Snuggles
Snuggles
I snuggle next to my little sloth
Her bright eyes shining at me
Laughter across her face
I feel the soft warmth of her
All around me when I kiss her cheek
She smells good
It’s nice to be held in her arms
Similar Posts
Finding My Feet In Austin
Byjack
Finding My Feet In Austin
Today I’m walking around with Yad
And I feel anxious because I don’t know what will happen next
What should happen next
But as I move
As I talk to girls
To guys
I feel more and more
Like this is the adventure I was looking for
This is the freedom I’m looking for
I don’t know where this is going
I just need to be able to stay in my body
And have courage
I’m so scared
But I feel a little hope now
This poem is about feeling so lost all the time. Not wanting to meet anyone or talk to anyone, but feeling so incredibly isolated and lonely. I’m afraid of wasting time but I don’t know where to focus my energy. But right now I realize that I just need to have an adventure and make an effort to overcome my fear of getting close to people or showing them who I am.
It’s not important to make the right decision, more so that I am able to feel the feelings.
I Wonder If I Ever Meant Anything
Byjack
I Wonder If I Ever Meant Anything
I wonder if her words had any weight
Like sturdy old fashioned railcars laden with
Golden promise
Or if they were as ephemeral and false
Like the carcass of a shattered plate
Once with pleasing curves
And a sureness
Like that of unspoken feelings
I wonder now
If I imagined it all
And the distance was an ocean
That I mistook
For a puddle
A Penny From The Top of The Empire State Building
They say, that an oridinary penny
Dropped from the top of the empire state building
Will cut a hole through the concrete sidewalk below
The penny is in me now
Burning a hole
Through the bottom of my heart
These poems are about the fear that there was never a real connection, that I made it up in my own mind. I wonder if there was even the possibility of love, or if I was simply deluding myself.
I wonder what I wasn’t able to give her. Was I not attractive enough? Not fun enough? Did I not give her enough space?
To Explore Love
Byjack
Who She Is For Me
When I’m with her
I feel I can be so ugly
So weak
So bad
So hurtful
And yet I feel safe
Like I can stop checking
Her face for signs of anger
Stop feeling ashamed, worried
It surprises me how calm I feel
When my mask is off around her
Her acceptance like a balm for my soul
Her love can
Make her helpless
Like the most beautiful creature
So vulnerable
She would endure
Pain if it means my pleasure
I like to explore life
And uncover it’s discoveries
Now I can have someone to share them with
It’s like
She can hear music in my mind
Of imagination, of beautiful ideas, of glory
And she smiles at me
Like we have a joke only we know
When I am struck with pain
Like an animal looking for its home
I seek her warmth
And her love is like a blanket
I can snuggle deep within
Protected from the world
Sometimes, we are just laughing
She’s shining as brightly as a star
It’s like the kind fun
You only find
As a kid on a playground
When she is hurting
I want to take her pain
Spread it around
So I can see her smile again
She is strong-willed
And I’m grinning
When she leads me by the hand
And shows me the world
Through her eyes
And all I can think sometimes
Is how much I love her
I Was Wondering What Would Happen If
I feel open
Like a canvas ready for paint
No future
No expectations
No obligations
Only action
Or no action
I didn’t pick up the phone
Except for the time
When I really felt like it
When I open my mouth
My words are driven
By the moment
In the freedom
Of saying fuck it
I’ll do what I feel like
I dream at night
For a relaxed afternoon
Sipping tea
And beauty
Both sweet and ordinary
When when I’m done wondering
We pass on
With happy memories
Like the lasting sweetness
Of a candy
Melted in your mouth
These two poems are comparing the feelings I have for two things – the girl who I want to wait for, and the experience of dating around that I want to explore in the meantime. I was trying to reconcile them and understand how they can coexist.
Some thoughts:
- I used to think I had to be super upfront about not wanting anything serious when dating. I don’t think so anymore. I will only explain if asked by the girl or if there comes a time where I feel I need to explain it (she is getting too invested). Most girls don’t even care until they develop feelings since they have an abundance of men.
- I used to reach out to people even when I didn’t want to (usually because I felt guilt since I knew the girl liked me and I didn’t want to hurt her/lose her). I’m not gonna do that anymore. I’ll basically treat them like guy friends. If there is something I want to say, or do with them, I will reach out. Otherwise, I’ll say nothing, make no effort.
- I’m afraid that I will mess up the beautiful connection I have with the girl I am waiting for by dating. I decided to stop pushing down that fear. It is happening for a good reason. As soon as I feel scared, unsafe, or distracted I should just stop dating and refocus on her. I never went into this to replace her and I should keep her as my top priority.
- I worry about meeting women so attractive I will forget about the girl I am waiting for. Honestly, this might happen at first, but I think at the end of the day, personality matters much much more to me. I think I would only be distracted by looks because I haven’t dated before. As long as someone is attractive ENOUGH, if I love them, they will be the most beautiful woman in the world to me.
- Overall, I should worry less about hurting women since they aren’t like men (have only one or two women to talk to). They usually have lots of men and could care less if I stopped talking to them. I can still be compassionate without overcompensating (for my fear of being an asshole).
