I showed the workings of the mind.
All they saw was that they were blind.
The words and colors didn’t mix.
I threw the mask down and it broke into sticks.
Masks
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Category Archives: Writing
Resilience
This is a world of many rains.
Of pouring downs and flooded street-drains.
I had stopped hearing the cities call.
In the woods I found a misting fall
The water decent down like walls.
Down into a slow creek that became a surging stream.
The stream moved on and flowed to a river.
The river surged, gaining power.
I pondered why the water below
the falls somehow moved so slow.
I wanted to be like the water.
Disappear
I know it’s not the time or place
but I stopped and resolve stumbled when I saw your face
something about it made it shine so clear
that I have so much to do before I disappear.
My ears have yet to stop hearing the sound.
Those voices that tell me I have long to go.
I will keep walking along this road
until your heart turns so shallow.
This is not the way for me
I need to find some kind of sympathy
These pillars of life no longer throw light,
they only throw shadows.
Tremors and trembling tributes to things I once thought.
All of these artifacts of things that I sought,
of goals with half-hearted meaning and places I never wanted to go.
How was I ever to know?
A class ring, a medal, a broken CD.
A stone from the river and a handful of earth.
A diploma of worth, on the back I wrote out how I would no longer be.
I wanted to disappear.
Your visage stopped me here.
Juxtaposed
Just tell me one thing.
It’s all I want to know.
A few simple words that could answer so much for me.
The way you look at me, the way I look at you.
Of the connection we share, what truth there is to us.
Just tell me how much this will hurt.
Attain
I wanted you to know something but I can’t remember what it is.
I wanted to say something but the words went and hid.
I wanted to learn something, something new and amazing.
I wanted to view something, but clouds made the image dim.
I wanted so many things that I never got to live.
Pedagogy
A Projection On Paper story by Zachary Storch
My father taught me the way of the blade. He said the most important thing to remember was why he taught me.
“I teach you so you learn when to use it,” he said.
I took that to heart, but never to mind. We started with wooden sticks that we threw into the air. He showed me how he cut them such that they would split into eight pieces before landing onto the ground. I cut them once only.
The next day we went out to the river, and my father placed his blade into the stream and showed me how his blade cut the water and anything that touched the edge of his weapon. I asked him why he did this, and he said it was to show the danger. That made me confused when we were slashing at flying sticks again the next day. I cut one twice.
Later we moved on to hunting. There were wolves outside of town, and we exterminated them. I asked him what the wolves had done. He told me that they had pillaged chickens and grain. I took that as moral and a reason to use a sword. A thief. Thieves could face a sword.
Then it was sticks again. I cut one four times, but it was only a fluke. The next I could only cut three. Father cut them all eight.
We sparred, too. A dangerous thing for certain when our blades were live, but we did it. He scraped my arm and it bled badly. We stopped then. I cut him back when he lowered his blade. I expected him to be angry, but he applauded me. No mercy. Merciful people could face a blade.
I grew older, and my skill had improved. I cut the sticks six times now. Father had gotten older too. He only cut them five now. He still taught me, only now I knew I was the stronger. I would always learn from him, even now that he is gone.
Bandits came by town. I decided to find them. Father came with me. I cut all I found down. Then we came upon a woman. She held her hands up and cried for me to stop. Father urged me the same, claimed she was innocent, that she was just one of their wives. She had a small dagger on her belt. Were she innocent, she would have struck her husband down. I turned my blade upon my father. I cut him down, then swung back at the woman and she fell with him.
I returned home as a hero. I would still learn from my father in his death. I would never do as he had done.
Never Meant to Last
I dragged my fingers through the sand and
asked myself how anyone could find this zen.
This fire eating at my mind, these gripping tensions breaking,
bursting through my veins.
I raked through the garden with the metal pronged toothpick,
my blood boiling like whistling pot.
Swung my arm, got up, turned around, lashed out at the first thing I saw.
Sand showered over fallen scattered shattered glass.
It was never meant to last.
A Perfect Storm Never Fades
The clouds have not parted.
The sky is still grey.
From the ground itself shines a bright phosphorescence,
which makes it look like day.
That is not to say that the cloud cover cannot lessen,
or that no ray of sunlight can ever shine through.
But, by giving up on dependence on the sun above, one can see that the truest light shines from me and you.
Illusion
We walk this path along a road between fallen trees,
leading deep into our minds. Roads separate, side by side. I heard a crow call from your road and I stopped to turn around. It was not there. Or I could not see it. It was only an illusion. Illusion.
There may be another way to live, but if there is it has never been known to me. It’s the exact same to say that there could be another way to see. All of these perceptions, lenses, do they amount to anything when we can only know one? I cast them away, they are in doubt. Just an illusion.
Illusion, a lie. Real is what is near to me. Real is what I can touch, smell, feel, breath, know, think, perceive. I cannot perceive what others do. I cannot look the way others do. I never want to. I know the truth. I know my way is my way, the others are an illusion to me. An illusion.
Cast them off, these lies of empathy. Just because I can know things about you and what you feel does not mean I can feel it as you do, from your vantage point. I will never know how you feel. I can never know how you feel. To know is an illusion. Nothing more than an illusion.
Take it down like a painting covering a crack, throw it off like a mask. Destroy them. Crush it in your hand. I did. It felt amazing to me. Would it to you? Take a try, throw all you know away. Spin it around and turn it about face sharply, watch as it dissolves into illusion. A complete illusion.
We walk these paths, side by side, never crossing. Can they be crossed? Can one ever change lanes, lenses? My mind is my road, your mind your road, and perhaps there is only room for one on each. I will learn to try to know you. I will learn where the illusion falls. If it is the void between minds, I will know you. If the illusion is the idea of empathy, then may we continue in our own thoughts, never knowing another’s. Or perhaps, may we give in to the comfort of illusion.
Chrome Sphere
Inside her mind was a chrome sphere.
It bent things to see as she wished and made the rest disappear.
I removed it to inspect and behold it’s shine,
and was shocked to see that in it, the reflection was mine.