Sipping the Tea

"I just died a little inside."

But I guess that means you grow older too, a little, right? One more step deeper into life, closer to death. I don't mean to sound morbid-- growing older is a good thing. I'm still enjoying life.

I have to take my life by the reins before I can even consider leaving the beach. For this coming weekend, I had wanted to celebrate my brother's and sister's birthdays, and I had wanted to go to Augusta for my own reasons, but I know best now that I can't. I have to work that weekend because I desperately need the money. Bills are piling up, school work is piling up, the world is piling up on me and I can't hold onto it if I take even one step away from it at this point.

They always wonder why I cut my hair-- and they cry and kick and beg for me not too. But I did it when I moved to Myrtle Beach from Augusta, when I broke up with my now-ex... It's not so much as me giving up on something... Cutting off my hair is just symbolic of taking a deeper than deep breath, I suppose-- of letting something go.

I haven't loved someone in a long time, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm just incapable of it, like my ex said.

Anyway, I'm re-posting this from the poetry threads because it fit.

Babble

I can't take care of you.

My goals have been leveled,
The debris and ash falls still,
(Though if from it a phoenix rises,
I would fly to you on its wings).
And I test the weight of the rubble,
And I judge the distance from the sky--
And in dismay fully realize the great heights
I once built those dreams up towards.

It's a long way back up.

At very first glance
I wanted to tell you,
"I can't take care of you."
But I glanced again
Trying to fool myself
Into a "Maybe I can."
So I said nothing -
That's been the way of it lately.
This urn has run dry,
This pen does not yield any longer,
This heart (always) has room but
These arms are loaded
With the remnants of a fallen Tower of Babel,
At the center of my vanquished Babylon.
Forgive me for believing in
The Glory of the Man Who Dreams.

I know the rhymes well-
It's a long, dark way to Babylon
And now the warm wax drips around my fingers,
The flame, having swallowed the wick whole,
Choked, and killed itself;
The smoke, freed of its molten chain
Has long since passed with the last wind --
The last, tired breath I gave for this
Broken city.

And though my feet are still nimble and light,
They are unguided.

The girl you saw is only a girl,
Only a woman-child,
Only the echo of an oral myth,
Twisted in time,
A hollow cast of rusted tin
In the backyard of her youth,
Surrounded by the wilted
Hanging Gardens
Of her dreams.

I would be brutally ashamed
And mortified
If I took your hand
In my burned and burdened one
And was not able to hold on.

I can't take care of you.