I wake up tired

like sleep gave up halfway.

The mirror gives me back

a stranger I maintain.

No wounds. No screams.

Just a quiet kind of breaking—

daily, hourly, silently.

I used to write songs in my head

on crowded buses—

Now I scroll through lives

I’ll never touch,

still searching for something

that was never mine to lose.

I used to rise high, then forced to drop

Hopefully one day I will stop

Expecting folks to be saints

With their colorful paints

Wish I could care less

Such a sadness, as I can confess

Such a paradox, paradise and crimes

Well, I question sometimes

Such a success of living in your own dress

Every blues and the mania I possess

Then I turn my miracle mind

to an ugly mess

And this mess grows roots—

like ivy in an old cathedral,

climbing my ribs,

whispering  in a language I forgot.

A shadow I never invited—

but now I call it

mine.

I know too much

to be calm.

And not enough

to be free.