old habits die hard,
but the ones that die the hardest have human faces.
these are boys wrapped around fingers,
these are girls painting their lips,
and here I am, writing love songs for all of them.
here stands Saint Peter and a book,
and his long fingers trailing over the words:
the first chapter was drafted
on the back of a movie ticket,
the second on a cocktail napkin, I think--
the third I wrote with pen on somebody’s skin.
the fourth, scratched on wooden planks
with a knife my father gave me.
and yet--
and yet, here they all are,
together like a leather-bound Bible
and the gatekeeper smiles
and says nothing.
angel, what do I atone for?
yes, these are my hands tearing out the pages,
throwing them into the flames, despairing
please, God, why won’t they burn--?
now in the fire I see movie screens and bare skin,
lips on drink glasses in dark rooms.
here are the things which I have lived and spoken;
the ink won’t come off the paper
and I will never ask for forgiveness.
this is the ending I wrote
when God didn't answer.
here I ask again, and only once--
angel, what do I atone for?
and the gatekeeper smiles
and says
nothing.

It can be quite daunting at first to start something new. However, all you really need is the right kind of attitude. The open-minded approach to tackle problems as they come along. My biggest fear, however, remains being afraid of not finishing what I have started and dropping things half-way through as soon as the going gets tough. I admit that this problem of mine has been present all the way throughout my life. I'm quite quick on the uptake and get really intense about something and then somewhere along the line I get side-tracked and drop things altogether.
    The saying "easy come - easy go" could never be more true for me. Having said that, I know that everyone has encountered this exact same problem at one time or the other, so the grass always looks greener on the other side despite the fact that it's often painted.
    The ease with which I get a head start compared to other people has been both a blessing and in a way a curse. But I shouldn't seek excuses when it is quite clear that I lack the motivation, perseverance and the self-discipline to soldier on after I finish the first lap. To put things into perspective I am like a competitor at a 5000m race challenging the title again and again. It brings me endless joy being able to participate and more often than not I am the one who sets the pace, however half way through the race fatigue sets in and I gradually lose the built-up momentum. Seeing that, competitors overtake me left and right. Eventually, I lose the heart to continue and end up finishing last or dropping out of the race.
    I keep wondering; perhaps the secret to success in not starting strong, but being consistent and preparing yourself mentally for that finally straight line when all your arduous training pays off and you still have some firepower left in you to give it your all. Not only what you can do, but edging slightly outside or your own limits, be it mental or physical, that keep holding you back you outmanoeuvre your own shadow.

     The other problem of mine is that I rarely practice what I preach. I like to reflect and analyse, and can pin-point fairly accurately the inner demons that have been plaguing and dulling my senses, but comes next day – and I succumb to them once more. Lately though, I feel like I am eradicating them one by one, but I shouldn’t rest on my laurels.
      For example, over the last five years I have discontinued playing guitar and then picked it up again countless of times. I would intensively practise for days, sometimes weeks, professing my love for music and then give up on it at a drop of a hat. With distractions and novelties larger than life, it is getting harder and harder to ignore them and go about our own business as we did before. They are like irresistible mythical modern-day sirens lulling us into a trance-like state of comfort and false sense of security. “Forget all your problems and let go of your worries, sweetie. We will take care of it all now”, whisper the sirens as their bodies become entangled with ours and for a split second we can feel the weight of our shoulders starting to disappear. Split second is all it takes t avert our eyes from things that truly matter and before you know it - we are neck-deep in this fairy land.
     Once we snap out of it, a sense of helplessness engulfs us mixed with guilt for wasting so much time. Without further a due, we seek out a new distraction that can preoccupy our thoughts, so that we can feel on top of the world once again. As a result, a new form of escapism is born where we dig endless tunnels; not to escape into the real world, but as far away from it as is humanly possible. Much like the prisoners, we are just as creative in finding means to escape and evade hardship. Therefore, we are effectively prisoners of our own minds rationalizing our every wrong-doing up until there is no inner voice to question it any longer. By then, the ritual of “switching off the real world” is hard-wired to our neurological pathways and over time it becomes second nature.

