God hath forsaken me, truly thought the jester, for He has made me in not His image but in the image of that of an off-kiltered 90's polaroid that was tossed to the wind and found by a pecking chicken. The chicken of course having been raised on a lone farm by a particularly disparaging elderly farmer.

Why?, I thought, What is so holy about this one chicken that it would be given permission by God Himself to alter my very being? To peck holes into that unfortunate Polaroid that unknowingly drifted to that one specific farm out of thousands and to gently sway onto the grass and land in front of one in a million chickens?

Does the chicken matter, in this instance; would it change who I am if it was, say, a goat, or a cow? I would like to think a cow would ignore my meager existence to graze at the grass along my Polaroid, but the goat would end my joke of a life and simply eat my Polaroid without a second thought.

The Jester thought this in a burst of introspection, but of course he would never be allowed to speak a single syllable of his own mind, for he of course was just the Jester. The definition of a fool, only meant to bring silliness and amusement; not philosophy and intelligence. For that is the life of a perceived simpleton, a role to play for a higher power in a moment of reprieve from duties and worries.

Does this everlasting and always changing higher power ever think of the Jester as something else? Does he ever wonder where the Jester goes when he is not entertaining, when there is a moment of reprieve and Jester slinks off to await the call of his King? Would the King ever think of the Jester and ask if he had a family, or a dream for his life- was he put there in front of the King for a reason?

The King was as simple a man as the lowliest commoner, able to find joy and laughter in the easy way the Jester made himself a fool; yet the King had no tolerance for anything out of its proper place. If he ever discovered the Jester had these most awful and serious thoughts, the Jester would surely be put to death and just as easily replaced.

I'm drawing a blank

There's so many thoughts in my head I don't know how many I can get out,

my hands are restless, my breath is slow yet my heart has never raced faster than this moment

my feet are stuck to the floor and it's as if time is stopping only for me, pausing to give me a reprieve. Loathe I am to admit, I am human and I am living and breathing.

Pointless and redundant, is there a meaning for this existence or is it merely to suffer every agonizing moment in the crowds of the indulgent and shallowed.

Day in and day out, the world wears a mask of lies and slander meant to pacify the meandering and dangerously ignorant. What a worst fate is there? spoiled and shameless in their debauchery of the filth and riches of this world, where are the ones like me? the ones burdened with reality and finding fate and destiny unbecoming in their vague and bold claims that some things are meant to be- no matter how good or bad.

Do i even know what i'm saying? I'm stringing along sentences to match the pace and feelings in my brain, but it's there one word and gone the next, leaving only jumbled ideologies and proclamations. The longest draft in the world will never be enough to make my head empty, but each time I write, there's a little less to compact into empty space and forget, even a little, it still helps.

My worst fear is being loved-

wholly acception of my whole being

i trust too much and not at all

i keep everyone at a distance, please don't touch me

i don't deserve it

my tears aren't worth your hugs and kisses

do i even know how to love?

i'm too wrong to be loved, too messed up inside

i hurt too often and retreat into my dreams,

for reality is too painful to bear for me

But i still crave it

the touch of another- sweet and gentle and kind

a promise that my scars are okay, even the ones you can't see

my imaginary love is pure, agape

yet how do i receive something so selfless and heavenly?

i am tainted, memories fill my head of regrets and sadness

of pain and terror

years and years, decades and decades of being repressed and shadowed

how can you know me when i don't even know me?

who am i?

how dare i deign to ask for something so undeserving as a love

when have i ever earned it instead of just yearning?

this love is absolving of sin

will this love too weigh the scales of my youth- am i worthy in the afterlife?

a caress on my hand, holding me steady to face the wrath of this cruel world

the cruel world that is unbecoming of my love, something so delicate

should i ever achieve that love, that acceptance and life

would i know what is my dream and my reality?

for this love would certainly curtain my vision away from disaster,

and leave me in shame

for why would i ever be capable of being seen by my love

when i cannot gaze upon my own mortality without hatred and disgust?

*this was a one draft little drabble that i needed to get out, no edits

I could never accept it

But I knew that it was there, somewhere

Locked in a safe, trapped in a maze of

Denial and self-deprecation

It's shriveled up and neglected after years

And years of shoving it aside.

I used to feel it when I was younger,

Embrace it even,

When I was a different person.