She Knows
Byjack
She Knows
That calling is very important to me
That I only ask when I really want to
That I’m tired and lonely
That it’s excruciating to see her having fun
With others
When she refuses to play with me
That is why she gives me vague answers
In hopes that she won’t disappoint me
She knows
The lengths
I’m willing to go to
To make it work
Maybe she just cannot give me
What I need
Or maybe
When she’s upset
She cannot see anything but the negative
Forgets all the happy times
Forget the fun we had
How well we work together
Before she stopped listening
The love we shared
Before the angry words
How much she wanted to reassure me
Before she was afraid
How much she liked being mine
Before she wanted to push me away
The nights when she doesn’t want me to get off the phone
And told me I was right
That we always understand each other better
Be more real
On a call
I need rest
A very long one
Away from all of this
So I know
What is best
For me
Focus on what I want
For a moment
It takes strength
To get past all the mess
To true understanding
And to part of a relationship
That is secure and loving
It’s like pushing an elephant
My feet are dug in
The struggle goes on
And on
Water In the Basement
Byjack
Water in the Basement
There was water in the basement today
My mom handed me a garbage bag
To throw away things
That we couldn’t wash
The saddest thing
Was a cardboard sculpture of myself
Because I knew
It was sodden and sad
Paper hair plastered on the side
Like a sad version of a bad hair day
I remembered when it was new
When my art professor told us about Chris Gilmour
The sculptor who used cardboard instead of stone
Intricate cars and motorcyles
Precisely detailed in warm brown
And gave us the assignment to create a sculpture of ourselves
But my sculpture
Wasn’t like Gilmour’s at all
It was all messy cardboard
Hot glued together
It didn’t look like me
But it felt like me
When I looked into the eyes
I remembered the way I felt
My mind was all stars and night and imagination
Some part of me
Is afraid to let it go
It’s a familiar sad feeling
Like what I felt when I let go of the girl I loved
Only
This time
The person I’m letting go of
Is the person
Who made the sculpture
Years ago
When I look at this sculpture that I made in wood and mixed media class, I remember what I felt in college. So young and full of promise. That I could be anything, do anything. That I didn’t have to think about the rest of my life. Part of me always wants to go back. And it is hard to admit that that part of my life is over.
I think about this when I wait for nighttime. It is nighttime when I will see how things are going to unfold. I hope she will show me her vulnerable side, her emotional side again. The parts of her that I knew I needed in my life when I first met her. But I know, I cannot force her to be that person for me. That there is a possibility, that she won’t. That she will be closed and I’m so sad that I may have to say goodbye to the person I was when I was in love with her.
Art | Digital Art | Poetry | Writing
Artistic Life Challenge
Byjack
I don’t really know much about what I want from this challenge yet just so as to say that there was a part of my life when I felt really connected to visual art. I used to draw all the time, I used to think about ideas for paintings and dream of illustrating children’s books and graphic novels.
A part of me is still excited by those things but for whatever reason, maybe it was going to a school without passionate artists, maybe it was pushing myself to be more logical and working in logical STEM fields for years, or maybe it was just a part of growing up – I lost touch with art somewhere along the way.
The challenge is simple but difficult to define. I will have succeeded if I feel that I am meeting my need to be creative and finding that joy, wonder, and creativity in my life again like I did when I was younger.
I will try to express the feelings through a poem:
Anything Was Possible
Anything was possible back then
And by anything I don’t mean that I ever dreamed of anything as boring as a seven-figure salery
I felt the worlds of magic at my fingertips
The rush and pull of sorcery
A great clash between good and evil
And a bond between friends, unwavering
Of great courage and great sacrifice
I think now
In what my younger self could have only described
As old age
30 years old is practically ancient
I know that the only way I can do this challenge
Is not through an arbitrary goal or metric
But rather it has to be a portal to another world
A graphic novel
Like I always wanted
Or an illustrated book
It doesn’t matter
Because it is the world that matters
The world that I can escape to
Like the little mouse hole my six year old self would crawl into
To read frog and toad books at the library
Perhaps this has all come full circle after all
Because 30 years old is precisely the age
My younger self would expect to be the time
When people stopped being readers
And started being writers
The creators of the worlds
Like the ones I used to like to escape to
When I was young
It’s actually both fantastic and sad that it took a poem for me to understand what my focus will be for my art challenge. I think I will rename this challenge. I wanted to find myself reinspired by art, and I forget how art inspired me in the first place – by entering and creating other worlds.
This will now be known as the “The Other World” challenge and I will dedicate a year to it.
One year to develop another world that I can dive into, be comforted by, and be lost in.
That means by October 9th, 2024 I will endeavor to have created a miracle. Shaped and molded a whole new universe out of words, images, and maybe even music.
I’m excited because I thought this challenge was going to be like the rest of them, so difficult and challenging. I thought it was going to be about doing Inktober and drawing for an art competition. I realize now that those goals are meaningless to me, and using them as goals, made me feel directionless in art.
This feels more true to my love for art. I remember crying to my girlfriend today about a beautiful book I read when I was young, called the Power of Un. It was a world that I fell into, just like all the others. It was all these worlds that made me feel excited for life. And it is the absence of these worlds that have left me feeling like some part of me was lost and never quite found.