This morning I woke up and found a tower
outside my window
sprouting in the garden
where there'd never been one before.
It stretched up into the clouds
past where I could see.

Any smart kid would have told their parents,
shook them awake.
But I never said I was smart.
I ran out in my pajamas
getting mud on the bottoms of my feet.

There was a door on the other side
with bars across the window.
When I knocked
a giant eye appeared,
blinking at me.
I didn't know what to say
and I didn't want to be rude.
So I just pointed up.

The eyeball blinked once,
then again,
and disappeared.
The door creaked loudly
and I turned,
but no one else was around.
So I went inside.

I'm still climbing now.
I've already passed the clouds.

My stomach's growling,
but I have to know where this goes.
Maybe they'll be dragons there...

Thick crowds milling 'round
I stand here still and silent
in cacaphony

I've begun the process of improving myself.
​It's as simple as taking a good look,
picking out the frail and broken pieces,
and replacing them with something stronger
more reliable.
My heart had been the greatest example.
It trapped my mind in a feedback loop of empathy.
Every beat was biased,
an amalgamation of what everyone else was feeling
instead of what should have been only me.
So I reached inside
and carved it out.
Now, with a stone sewn into it's place.
I can walk the world unburdened.
See it all for what it truly is
without the weight of feeling.

Into the boiling pot, another goes
sparking and hissing
smelling of sweetened copper.
The squeamish would cower if they saw
the pieces of flesh and vegetation alike
that I add to my bubbling stew.
But they are not for whom I make my potions, no.
If anything, they are fated to become ingredients themselves,
shrieking as I carve them
and piece by piece I toss them
into my cauldron.
They are right to fear the me,
for I see their measly little lives
and laugh.
When you have lived for millennia,
few mortal matters matter anymore.

My mind is frozen.
Creativity has fled.
​Sleepy time is now.

Wind whistling in the trees
speaks of wonders to me.
Singing shanties of the sea
and the creatures it oversees.
It speaks, and I listen
as the sunlight glistens
on the water, and christens
the new day with light.
My day is not void of strife,
nor can any life
truly be. But it is rife
with beauties sharper than any knife,
leading me back repetitively
to the belief that the world is worth our time,
and it values our lives as another beautiful thing
about which the wind can sing.

What did I ever do to sleep
to make it avoid me so?
It slithers around the edges of my room
glaring at me from beneath my desk
and growling deeply when I reach a hand towards it
baring it' tiny serrated teeth.
Only when I give up all hope of coaxing it out
and curl up beneath my covers to sulk
does it creep slowly into the open
before silently joining me on the bed.
It curls up in the small of my back
and the hollow of my collarbone,
purring softly into my ear.

Within my fortress of books, there are
unlimited adventures. All
waiting for a curious,
perceptive eye to dive
deep beneath their first
few pages and
explore what
awaits
there.

Shadows skitter on
hardwood floors, beneath dancing
unaware figures.

Sometimes, when I shriek into that endless abyss that's been dug in my backyard
after hours of my frustrations and unrequited love pours from my lips,
the softest echo creeps its way back up from the darkness.
Barely a whisper,
but somehow carrying a lifetime's worth of acceptance
a verbal embrace from the eternal and unending.
It's not in a language that I know,
but somehow I understand.
The sounds trace my edges,
discovering me
memorizing me,
before disappearing again into that darkness.
I can't stop going back now.
Just in case the owner of those words
decides to pay a visit.
I swear,
they get a little louder every day...