"Totemism", Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art Of Joseph Cornell By Charles Simic.

"You taught me the courage of stars before you left

How light carries on endlessly even after death

With shortness of breath you explained the infinite

How rare and beautiful it is to even exist"

— Saturn, Sleeping at last

We will breathe for the dead. They cannot suffocate all of us. Honor their legacy. Rest in Power kings and queens. ✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿

"My dear, I have become so familiar with the loss of loved ones that death now seems like family and my grave feels like home."

Charles Baudelaire, The Enemy

"A House with No Mirrors"

I live in a house. A house with no mirrors.

What am I hiding from, you may wonder. What is it that I don't want to see?

Is it the way my mother's smile quivers when she's been hurt? Or the violent anger my father's fist holds?

Is it them I'm avoiding? Or… is it me?

Do I hate the curve of my nose, the same nose I share with my father? Or is it the hint of my mother's cheekbones, that I can't stand?

Do I despise the oppressor or pity the victim? Do I…. fear them? Fear becoming them? Or do I fear myself?

Which category do I belong to? Which one am i? A perfect blend of the oppressor and the oppressed. Where do I fit in?

In the broken cracks, where the world forgot, or perhaps, chose to forget, about me because it's so much easier to ignore than accept that there's a gaping flaw in the system. Where at some point, I too forgot the feeling of a warm embrace and loving eyes. And with the broken shards of time, I forgot my own name. Just like I hope to forget my own face.

I look in the mirror. Who am I looking at this time? A monster? Or his slave? Whose face do I see more?

Whichever one it is, I know for a fact that it's not my face that I see but theirs.

Always theirs.

I was cursed from birth. I was cursed to carry the DNA of two contradicting forces. They've blended inside me, melded as one just to create a disgusting mess of weaknesses, insecurities and existential issues. I wouldn't know where I began and they ended, what part of me even belongs to myself.

I had the misfortune to live among thieves. They stole my childhood, my sanity and now my face.

Heads turn away refusing to accept that mistakes were made. I guess I inherited that as well.

I hide away.

In moments of despairing sadness, I see my mother's lifeless smile instead of mine and in moments of rage… well. I don't like to look at that.

I wish I could see my mother's curiously intelligent mind. Or my father's sharp, observing gaze. But…

I live in a house with no mirrors because I'm afraid of what I might see this time.

I fade away.

~Me

" A Legacy "

I suppose we humans are like the very stars whose dust we came from. Each of our individual selves might seem like a speck among other specks in the deep, ebony unknown, but each of us hold such significance that our demise would impact the planets we once held close, the neighboring stars and much more. The blinding light and energy we would create would last for generations, our explosion echoing in the quiet, loneliness, creating just the right amount of power for something else to create, to begin, to bloom, to breathe. And in our deafening silence, the rest of the stars shall bow in respect. Somewhere, light years away, something enters into existence holding a piece of your light in it. A legacy continues from death to rebirth.

~Me

Downfall

okay but why are all gifted/talented kids gay and/or depressed now

When did I get so grey. Or maybe I have always been this dull shade of nothingness. I'd like to think that I was once an exuberant yellow just to have something to compare with. To know that I've moved and changed and grown, to know that I had once tasted the sun,that I held it in my gentle hands and for once I didn't burn. But that's a lie isn't it? A comforting one but a lie nonetheless. Maybe I've always been grey.

~Me