Dull Aches

My eyes are always puffy and sore

After a night of crying myself to sleep

It’s as if the feeling likes to linger

Even after all the salt water of emotion

Is gone from my tear ducts

Just to remind me that I’m still not okay

R.R.

Shared Madness

I couldn’t breathe

I couldn’t catch my breath

I couldn’t stop

Crying crying crying

You listened to my sobs

Over the phone receiver

Could you taste my salty tears?

Could you feel my chest shaking?

Could you hear my thoughts screaming in my head?

You’re the one who made me this way

You have to deal with the results

I hope you’re proud

R.R.

Let's Moshercise!!! (The Wonder Years)

So, let's spin kick our ways to better bodies, 
stage dive our way to awesome abs. 
Let's windmill our way to buffer biceps and mosh the fat out of our ass, 

so we say "let's lose that extra weight," 
and today, we'll mosh the pounds away. 
Get up and dance. 

If you feel like a bitch while you're doing pilates, 
a low-carb diet doesn't work. 
If riding your bike's been getting you nowhere
and eating salad makes it worse, 

then we say, yo, let's turn up the bass. 
and today, we'll mosh the pounds away. 
Get up and dance. 

Every Friday night, we're losing the weight 
and in this tiny hall we mosh the pounds away. 
If you listen up, you can hear us say, 
Get up and dance.

And we say, put down that slice of cake
And today, we'll mosh the pounds away. 
Get up and dance.

Plenty of Fish in the Sea

I gaze out of a hotel window

High above the city                                                      I

Sit, cheap linen curtains

On either side

Cars whizz by, in a hurry

Off to an unknown destination, I can almost                 Feel

Their pulses quicken as

Unwanted vehicles drift into their lane

Longingly I look at the city so full

Of noise it makes my ears                                           Numb

With ringing.  The fuzzy white

Buzz of hustle and bustle

I came here alone

No company in tow.  No reason at                              All

To come to such a destination

I seek no great adventure

So many people in such a small space

Is there another person here out                                   Of the

Seemingly billions crammed on this island

That feels as I?

I packed up my empty heart, ragged suitcase

And spent a fair amount of                                           Time

On a train for what purpose?

To remind myself of how lonely I am?

R.R.

"The Bustle in a House"

The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon Earth--

The sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity
-Emily Dickinson

Formaldehyde

            All the lights are off in my room; I should be asleep.  Sleep fights disease, right?  I suppose I’m not going to be cured anytime soon then.  I’m not sure what time it is, I can’t check since the only clock in my room isn’t digital.  It has to be real early (maybe two, three in the morning?) for it to be this quiet.  I can’t even hear the nurses shuffling from room to room or chatting at their desks.  The only sound is the beep, beep of my monitors, assuring me that I’m still very much alive.  The children’s wing of the hospital is always the quietest, save for the morgue.  I’ve been cooped up in this 5x6 box for a couple of days now.  Missing out on a life that doesn’t seem to want to wait for the ill.  It’s a Friday night, so most people are probably doing something that is very different from what I’m doing.  Maybe they’re out with friends at a party.  Maybe they’re home with their sister, watching something from the vast collection of exceedingly mediocre films on Netflix.  Maybe they’re doing something more important, like writing a book that will one day be a New York Times Best Seller, or maybe they’re talking their best friend out of suicide.  Maybe they’re the one considering downing that bottle of pills.  Who knows?  All I know is that I’m not doing anything of those sorts.  I’m here.  In a hospital bed with itchy sheets, not affecting the world outside of these walls.

            I must have dozed off, drowned myself to sleep with my own thoughts.  A nurse gently shakes me awake, “Just drawing some blood, sweetie.  Then you can go right back to bed.”  I’m too groggy and half-asleep to comprehend anything.  Then I feel the pinprick in the crook of my arm and I’m immediately pulled from my blissful state of almost sleeping, to painfully awake.  And then it’s over.  The nurse leaves the room with two vials of my plasma, platelets, and blood cells.  In some lab they’ll examine it, make sure my blood count is still a-okay.  A lot of samples of my infected body are in labs somewhere.  They told me they’ll use them as a case study.  To help people in the future who have whatever sickness I have.  I swear, I have taken every test.  I have been laid under every scanner.  Not one from the abundance of doctors that have had a clipboard with a list of my symptoms has been able to figure me out.  They can’t piece together the puzzle.  My sickness still goes undiagnosed.  Maybe it’s something that hasn’t been “discovered.”  Maybe I’ll get it named after me.  My name could be immortalized, but only followed by the word disease or syndrome.

June 9th-September 25th

Slow dancing with a ghost

Sleeping with a faded memory

Telling an empty chair about my day

Holding hands with only a thought

Eating breakfast with a phantom

Sharing a shower with a wraith

Slow dancing with a ghost

Sleeping with a faded memory

You told me to move on

But where do I go?

R.R.