I used to think that I wasn't any better than anyone,

That I wasn't special enough to have it.

Yet, as I grow, I am learning.

Slowly accepting myself for who I am,

And who I should have always been.

I know it will take time, maybe my whole life

Before I can truly believe.

But maybe someday

I can accept the love that I should've given myself

When I refused to give.

when.

when will it stop.

will it ever stop?

i hope it does.

even for just a moment-

for the birds to stop

the chirping and crooning,

for the winds to pause

on their way through the trees;

or the shuffles and sprints

of feet big or small.

what would it be like?

when the world fades away

for a single moment

and no pain or joy exists,

when only peaceful emptiness

remains.

when.

I don't remember much from my childhood, I could never figure out if it was from repressed memories or if I just had a terrible time remembering anything. The earliest I can think of is the time when I was five years old, and going to preschool for the first time. There was a boy I became friends with on the playground, I can't remember his name, but he had dark brown, almost black eyes, and that's really all I know about him. I can remember the teacher, a woman, and how she always got excited when I wanted to read more advanced books from kindergarten and first grade. My parents were told that I excelled in reading and comprehension from a very young age. I could always read better than the other kids in my class.

In first and second grade I got my first 'best friend', a girl, Jenna, who had a nice smile and always had clips in her hair. We sat next to each other for lunch and raced around together. I never learned much about her, our friendship was very surface level, but she was my only friend and I was happy to have someone to spend time with that wasn't family.

My sister was only two grades above me, you see, so we usually spent at least one year together at the same school before she graduated to the next school. We were close, and as I was the youngest, she was fiercely protective of me. She would let me sit with her and her friends during recess if I was lonely, and make them be nice to me.

Anyway, I wasn't very good at socializing with people my age, I was often described as 'the quiet one', 'the good one', or better yet, 'the smart one'.

I had a dream about you again.

It was... I don't even know how to describe it.

You know that feeling in your chest where it feels like a storm is brewing?

Well my dream was a storm, with raging winds and fierce lightening. I woke up crying this morning.

I couldn't speak for some time after, and I couldn't make eye contact with anyone, especially myself.

I wish my subconscious weren't so perceptive. Maybe then it would be easier. Easier to fool you.

I know you're just a ghost of the past, but please stop hanging over my shoulder?

Your weight is too much to bear.

I know you know what happened, what I did. Stop looking at me like that, or I'll turn your picture around so I won't have to look at it every moment of every day.

Sometimes I wish you never existed, and you were only a blurry face in my dreams that I forget when I wake up. I wish I never knew what it felt like to cry so much I threw up, or be so sad and desolate that I tried going to sleep and never wake up. I wish this life were only a dream. I wish.

It's in the air, in the desperate heaving of one's chest. Yet to be seen but being felt by the passage of time. Look for it, scavenge and twist the bones of those long gone, gnawing away for a taste of it. So curious. A wisp of a taste of it lingers on the tongue, floating on the taste buds like the most ancient of delicacies. Grab for it! Chase it for eternity, yet shackled at the ankles by the earth, deprived of sense and driven insane by the very body you reside in. Claw at it until your fingers bleed, trembling and numb to touch. Scream with the wind, until your voice is hoarse and not a whisper escapes. Clutch at your chest again, there is nothing; it is empty and dead, a shell of what you once were. A dream of something and nothing at all, a thought. Now what is it you see, what can you feel? What is that sound, that smell? Faceless and thoughtless, it enters the mind, scrambling for a reason, a vice, yet there is what there always will be. Nothing.

The first time was an accident, the next hundred or so weren't. I had walked past a metal railing that had a piece sticking out, and it made an impressive scratch along my left forearm for a couple weeks. After a while, I noticed that the usual deep-seated pain and emptiness in my chest wasn't as overwhelming as it usually was. I began wanting it; using anything I could get my hands on, including my nails I grew out specifically for this reason. I hid them under long sleeves and bandages, and nobody was the wiser. It went on for four more years, without anyone noticing, before I realized it was only a temporary relief, and the gaping abyss in my soul wouldn't go away just from that. There was a point where I wanted to go further, but I stopped myself, and it has been a short three years since I stopped from forcing myself to accept that it wouldn't solve anything. All because of a little accident.