I pick letters off the winds.
String words together into garlands.
With ink-smudged fingers,
On crumpled papers,
I write my dreams.

I see them dance,
The letters, the lines,
I see them sing
Tell tales,
Stories of people in other lands
With dreams of their own,
Sent to me on the wind.

I pick them out
And pen them down
Throw in some of my own
Create and destroy
For what is writing but dreaming
And destroying

For I throw them away
Those words, those garlands
Watch them go
Just as they came
For someone else
In another land
To pick out
And thread,
Like I once did.

Words
They fly
Free.

Waiting for curious minds
And inquisitive fingers
To find them
And then they live
And die
Forever floating
On the wind.

This is pretty directionless. Just words put together. I just thought they had to be said, one way or another.

Broken hearts and empty promises
Words carelessly spoken
Feelings forgotten
Memories tarnished with time

Caution thrown to the winds
For life must be lived
Moment to moment.
That's what all of them say anyway.

Take it as it comes, they teach us
What will be will be

Let it go, they tell me
Leave it be.

But...
Why think of a future
When there isn't one to be had
Why curse at the fates
When they really have no role to play

And what of the hopes and the prayers?
The desires, the fears?
What of the dreams and the doubts?
The longing and the loathing?

Broken hearts and empty promises
Words, feelings, memories.

How do you really know you care about someone? How do you truly know?

You know when you want to take their pain and their hurt and make it yours. Only so that they will smile again. And then nothing else matters. You know when you want to erase even the smallest frown that creases their forehead. You know you care when all the work you do and any trouble you take doesn't matter, only because eventually, it makes them happy.

You know you truly care when you wish you could protect them from anything that could hurt them. And you wish you were powerful enough to absorb all of it. Only because then, they would be happy.

The absolute carelessness of some people repulses me. The complete callousness and hypocrisy of their very lives makes me gag. The all talk no walk way they deal with everything makes me angry. So angry that I see red. The way they take so many things so lightly. The way they laugh at those who don't. The way they complain about things they don't have and then complain when they do get them. The way they want everything all the time. The way nothing is ever good enough. The way things should always be the way they see them. The way they waste so much potential and then complain that things aren't delivered to them gift wrapped and served on a silver platter.

They make me sick. And they make me angry.

Yes, I am a hypocrite too sometimes. And I am definitely not above reproach. I am in no way perfect.

Just to make it completely clear, this is a rant. And I don't do this very often. But sometimes it's too difficult to not say anything.

Thank you and good bye.

The evening was tinged with sadness. A melancholy that blanketed everything.

Their smiles didn't reach their eyes. The cold was in their bones but they didn't seek warmth in each other. They had none to offer.

They watched the flame of the candle slowly burn down. The light dancing in their eyes, hypnotic, helping them ignore the tension.

They knew the end was near. That it was time to say goodbye.

They didn't have any words left. Nothing to say.

And as they ate in silence, the taste of the food wasted on them, the candle continued to burn.

And then they left.

Together, but far apart. Two souls wrapped in misery, too broken to support each other. Two people playing out a silent charade, a pantomime. Two people with nothing to hold on to anymore.

And so they walked. As a pair but with only their thoughts to listen to. In the cold, wrapped up in their jackets. But what could those do for the cold inside their hearts. Longing to hold each other, they walked, knowing that it wasn't to be anymore.

And then it was time for goodbye. With no words left to say and all the strength they had mustered gone, they stood in the light of the single streetlight looking at each other. Struggling to keep the pieces together, trying to speak with no words, they stood there while the world spun madly around them.

And then the spell broke. The dam crumbled. The strength failed completely. And they left. Each to go their separate ways. Tears betraying them, they walked away. Shells of what they'd once been, facades gone.

Thus the curtain fell. On a story often seen, seldom told.

Some addictions are worse than cigarettes or drugs.

What I'm talking about is addiction to a person. Because what it does is give you expectations. You can't expect anything from cigarettes or from weed. You can't expect alcohol to make conversation. You don't expect heroin to love you back. You can buy all of the above for varying amounts of money.

But an addiction to a person is different. You hope. You wish. You dream. And you expect.

You want reciprocation. You want acceptance. And since the addiction isn't to a something, but a someone, there is a whole set of different ideas and perceptions to deal with. While cigarettes and alcohol do not come with hopes and dreams of their own, human beings do. And while all cigarettes are essentially the same and so is all alcohol, humans, every single one of them, are different. Every single one of them comes with a story, baggage, perceptions and more. With cigarettes and alcohol and all the others, the fix is in your control. But with a person, how can you expect to have any control? And while you can throw away a cigarette, pour the alcohol away or blow the weed into the wind, what do you do with a person, a physical entity?

Some addictions are definitely worse than others. And they don't even come with a cure.

We humans are horribly selfish people. Some more than others. We believe that our lives are the most important and we expect everyone around us to treat us that way. The problem is, everyone is too busy treating their own lives as too important. Then comes that one person who for some reason just isn't as selfish as everyone else, who doesn't believe that his life and opinions are paramount and who thinks that maybe all those others who expect better treatment, maybe do deserve that better treatment.

Thus begins a story we are all too familiar with. This one less selfish than the crowd, patient soul has his/her love and energy sucked out of him/her as those others demand his/her attention and devotion.

"My work is more important." Yes sir. "My life is more important." Yes sir. "My future is more important." Three bags full.

And so ends another story, so is destroyed another soul.

Who's next?