Panic Violence Death Bodies dropping all around youGun shots in the air Helicopters roaring in the skyChildren screamingMothers bleedingYou runEveryone runsAnd wherever you run to us where they fire at next​​​​​​​

This is about the genocide in Gaza.

Life is only special because it will never last. For what is a moment that never becomes a memory? What could be the purpose in that? Sunsets. Goodbyes. Tears. Laughter. We cling to them and memorize them because they all fade away and we do not know the day nor hour we’ll meet again.

Imagine never having the opportunity to take a risk. Imagine a life where at some point new things no longer exist. That is a life without death.

I love the way I do because I know I am not promised tomorrow. And this does not mean there is no point in making plans for tomorrow, although easily mistaken so.

Live knowing there is meaning in every moment because no moment lasts. Every second could be your goodbye. Every first could be a final and every sun could forever set.

We live with an urgency in our heads. We hold people like we’re not sure when they’ll disappear. We run like maybe we won’t be able to catch up if we wait.

I am not morbid for saying the meaning of life is death.

It’s gotten to the point where I no longer watch the clock. What am I really relieved of when the bell rings? It’s not the grammar lesson I wish to escape, but the thoughts inside my head that follow me out the classroom door — the emotions I’m unable to put into words.

Perhaps I can escape for a moment. I think about how cold the hard, plastic chair is, how it’s been pressing against me for almost an hour and I have yet to move. I think about how the clock ticks every second and everyone’s so anxious for the last one. I wonder how the teacher feels, speaking the same words to kids whose minds are so clearly somewhere else. They must struggle to find the purpose too.

The girl in front of me shakes her leg and taps her pencil. Her eyes look through the teacher like she’s studying something far away. The boy across the room glances at the clock every two minutes. I used to think he was cocky and stuck-up, counting down the seconds until he could drive away in his Mercedes to his three story home. But now I wonder if he’s dreading the moment he gets home, the moment the yelling starts and he’s forced to endure.

We all convince ourselves that we’re alone, that no one understands and they never could. But it’s all a lie. Everybody is struggling no matter how perfect their life seems from outside the wooden, white picket fence. We don’t hear each other's demons. We hide our own and cry because we think we’re alone. But we are only all alone together.

I feel as though I cannot breathe too deep. My paralyzing fear restrains me.

The waiting room, with walls too white, pulsates beneath the harsh lights that buzz like restless moths. It slowly moves to enclose me — to trap me with my fears.

My vision will not focus no matter my effort and my head is pounding in sync with the uneven ticks of the clock above the door. Each second is a drum of dread against my ribs as if it’s trying to knock me over.

The air tastes metallic and cold, choking me. I can’t inhale before another beat hits me, forcing the air from my lungs.

I try to regulate my breathing. I try to focus on something, anything else besides this unbearable pain of not knowing. The wilted, forgotten flowers on the table. The receptionist’s hopeless expression. The small boy on the floor across the room who is blissfully unaware of his surroundings. Anything.

Instead I sit here, sinking into the hard plastic chair, like a reminder that comfort is a luxury no one here deserves.

Voices flicker in and out of hearing, snippets of hurried footsteps, whispered prayers, brittle coughs — fragments of other lives folding into this shared silence.

My hands tremble though I squeeze them between my knees trying to put them to rest. I feel like I have no control over myself, just like I have no control over what’s to be told to me.

My throat is thick with things unsaid, there’s a swelling tide of fear rising in my chest. Every breath feels loud, every heartbeat a hammer in the quiet — too fast, too loud, too sharp. I want to scream and cry but there isn’t enough energy in me.

The door opens. A nurse steps out. Her eyes scan the room and then they find me. My world narrows to the complex silence between us, the space where hope and despair collide, and I hold my breath.

I try to figure it out before she reaches me, but she is expressionless and I am left with no answer. I’d rather not hear it aloud.

She talks to me as though it’s a casual conversation about the weather. No intention or emotion, just bland words, “I’m sorry.”

And at once, everything stopped. It’s like waking up and forgetting where you are. For a short time I simply took in the relief of the silence’s retirement. My surroundings faded in and I was suddenly aware. I didn’t feel real — life felt like I was an observer rather than a character. Everything was happening without me.

