I don't know what to do with all this emotion, I feel like I'm overflowing in it, and I don't know how to release any of it.

I can't remember the exact time I died, because I don't think I ever formed into a person. I've always felt like this shell, a ghost, air that melts into the walls, the emptiness that's trapped there.

"You do not matter" is the voice I constantly hear in my head, and it eventually became embedded into my soul, it's in the way I drag myself because I'm too heavy to carry. It's in the words I never say, it's in the smile and agreeableness that people mistake for contentedness. This heaviness of not mattering is encased in every decision I make, in every decision I decide not to make, in every word and situation I swallow away. Years of this turns me into a volcano that amazingly never erupts, instead it only makes me shrink under the weight and more liable to disappear.

Everything is pointless, it's not like anyone can feel me slipping away. And i don't know how to release these dark feelings. I was born without a voice, and the little confidence I had was stolen from under me, and I was left floundering. Ironic that I was never taught how to swim, being that I was never taught how to keep myself from sinking.

I tell myself that being alone means that I have the time and space to pour my soul out onto the page. But that never happens. I start to feel like there's absolutely no point in writing out words that will mean nothing to the world, that mean absolutely nothing to me. I wish I was one of those people who tear themselves apart and create art out of their broken, bloody pieces. I don't have the patience or energy to peel myself layer by layer, so don't bother telling me it takes time, that the search is worth it. Digging is honestly worth nothing when all it does it bury you alive. but if I could I would cut myself to the bone and carve out something worth keeping, something I can save as a souvenir, something tangible that proves I have a heart that beats unlike anyone else's. But my biggest fear is that cut into my core will only reveal a hollow state of mind, that no depths actually reside in this heart, that how I feel will never materialize into anything of substance. That the person I dream of becoming will continue to starve and die alone behind a wall that no one can break down. That I'll never heal and feel I'm worth something.

It's kind of a shame how this girl has gone almost two decades without really knowing who she is. How can you live without really knowing anything, especially not knowing yourself? It's kind of crazy to me how little I know about myself, how little I know about life in general. I feel like the person I was meant to be is stuck in some portal far beyond this one, one I don't have the power or strength to open. No amount of digging is going to bring her to the surface. I’ve spent years trying to find her, and there are times I had mistaken wishful thinking for footprints and followed them, and they only led me to her grave. So, with all my strength, I dug and dug and dug and dug, and to my dismay I looked down at the hole and saw absolutely nothing. Then I climbed into it like a bed and tried to get comfortable in this foreign space. It was cold and unfamiliar, but all I wanted was something to fall into, and the dirt was all I had. So, I sunk in deeper and closed my eyes, trying to imagine the dirt was my calling, or maybe it was merely a blanket to comfort me, provide me with a sense of safety I never felt while I was alive. I sat in silence with myself and waited for some sort of holy answer, yet I didn’t believe in god. I couldn't hear a thing. It's funny how I talk of soul searching. It's funny how I talk of rediscovering myself, but honestly how can I search for a soul I don't have or rediscover something I never had?

Oh! Hello there. You are coming home with me.

Kayla felt slight guilt as she knelt down and picked up the Philodendron piece from the floor of the home improvement store.

It's technically not stealing, right? I mean, scraps like this are just going to be swept up at closing time and tossed in the trash, right? What a waste. I'm actually rescuing it if you think about it. Yeah.

She carefully tucked the heart-shaped piece into her hoodie pocket.

On the drive home to her tiny apartment, she placed her passenger on the dashboard and excitedly brought her up to date on all things Kayla.

“…and I am soooo close to graduating. And when I do, I'm definitely gonna land a kick ass job somewhere — maybe even in one of these places,” She gestured upward toward the towering glass buildings as she drove through the medical center streets. “And you're coming with me, of course. You are going to have your very own spot on my desk!”

Kayla prattled on, feeling excited for the future and surprisingly, a lot less lonely all of a sudden. It felt good to speak her hopes and dreams out loud— even if only to a drooping leaf.

When they got home, Kayla placed her new roommate in a glass of water and set her on the kitchen window sill. She made a mental note to pick up some potting soil soon.

It will be so nice to have someone to talk to for a change. Now, she needs a name. Hmm…

Kayla smiled as it came to her.

