Colleen+McHugh

HEAR YE! HEAR YE! A CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITED! CHARGES: my time was wasted. I was lead to believe that if I broke all of my own rules for that one //little// speck of reciprocity, it would be enough. All it ended in was a schism in my soul, a crack that split it wide open and instigated a collapse in on itself. __That__ is what it feels like to be wasted.
 * //Manipulation is the Name, and You’re the Star-Athlete of the Game//**

What’s the definition of “waste”? //Waste//, v. – to use, consume, or expend thoughtlessly or carelessly. 2. A barren or wild area or expanse.

Man, does that sound familiar. I look at you and see one. Not a waste of breath, or air, or space, but a waste of time, a waste of opportunity. You wasted my time.

There is potential to love in you, and you pass it by because its “frightening”. You skirt around it and when it finally slaps you in the face – because it has now become the biggest of several elephants in the room – you ditch out.

But I guess that’s the importance of being deserted, ditched, and dumped, I was able to become a phoenix. The flames burned like hell, and when they finally subsided, I realized that if I would only dust away the ash I’d find a superior new set of wings.

Now //you// can watch //me// go, because I’m gonna write you away so that I may use those wings to **their** full potential. And please, don’t ever think I’ll lower myself to ask you to stay, because I’m not quite sure what you’ll have after everything is said and done, but I know I’ll have my flight.

So listen up, manipulation is the name, and until you move out of that soul-sucking stasis, you’ll be the star-athlete of no other game.

//**__I'm Sorry I Forgot__**// I remember that day, when we swung on the swings. We were two pendulums passing through oblivion.

I remember when I laid next to you. I smelled the fresh, cut grass and listened to you whisper sweet everything’s into all of my senses. Your words wrapped around me, and informed me that you would hold on tight, – a quiet reflection of your arms – and never let go.

I realized it that day. You remember, right? The day you thought I would return from oblivion, and didn’t. Your look of disappointment (or disgust, I could never tell) made me feel filthy and unclean. I wish you had just taken my hands in yours and used the granules of salt that coagulated in your tears to scrub me of my self-pity.

You couldn’t, could you? Three strikes and I’m out, is that it?

I’m sorry I forgot that I had accidentally and in perfect succession broken all of your fingers each time I held your hands too tight.

I guess I forgot to look behind me and see the broken wreckage I left you in. I would offer to help clean you up, but my window to make things right has shut.

All I can do is say that I’m sorry for all the things I forgot:

Oh, and I’m sorry I forgot to say:

I love you.

//**Don’t Whisper Changeling, Sing**// “You’d never know it, but buddy I’m a kind of poet, and I’ve got a lot of things to say.”

Ok, what’s with the lyrics?

I find a cozy comfort in the words as they thrill through me, their absolute truth honing the razor edge of my tongue.

The syllables unfold themselves in my mind, and all I hear is distinct self-satisfaction.

There is a gravitational pull within me, sucking those words in and sending them back out to the world. It aches for me to __serve__ them, __sing__ them, and __scream__ them.

The creature lives halfway between my diaphragm and right hemisphere; a faint memory of sweet mulled wine and fresh baked rolls.

It has no name, or none that I can comprehend, and yet it still seeps from the pads of my fingers; still trickles from between my lips.

I wonder if you __could__ notice the changes in me… would you always covet the shadows on my heart? Or would you compliment my sparkling gray eyes, and never think twice that they used to be green?

That’s where my desire to sing comes from, the mindless monotony of the things we //whisper//.

Who decided that the creature that seizes my fingers in a not-so-hostile takeover, had to have a name? When did limits become gods, and chaos stop shaking down the foundations of reality?

How do we know that life begins with birth? And how //don’t// we understand that the warmth we get from the fire of knowledge is not heat at all, but empty light?

What about entertaining the unfathomable idea that life just exists? There is no beginning, there was no end, and there will only ever be transmission.