caffeinejournalist23

[caffeinejournalist23]

Hourglass

In the time it took me to fall in love with you,

An entire class morphed from baby-faced kids to pimple-faced teenagers.

In the time it took me to fall in love with you

The start of an apartment lease reached its end.

In the time it took me to fall in love with you

I took off and landed in a plane for the very first time

2 hopeless romantics were happily married

3 gal pals moved 3 states away from each other

4 roommates became best friends

5 hours were spent finally embracing the culture of having Black hair

6 novels were read

My credit score improved by 7 points

8 weeks passed between an application and an acceptance letter

9 strangers followed each other on Instagram promising to hang out again soon

And in just 10 months I felt like I learned and loved myself better as I learned and loved you.

I feel like I’ve waited my whole life for you. And after the year of time it took for me to fall in love with you, these minutes away from you feel like an eternity.

[caffeinejournalist23]

[caffeinejournalist23]

LOVE like LSD

When you attempt to love others

Without first loving yourself,

You’re nothing but a drug dealer.

You have something that everyone wants

That you’re generously providing.

Love like drugs.

Compassion like cocaine.

For your love you’re rewarded with tokens.

Gratitude like coins.

Trust like dollars.

They need you.

They think your love is helping them,

Is getting them through til tomorrow

Is going to numb their pain

Is finding value in their existence.

But you don’t love yourself,

So the love you give is hazardous.

Like a drug dealer

You don’t partake in your own goods.

Your clients come back hooked,

Running the risk of an OD every moment of their lives.

It’s your fault you sold your love for cheap.

Like a drug dealer

You sacrifice strength for wealth

Boundaries for popularity

Love for tokens.

Like a drug dealer

You have blood on your hands,

The blood of those who loved you and OD’ed

Because the lack of love for yourself

Made them overcompensate.

Without first loving yourself,

The love you give is a placebo.

[caffeinejournalist23]

“Your Pain is a Dominatrix”

You are a slave to your pain

You have become hypnotized by the agony of your past.

Like every Black man Richard Nixon knew,

you shoot up the cocaine of your pain straight into your arm,

the sting of the needle getting you hard

The rush of poison into your bloodstream turning you on.

While you sit on the gravel in the middle of a tunnel,

You lecture about allegories best enjoyed outside of caves.

You extend your arms

Skin shivering at the excitement of your pain’s

Cold shackles.

The agony of the past you refuse to let go of brands you with a hot iron switch

And blood rushes to your face as you burn in your misery’s ecstasy.

Though your cum’s on my lips

It’s not the articulate vulnerability from my tongue that satisfied you -

It was how I reminded you of the long hard scars you refuse to heal.

I take off my clothes

but your eyes are locked onto the

chain of resentment

binding your leg.

Patterns of the past lick you

Like whips,

But through gritted teeth you beg for more.

My legs are spread open

Patiently waiting for you to take me in full,

But you’ve finished early at the feel of your pain tying a noose around your neck.

You remember your pain, bask

In your distrust and resentment

To get high above clouds where you can forget

About healing for another day.

I give you my heart

But your fears of this always ending the same

Have afforded your pain the entirety of your soul.

Your pain tells you to run and hide and ruin,

And obediently you say

“Yes master.”

[caffeinejournalist23]

We’re so haunted by our pain.

Can we enter and exit the haunted mansions of our past? Can we look demons and poltergeists in the face and tell them to fuck off? Can we distinguish the ghosts from the guests, the living from the dead?

It’s time to walk towards the bright light of the afterlife. It’s time to move on.

[caffeinejournalist23]

The Real Gotham; Year One, Interim

I think you have more faith in me than I have in myself in how this ends.

You know who I'll continue to be.

[caffeinejournalist23]

The Real Gotham: Volume One, Issue 1

It's been over 9 months since I moved to New York City and I've learned and observed so much - in both empowering and in painful ways.

For some reason, I thought moving to Gotham would just remind me of what I already knew - not make the shadows darker. Working for The Org has exposed me to a whole other side of corruption I had only fantasized about. The way supervisors cover for each other for severely breaking protocol, the toxicity of conservative higher-ups, the manipulation of subordinates subject to a poisoned system, the blatant disregard of mental health and employee wellness and the daring *audacity* to shame US for needing help/time off/etc. when we struggle, and to advertise the importance of mental health without providing any insurance coverage or appointment time for regular therapy sessions..

When I moved to Gotham, I knew - dare I say, I hoped - I would see the truth of real life in all its darknesses. I wanted to confront the maniacs and underworld King-Pins. I wanted to study Bruce Wayne and learn the rules of his world.

I wanted to continue becoming the Batman.

And in many ways I think all of my desires have come to be fulfilled, but I didn't expect to have to experience even more of the trauma that ignited Bruce Wayne's insatiable thirst for vengeance. I thought I had been traumatized enough, had witnessed enough. And more than any of that, I thought I could become the Batman without having to be Bruce Wayne first.

But the duality of hero and villain is ever-resounding through this vigilante narrative that has become my life; I have to be Bruce Wayne, serve [The Org like it's The League of Justice] when in fact it's a direct contributor to the villainous systems that oppress those that I'm serving. And to challenge The Org, to rattle the walls and puncture the ceiling of Bruce Wayne's offices, I have to risk getting called a villain between the whispers of very powerful people.

I know the path I have chosen; I know that my passion for vigilante justice in a cold world like ours makes the work for change exhausting. I know I sacrifice some sanity for this maddening hope that the world can get better, that we as people can be better before we become worse..

I've committed to this path where I hope that this work will make a positive impact, that my pain is worth it, and that empathy and revolution are not ideas lost in the myth and legend of 'the good ole days.'