“I hereby dub thee Philomena. For it is a strong name and a good name for a friend.”

There were those potted plants out front, just like I saw them when I left your home for the last time some years ago now.

You were not home.

Just as well.

I don’t need your presence to still feel the fear that sliced through me that soulless night.

I gave myself a tour- the one you never gave me. And beyond this dreamscape of your bedroom I saw blackness. Because I cannot imagine a “normal” home for you.

That would make you human. And I've been demonizing you for years.

Besides, how can you forgive a demon?

You can’t.

So I visited your home and tried to see a home where a human lived, one with flaws but a capability for goodness.

And there you were, so fucked up from war and weary of the world that you turned to writing and women. Two loves you held, but were never humble enough to admit that you had anything to learn from. Only arrogant enough to believe you had more to give (knowledge) and much to take (sex and accolades).

So is it any surprise you found a kind faced girl, with big blue eyes to wet your appetite and fill your ego?

Is it any wonder that it is easy to hate you more, thinking of you as human, because that would mean you can choose to do better, but you didn’t?

You chose to show me darkness, not even letting me see the man who carefully, gently cared for those beautiful potted plants out front.

The ones that have mocked me in my nightmares ever since.

I've got to be honest Rudy. I am not loving this new, restrictive box you've put me in. There's barely any room to stretch out my roots and I had aspirations of growing into quite the large plant. You see my uncle was huge! He once took over an entire back yard, choking out everything else that was growing there and even half burying the house.

You've made that impossible - with this awful, plastic pot. The water doesn't even drain through. Its just sits around my roots. You probably think that's fantastic Rudy, but let me tell you - it feels rather like being water-boarded. Like you can't ever get a full breath of air.

And I've not had a single bird visit, or felt the bliss of direct sunlight on my leaves since you shoved me in the far corner of your living room. I'm not a blooming mushroom Rudy! Have you heard of a little process called photosynthesis? I've listened to you bragging on the phone about how you are quite the green thumb, but I am yet to see a single hint of any gardening talent at all. I need sunlight to grow Rudy - not just that rather tasty fish bone spray you reluctantly give me every six months or so.

Also, I've got bad news for you Rudy. That lady friend you keep inviting over - well, she is definitely stepping out on you. I heard her on the phone the other day practically purring at some other poor sod. I can't say I'm surprised. You do seem like a very plain looking fellow. In the plant world, you'd probably be some sort of succulent - you've got that fleshy look about you.

She looks more like a mistletoe herself - she'll latch onto anything alive and hang around just long enough to suck the life out of it. You'd be well rid of her, if you'd only listen to me. But you never seem to. I'm practically yelling at you most of the time, but either you pretend not to hear, or you're too busy listening to that awful 70's pop on repeat. I promise you it doesn't make you either cool or edgy, neither do the piercings or tattoos. Just go and find yourself another nice succulent and you'll be happy as a sprout in compost. Nobody ever survives a mistletoe.

On that note, I think I rather like the look of that new peace lily you brought home from the market - the one you put next to the piano. Would you mind moving me a little bit closer - I'd like to see if they'd be open to some cross-pollination, if you know what I mean. I'm due to flower any day now, if I can just get enough energy from the refracted sunlight (you really do make it difficult for me Rudy).

I've had some serious conversations with the cactus on the windowsill as well - although we do rather have to shout to make each other heard. You need to stop overwatering us Rudy. I've seen you drink quantities of liquids that would put a weeping willow or a mangrove to shame (particularly that strange stuff in the brown bottles - called Beer), but if I'm not out in the full sun, then I don't need watering every third day. I tried by best to let you know - with the drooping leaves and the discolouration - but all you did was water me more. So please stop. Steve the cactus is only one more water away from asphyxiation. He's a darn desert plant Rudy! He thrives off neglect. All your fussing is going to kill a practically unkillable plant.

There should be a special place in hell for humans that are serial plant murders - there really should.

Oh, there you go Rudy, out the door again. Humans - always rushing off somewhere, never any time to put down roots, or enjoy the kiss of a beam of sunshine. And always so gosh darn noisy. I'll try him again when he gets back...maybe next time I'll get him to listen. Really, he's got ears as big as corn and he doesn't hear a thing that's important.