A forest lush upon a cliff

Held pterodactyls proud nest.

Blue and clear lay the sea

Far below the edge.

Full of shells and rocky as could be

Lay a beach near the sea

Never once had seen the trees and

The trees never saw the beach.

Cradled in the nest were four eggs.

Hatched first was green and chubby

Blue and shiny was the second

Large egg held a tiny baby

But the last was quite appalling.

Wingless, orange, sharp teeth and claws

A baby T-rex hatched.

Shocked Pterodactyls glared as

A enemy appeared on their nest.

An unwelcome hatchling part 1 complete.

As the moon greets the new day, I often find myself wondering whether you awoke by the same light that crept through my open window, sweeping away the sleep from my heavy eyes like a thief in the night. Did you find yourself up, drowsy, still in haze of what your resting mind showed you behind the curtain of seista?

If you were, I would be overjoyed simply knowing you and I were once more connected through the silly mutuality of a mundane morning routine.

When the sun bids farewell, do you find yourself wide awake, a nementia. Unable to recall what was stolen from you the same morning and as the realization sets in you feel it. The gut-wrenching comprehension that We no longer exist.

Covering our faces with thick blankets, crinkled noses and white knuckles around our cold bodies.

Our chest convulsing for the hit of what it used to be.

Do you blame me like I blamed you? Only to blame yourself as I, just till the mind finally takes ahold and pulls you into a vast deep blue?

Does your thief arrive to steal from you yet again?

Oh, pray tell. Pray tell, you do, don't you?

Amid the stuffy roads, coffees we prefer due to convenience, the greens and whites, the special perfume you borrowed from your father that sunny 7am when you met my mother

Pray tell, when you put it on, does it steal from your peace the way it does for me.

Our Maru Mori

The simple experience of the sun on our faces, the air around us, the moon we share and the roads between?

How trivial, how important.

An existence within itself. An existence that is know not to you but to me alone. This is my vaucasy, a product of my circumstance that has let me to imagine your complacency to my fantasy.

As the crowd grows, do you find yourself looking for me more and more? Our arms cramped and hair a-mess.

A glimpse, that's all. One small look, a sliver of brown or blue. A silly figment of light bouncing off eyes that once held our future.

We swore to no attachment

But weren't we truly from Adam and Eve?

This noose around my neck continues to sway me, left to right. My neck doesn't seem to snap. My skin burnt by hemp and my throat clipped, yet I find it comfortable to breath.

I have become a pendulum to the desire of what could have been and what is.

If only the third of February lasted forever and ever.

I would sleep easy knowing you were there.

In the darkest of nights

or in the lightest of day

something will happen in a split second

and in that split second anything and everything could happen

Because somewhere across the world

or even just miles away

someone is dying

someone is crying

someone is wishing

someone is yelling

These are the thoughts that flood my mind in that split second

and in that same second, I realize that the sentence our parents would always tell us;

"To live life to the fullest"is true

because while you may be doom scrolling, or staring off into space

you could be doing something else more memorable

like looking out at nature, taking a walk, spending quality time with friends, family or even yourself

And I know some people will shrug this off, knowing I would myself

thinking it doesn't matter and proceeding to absorb my attention into an electronic 24/7

But as I near the age of 13

nearly becoming a teen

I realize I wish I could go back to the days when I was still a little kid

and act like a true child

I look back at how I acted

and I wished I didn't force myself to be mature just to get friends

or seem cool in front of my 'friends'

I wish my childhood wasn't drained from its brightness

I wish I had enjoyed myself

and put myself out there

And now I wish for my future 13 year old self to not hide

to fail successfully

to live life to its fullest

That's my wish

The day when flowers face mud,

Likely happens to judge in dust.

One and only worshipped the rose,

The other, who chased the light of dug.

"I know it’s hard to survive in dirt,"

Said the flower to the trunk.

One day or another, karma happened.

The flesh of someone, when filled the petals.

I know it’s hard,

When dirt grounds the sun even.

The blooming is the season that everyone missed,

But the loud shrill, only the petals feel.

The one who fell,

Left the tree.

The petal cried,

But never the feel.

The feel of pain,

That the flower faced itself.

The feel of ruin,

That tree grazed itself.