But it's hard not to feel like a clown after delusionally hoping that Gotham's dark cloud wouldn't pour its toxic rain on me.

[caffeinejournalist23]

Accepting love from anyone without first loving yourself isn’t a relationship - it’s charity.

And baby,

You are too rich and too wealthy

In wit and in love and in compassion and in wisdom and in ambition and in merit

For fucking charity

[caffeinejournalist23]

And I realized more even still,

Including the terrifying fact that

It wasn’t his rejection that I was so afraid of;

I’m just deathly afraid

Of not being pretty enough

Not being funny enough

Not being smart enough

Not being sensual enough

To ever

Have someone I love be attracted to me back

[caffeinejournalist23]

Mr. Potato Head

Mr. Potato Head,

why must you be

such a wise-cracking

idiot?

Can't you see how I smile at you?

Can't you smell how much my body craves yours? - all the

lotions,

body butters,

sprays and oils,

fruits and juices

I've been coating myself in for a chance to unclothe you?

Can't you hear

my sighs of bliss

whenever you finish an intelligent line?

Can't you taste

the extra costly toothpaste

and overpriced mouthwash

and regularly harvested chewing gum

on my breath whenever I say things

to probe more of your thoughts and voice?

Can't you feel

how much I admire you,

how much I adore you,

how much my soul aches to be paired with yours?

For as intelligent as you are,

and as wise as you are,

you really

truly

utterly impress me with how blissfully unaware you are

to how much I desire you.

[caffeinejournalist23]

"Resilience often makes us less soft”

My pain was an intensity like ecstasy

Like the ecstasy I felt

When your lips said my name for the first time.

The golden gates the beauty of your soul brought me to

Parted for me

And I realize this is a floodgate

A dam for my pain.

I stood numb and shivering

Watching my pain well up to flood me

As your rejection

Formed behind your eyes

And began to drip from your tongue.

As my pain washed over me

Like molten gold

The same lava of sun

That burned Icarus

I collapsed.

My pain showed no mercy

Rushing over me

Filling me

Rubbing me

Tasting and choking me

Similar

To how you rushed to fill me, rub me, taste me.

And like your affection

My pain brought me to a sacred place

Leaving me breathless

Numb

Staring up at God

Naked and weak.

My legs were spread

My arms were open

And I watched what remained of my soul

Scatter into a billion pieces.

Maybe if my shattered heart

Split into smaller and smaller fragments

The wind of my pain

Could carry my heart far and wide

Across oceans and beyond boundaries

Where my heart had never been before.

Maybe those small remains

Would be found and held by nomads pacing in desserts

Pilots grazing skies

Sailors caressing oceans

And they could endure the journey

To bring my heart's shards back to me,

Honoring the duty of a bold explorer and

Cherishing the mysteries of my pieces like the treasures of weary travelers.

Perhaps

This is why I would love again after failing love so many times.

Perhaps I craved the high and ecstasy

Of both love and pain.

And because the resilience hardens me

This time I've surrendered to my blinding pain,

Pain that will always belong to me

But can only be gifted to me from failed lovers.

I've surrendered to the pain

And the molten lava of that pain

Molded what little remained of my heart

Into glass marbles

rolling into exotic lands

to be found by explorer's hands.

Perhaps to surrender to pain

Is the only way

To keep this from always ending the same.

[caffeinejournalist23]

Like my lipstick

my blood stained my teeth as I smiled through pain,

as I smiled through agony.

The fracture of my heart proved that this was living,

That I was alive

And barely breathing through my sobs.

I felt my heart throb

The cut through my chest made my blood vessels pulse and twitch.

Every second I watched the world

New tears ripped shards of glass into my eyes.

Under my knees that gave out in the shock and torment

I feel the earth move

Spinning calmly

Turning slowly

Like everything continued in its circular course undisturbed

While I watched my corner of the world fall apart

Burn

Wither in rejection's chaos.

[caffeinejournalist23]

My thoughts

Are like spider webs.

They're beautiful and intricate

So cleverly crafted

I make it look easy

When really it takes a genius to keep up

People see my webs

And think they con replicate them

But when they try

they tangle themselves up

helpless and confused

too humbled or too entitled to respectfully ask for my help

[caffeinejournalist23]

he asked: why are you so mesmerized by your pain? and I answered: because in that pain I recognized the beauty of the person I truly was

[caffeinejournalist23]

he is nothing but a phantom in my mind

a shadow of where my heart once belonged

[caffeinejournalist23]

You needed to hear this

Maybe you just need to lay still

And float.

Have patience in trusting that

The stars in the sky

And the starfish in the sea

Are coming into alignment for you.

Lay still

And wait for an angel to land on your chest

Or a mermaid to lay against your back.

Or maybe a woman who does both,

Who deep dives with you

to the depths of your heart

To discover your deeply buried secrets and mistakes

And cherishes them like treasure,

And also soars with you

Towards your highest hopes and ambitions

And takes you to vantage points

Where you can better see

Your limitless potential.

Your have cast your anchors

Grounding the roots of your soul.

You have taken the tissues

That dried your tears

And folded them into paper planes

Of which you then casted into the sky towards the sunset.

Lay still

Lay ever still in peace

Knowing and trusting that

The breezes of your sky

And the waves of your ocean

Will carry you

To where your heart belongs.

[caffeinejournalist23]

Poem against my ex

I stay gettin paid

You have no personality

Besides gettin laid

This clown prince

Of the patriarchy

He’s pushing me down the hierarchy

If I just close my eyes

And use my mind

Then I see the signs

He’s no good for me