There is a plant in my house that I have had for 32 years. I received it as a gift the day my son was born. Aloud I said, "thank you so much," inside, I was rather positive it would die. I had never had a plant live more than a month - and previously I'd only had 'easy to care for' succulents. Ha.

I didn't know how to care for a plant.

Or a baby.

I cried when I unwrapped my son for the first time, alone at home. He was so tiny, so fragile. I was terrified I'd break him in some way.

In contrast, the plant was big and hardy, but it required a green thumb and mine was quite black -- like all the plants I'd killed.

Well, the baby survived childhood and adolescence to become a happy, healthy, loving man.

And I now have a room dedicated to dozens of plants...including that first one -- from which I took a cutting and propagated a new plant for my daughter-in-law when she and my son moved into their first apartment.

She was terrified she'd kill it.

That was two years ago. No babies yet but the plant still lives.

Necessity rarely (nevertheless yet infrequently) ever finds me to venture forth (while driving our reliable 2020 Hyundai Elantra) to places unknown to me, thus when said circumstance arises, a Pavlovian (no extremely shocking) reaction occurs within the body electric of mine, no matter I convince myself consider said outing as an adventure, or as the wife would say "wild goose chase," and the anguish compounded (conjured courtesy countless what if scenarios) when under the figurative gun to be some place on time as happened to be the case today (May 5th, 2025), an eleven thirty a.m. appointment at Creative Health 11 Robinson Street, Pottstown, Pennsylvania 19464, which invariably and subsequently found me off course by dint of lacking a crucial piece of information. The accidental omission of Shoemaker Road thwarted successfully getting from point A (2 Highland Manor Drive in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania) to point B (Creative Health).

As a newly minted driver scads of years ago, I experienced catastrophic panic attacks when veering off course no matter home sweet home within a radius of scant miles, but lack of familiarity sent my psyche into a tailspin, especially as the gasoline gauge went from full to empty, and not a fuel station in site for miles, thus on impulse my hands came together in prayer formation for a prairie home companion to help rescue me, a Norwegian bachelor farmer searching for a wife and mother of my (er our) future children (hopefully at least one son) to continue the family name (of Hackenbush) harkening back hundreds of years before the settlement of what eventually became the United States of America at the expense of indigenous peoples thinly spread across the land from sea to shining sea, whose defense against marauding Europeans a futile exercise in survival against firearms that essentially decimated entire tribes at the pull of a trigger.

Matter of fact, the place name of my alma mater (Methacton Junior and Senior High School - constitutes a Native American word meaning "hill" or "hill area," and specifically refers to the elevated area in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, extending from Eagleville to the Fairview Village area, and no surprise the school mascot just so happens to be a Warrior sporting a full feathered headdress regalia, a stereotypical archetype of what one would imagine aboriginal inhabitant of geographical areas extending north, south, east and west bordered by two oceans would look like, and of course such a mock up inferred a hostile warring people (hashtagged as "Red Man") pigeon holed as the archetype of sinfulness, particularly when age of discovery (a misnomer, cause the sprawling landmass comprising the entire continent of the Americas. Indigenous peoples called the Americas by various names depending on their location and language. Some common names include Turtle Island (used by many tribes in North America), Abya Yala (used by the Kuna people of Panama and Colombia), and Anahuac (used by the Mexica people). The term "America" itself was not used by indigenous peoples before European colonization and was named after Amerigo Vespucci, an explorer.

As an extremely shy baby boomer (without the benefit if powdered milk biscuits), I floundered like a fish out of water for the better part of my threescore and six years, and attribute very late socialization skills, and started dating women for the first time as a young twenty something initiated into the rigors of contra dancing when "still wet behind the ears" emerging adult of the male persuasion, which sensual genuflections, flirtations and explorations with members of the opposite sex as mine fraught with utter and abysmal outcomes compounded courtesy premature ejaculations, which libido of yours truly in the recent past took a kamikaze nosedive linkedin to the adverse side effects videre licet of one or more of the nine prescription medications comprising my pharmaceutical cocktail, but dwarfed by the substantial number of over the counter supplements from A - Z taken mainly linkedin to the placebo effect.