I chase these ideals...
These versions of my life that don't exist,
They just become tormenting fantasies,
Sometimes, destroying everything I love in the process...
I begin to analyze the concept of what's "deserved,"
Deserved by whom?
Who's the authority?
The sky's the limit?
Not when you're shackled to the ground, shackled by the wake of your past,
You can't escape your shadows,
Lost in mistake after mistake,
Like a stone of scar tissue,
There's nothing left to wound,
Which exit did I miss?
Maybe I should have gotten off this road a long time ago,
What went wrong?
What went right?
Love, family, life, dreams...
This game full of tricks, fools, dogs, and thieves,
Blessed or cursed,
It's all this relative facade,
Romanticizations and fairytales,
You've got yours and I've got mine,
A nonsensical masquerade,
Wrapped in oblivion,
By dawn, the masks come off,
No one's dancing,  
And we're left standing naked with our truths, our choices, and our pain,
Daily reminders all around,
Everything is dulled,
A shimmering lackluster,
Sensations numbed,
Spare me sensationalization,
Please don't offer me prescriptions,
Don't offer me subscriptions,
They don't disguise the lies,
They don't smooth out the wrinkles of the sweet, euphemistically, sugarcoated descriptions of what is and what will never be...

Clandestine connections,
Undeniable, as we spiral through this network of intimate caves...
Slipped into a hole years ago,
Never seemed to crawl out..

There's a place for those
like you and me, kid--staring
through this window pane, at odds
for hours. Conversations even out
these nights 'til a year's passed.
A smile of glass that dies too fast
ain't all we're sharing; just the
loudest thing we're sharing, staring
through this silent frame.

There's a place for those
like you and me--where we can go
when seasons roll
               around our guts
               and come back up
in boiling years.
          That place is here,
in this square frame,
with our smile of glass that breaks
           too fast
when dice cast cry out snake eyes;
          ours are blue,
and some are brown.

But she looks pretty
                         happy
                           now.

So it's back into this mirror frame
for debates had through window panes
and scrubbing hard with scalding water
          rinsing off our name.

Sadness, you see,
is supposedly the absence of happiness.

The irony of my sadness,
is that I never felt the happiness.
Not once;
not at all.

One can argue, then
is it really sadness that I feel?
Or is it simply
my state of being?

Either way,
whatever it is,
it sincerely hurts.

(d.d.b)

On the surface I am happy.
Its quite the masquerade
I'm the jolly friend, always smiling
To find a way
To veil my true feelings in a shroud of dismay
Because the surface is crumbling
Under the roars of self-hate

What do you see when you look in the mirror?
A friend, a creep, a thinker, a freak.
The reflections of my own, burdened by bone;
Leave me breathless to the contradictions I hold.
My image is twisted externally from within
The identity of myself is buried underneath my skin
I'm a composition of conscious affliction burning for complex attention
Burning to be found and defined
Burning to be hidden and paid no mind.
Burning.

And then it hit me;

it had nothing to do with the fact that I tripped over a rock
fell and scraped my knee, crushed orange leaves and marred
them against me-it'd be tricky to get this off in one wash.

I was caught by an overdue epiphany;

it had been chasing me since the beginning of everything but
I promise it was not the reason I jogged each and every season
back and forth-which I suppose also was metaphorically.

Nothing was going to change;

I got up and brushed my raw hands on my ***** pants,
mud stuck to the heel of them and trickles of sweat fell down and
made everything that much colder-windy city.

If I kept waiting;

my breath came is white puffs, rapid and elevated,
the sun broke through the thin barrier of gray clouds and I swore
just a bit at the state of my ripped pants.

For someone to come and alter it;

my legs were burning at the sudden discontinuity of motion and thus
I got up and stretched once more- my knee was bleeding- inhaled deeply
the scent of crushed leaves and began my journey home.

It was me all along;

Children played,undisturbed by the chilly breezes of Autumn,
they fell and laughed merrily as though falling was just a sanguine
thing to do.

And it wasn't easy, I know;

The wind took the tiny tangerine hats off trees, blowing, howling,
the leaves soared at the mercy of nature's cycle-death and rebirth-
and suddenly my excuse of “what's the point? I'll die anyway.”
seemed petty and amusing.

I needed to change to change things.

A child, unafraid of pain, dove unto a pile of gathered leaves,
disappeared in a midst of orange and red after emerging
flushed and jolly, snickering and snorting. I crossed the road
and reached the door.
And after I let water fall and take away the dirt, a stray leaf had
made its way to my hair and I did not throw it away but kept it
as a reminder of the tumble I took to fall to this conclusion.

Autumn fell unto my world, feathers bright like the plumage of
a Phoenix bird in flight.