I try The effort I put into my work Do you know how much I long for your approval For you to say I’ve done well

No of course you don’t You only see my faults The shortcomings in my work How YOU think I don’t try How YOU think I’m not enough

But I know I can be good enough I know I try I know I put in the effort I know how much it hurts for you to tear me down For you to say I don’t work hard enough

For once could you tell me I’ve done well Give my work appreciation Focus on the strengths Lift me high And tell me my work is good

Could you pretend to care how your words affect me How your words make me feel like crying Could you for once see what I’ve done And not what I could do Why is your approval so far out of reach

From the moment I breathed my first breath, I have been trying to achieve the impossible. Never knowing the love and comfort that life claims to have.

I’ve endured a multitude of personalities, every one more painful than the last.

Never knowing who I was. Never safe enough to find out.

Just floating through this existence knowing everything and nothing at all. Given all the pieces to this puzzle, but no clear picture of the end.

Three decades…still trying to grasp onto a soul that has always been out of reach.

Should have been born a T-Rex.

Who was I meant to be, What life was I destined to live? Stranded in this web of uncertainty, made to just simply survive.

Living…loving…knowing

Life is too far out of reach.

I’m here

And that’s enough.

I’m alive…even if I’m out of reach from myself.

Aching feet from 9 to 10, headaches like 24/7

I long for my bed so much I wish for it at 11:11

Even as I grow closer, down my commute,

I feel so sick and tired of this constant pursuit.

Waves of relief wash over me in a gentle flow.

The tides ease me down. I know it won’t last though.

Alone with my thoughts, more than I can convey,

some nights I don’t want to wake up the next day.

I need you as I always have In the steam and heat of the evening boil You are my favorite, even though there are others Cheap plastic pink Fancy expanding gray ….but Stainless steel with the handles that get too hot You are mine. How many times have I burned myself because I got too close You tried to warn me, tried to flush the heat out of your holes But I poured too fast Gave you too much at once And you splashed me And I cursed you, cursed the pasta, cursed the heat And then nursed the burn I didn’t mean it and I want you back But you have taken up residence in the upper cabinet Its lonely there and quiet Maybe you like it better - you can think and rest But I cant But I am too short I cannot reach for you old friend. I resort to plastic.

Oh, biscuit tin Why must you be On the top shelf Where I can't reach

I’ll have to get The foldaway steps So I can see

I’m on my tippy toes My fingers stretched out A woman on the edge Trying not to fall down

All I crave is Jammie Dodger Why must you be So out of my grasp

I know I'm on a diet But two with a cuppa Won't hurt me much

Oh, Biscuit tin Oh, Biscuit tin Why must you be Just. Out. Of. Touch.

I knew we were soulmates.

Since the very beginning, there was something different about you.

You made me feel safe.

So safe that I fell in love with you.

What a foolish, but honest, mistake.

How could I have known?

A tragedy had befallen us.

We were two sides of the same coin, always together, yet forever apart.

Doomed to exits in a world with each other.

One where we can never meet.

Once where we're forever connected, but always apart.

What a tragedy, to be forever out of reach.

You take a leap, and then another Thus moving forward proud two steps. Inevitably being thrown though Right back by five, or four, or three.

And every time you seemingly get closer There quite unfortunately seems to be Another obstacle across your way.

You wipe off sweat, your tears, and hopes You persevere further through your pain.

Yet in such dance and in such rhythmic pattern, ending with a sudden twist of wicked luck, you’re moving forward To reside in someone else’s shadow

Pursuing that which you don’t know In silence, and by touch - All in the dark.

Not daring to breeze through invisible divider you yourself engraved in front of your bare feet,

You still believe it’s out of reach Not grasping it’s been all along

Encoded in the language of your restless heartbeat.

It is, I, the fruit of their labor. The living embodiment of their American Dream. Fat & rosy, Eyes of cold steel.

They were just shy of greatness— But their narcissism cursed an entire generation, Bringing savagery wearing a cloak of civility As they marched on foreign beaches And convinced the natives to welcome their diseases Like natural masters of manipulation.

My family name loosely translates to Ground Zero—

But it brings no wealth Or glad tidings.

Only a long, winding trail that always leads back to Eve and that damn snake.