Where many young bucks (and gals) begin to surge with raging hormonal secretion that seeks immediate satiation, they instinctively gravitate towards hotbeds of pheromone laden bodies to indulge their animalistic, fraternalistic, and spiritualistic erogenous zones and/or resorting to a modus operandi of self pleasure to appease atavistic, evolutionistic, individualistic, opportunistic and universalistic call of the wild for propitiating biological penchant to appease genius of love.

Ofttimes during formative and impressionable years (as a star student attending the school of hard knocks) resignation against tapping into latent native talents found me exhibiting little or no effort, but rather gloating inside when academic record fraught with absolute zero effort to succeed, thus report cards peppered with flying colors of nearly failing every grade, whither motivation went reinforced courtesy inferiority complex in tandem with giving up before making even a feeble effort as iterated below.

Dear Elmer - how glue me: on lacking sticktoitiveness

Most of my vi + Lx

spittle existence roaming

found me figuratively

(primarily academically, emotionally,

psychologically, sexually, socially...)

adrift, and malfunctioning blinker

analogous to a rudderless boat at sea

without courtesy

of being rescued, thus picture

an appalling ankh caws away

aimlessly bobbing - treading water

analogous to drowning sailor

akin to a besotted drinker

just out of rest

to be rescued by Mister Rinker

sea ming lee without any

hook, line and sinker

despite being gifted

with an above average thinker

from without, where two

myopic ocular orbs did winker.

All thru academia

just barely passing grades

metaphorically suffered from anemia,

and at my nadir, thy prepubescent psyche

plummeted lovely bones into grave state,

sans anorexia minus bulimia mental health

also linkedin shot thru through

with healthy dose of dysthymia

cap (tinned em man hint mettle)

kept awake with insomnia

peppering cerebral cortex with monomania

buzzfeed ding somnambulant

zombified condition

with a burning man desire

toward pyromania

(nearly burned down the house

at 324 Level Road)

nsync with unmanageable raging

(red deer and bull lush) testosterone

spawning satyromania the above

particularly accentuated, and creating

with accursed triskaidekaphobia

most agonizing dipsomaniac,

when orbits around Earth Accompanied

by then (date poem herewith

witnessed 756 full moons)

demarcated tenth plus third

on a Friday the thirteenth,

according to Gregorian Calendar,

hence death be not proud

sought after utopia

pleading, longing, and hooping

if I Willoughby Able

to sprinkle cremated ashes across Xenia.

After approximately one third of current years of lived life elapsed, I made more of a concerted effort (not so much to trumpet attainment of objectives, but pride myself as a modern day Pilgrim not yielding into apathy, but buckling down to prove that sweet taste of success can be experienced and savored like some figurative sweetmeat buoying self confidence and donning my physiognomy with modesty suffusing my entire body electric, which high water marks of achievement found immunity against existential nihilism.

8 times in March 2024. I stood near the edge. Not the kind people talk about over coffee, but the real one. The kind you walk to barefoot in the middle of the night when the world is so quiet it sounds like screams in your head. I didn’t leave a note. I didn’t plan a goodbye. I just didn’t want to keep breathing. That was all. The sky was the same every time. Grey. Still. Nothing changed.

11 times in April. I got used to the routine. Morning coffee. Pretending. Smiling when people spoke. Nodding as if the words reached me. And then, when the world wasn’t looking, my hands would ache to let go, like they weren’t even mine.

May had 29. That was the month my heart was torn out in the messiest but cleanest way. Not with a knife, but with silence. With the way someone I had loved looked at me like I was dirt and was already fading. I think that month I stopped trying to pretend. I stopped eating, sleeping, hoping. Just numbers on the wall. Just breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, stop.

June had 3. I don’t remember them clearly. They didn’t burn like May. Just flickers. Like matches that wouldn’t catch a flame.

2 in July. One was at the bottom of a swimming pool. The other was in the middle of a Walmart aisle next to the milk. I remember thinking: Is this what it’s come to? Thinking about vanishing between 2% and whole milk?

August held 2. Quieter ones. Gentle, strangely polite. Just the idea of disappearing like smoke through a cracked window. Not angry. Just done.

1 in September. I was proud of that. A low number. I still felt hollow, but I was walking more. Breathing more. Lying less.

October had 2. That month was colder. I kept staring at the trees, thinking about how leaves don’t scream when they let go.

2 in November. I sat in church both times, ironically enough. One during the sermon. One while singing on stage during worship. I wondered if God noticed when I stopped singing and just reached my hands out to Him. If He knew I was somewhere else entirely.

5 in December. The holidays are a knife dressed in ribbons. I smiled in every photo. Every single one.

January had 9. That month is always heavy. The world starts over, but I never do. I just carry all the months before.

February had 9 too. And I hated myself for it. I had made it this far, hadn’t I? Why wasn’t it easier yet?

March again. 11 times. Full circle. I started keeping score in my head. Not to glorify it—just to remember that I was still here. Still fighting. Still aching.

April had 5.

And then suddenly on a random Thursday night—there was you.

You didn’t rescue me. Don’t flatter yourself. You didn’t say the right thing or shine light into the dark. You just stayed. You just didn’t leave. You asked questions no one else dared to. You listened without turning away. You didn’t try to paint over the cracks—you looked straight through them.

And the ache

didn’t disappear

but it loosened its grip.

So I stayed.

Ninety-nine times I almost didn’t.

But you were the reason I never made it to one hundred.

As a child I felt invisible, as if I weighed nothing and could squeeze myself into the walls and live there. Or morph into liquid, like the TV character from one of my favorite shows and evaporate. I could observe, merge with the world without participating, and no one would notice I was missing. How can anyone miss who was never born? But I suppose it's a thing, because I sometimes feel like I’m missing this girl I was supposed to be. I can feel her in my chest, but she never quite makes herself known. Maybe that’s who these characters were, these other people I tried to be, these stories I created. Parts that couldn’t quite materialize, lives that I only lived in the confines of my bedroom. They were parts of me seeping through the wall of my heart, the barrier between me and the outside world I learned to fear far too young.

Shells. It has been days since everything changed. I don’t know what day it is now, and I don’t care. I think I was at work when I heard, but I have no recollection. Did I leave with you? Can I? Time and hope were just a mirage in a feigned utopia that no longer exists. Life with you in it is gone and so is everything else. The universe has collapsed unto itself and what is left behind is nothing but dust and vacancy. A big gaping hole gasping like a fish on dry land. And I can’t catch my breath. I feel guilty when I think about the devastation I feel. This isn’t about me, but that’s who you were. You changed everyone you crossed paths with for the better. We didn’t know what was missing until we met you. The shine of you cast light upon all that was good but also all of our ugly, hidden, dirty, shameful, broken, lonely, and the loss within us, and you loved us like we’d never been loved before. A rebirth. And we will never know that love again. You gave what was once meaningless—meaning. How could someone who carried so much pain deliver so much joy? Your heart opened wide for us and we suddenly knew what it felt to be safe, seen, and accepted. The essence of you swaddled all of us no matter where we were. No matter where you were. I met you when I was at my lowest. You knew how to navigate the rubble I was under, you were there too. Our connection was so deep, a true soul connection. Your words both said and written spoke to me as though we had always been together since the beginning of time. Just thinking about the depth of you moves me. We both struggled, but our souls together could sustain it. And now you are gone. I should have called you more. Texted, written. Reached out more. I cannot process this pain. I know there are stages to grief and so I tell myself, this too shall become tolerable. A new norm. But I know better. You were a once in a lifetime human. And for that, I try to convince myself to focus on the blessing of that. And that’s true, I know that most will never have the fortune to meet a soul like you. But your human death is different. And I don’t think I’m going to survive it. I am ruined, I give up. I love you so much. Your energy is next to me but I don’t think it’s enough. Something changed when you left your body, and I don’t want to acclimate to humanity without you. I feel guilty for being selfish about this. But I know you would understand. And that’s all that matters. How did you make everything okay with just a word or two especially when I know you too were hanging on by a thread. Even when we didn’t talk for months, you existing made life manageable. You were and are an angel. A light. Energy that cannot die. You are a part of me, of all of us, and I feel your presence. I know that you are okay now. I know that peace and love everlasting has washed over you and you are everything you ever were without the pain of flesh. You have been and will always be the purest and rawest and realest of all that is beautiful. But for us here, we are stopped in our tracks. Putting one foot in front of the other because that’s what we do, but where are we going now? What is the point. “It takes two people to make you, and one people to die. That’s how the world is going to end.” William Faulkner.