I climbed a tower today,

And chose to not take the elevator

all 127 steps,

I climbed a tower today,

waited patiently,

I climbed a tower today,

to find my self

on top of the world

I climbed a tower today,

to feel the wind in my hair

to feel the granite balconies and

to feel my feet against the marble stairs

This cannot be replicated,

not by the books we read,

not by the screens we watch

You can't find yourself at the top

without a journey. 

The room swirls with colour and shadow

And dirty yellow light

The kind of light that comes from

Generations of rich kids, so long after the fact

That they've forgotten what made their ancestors valuable

In the first place

I kind of pity them, ignorant beings

Leading a life of falsehoods for a reason they know not.

The chandeliers and high ceilings don't make their buildings bright

Just echoey, emoty and filled with cheap gold, flaking away

The cars parks out front

Can't make them happy, not for long

So they sink their wealth into the dangerous stuff

The stuff that will give them a thrill

Before they inevitably crash and burn.

They had the world at their fingertips

But this is still the outcome.

It's preposterous, looking from the outside in.

You, who have what we all want

What we all need, in excess, you waste 

You give nothing back despite taking so much

And you still have your problems.

We placed you on a pedestal

And you teetered, casting yourselves into oblivion.

Foolish upper class,

So vapid and superficial. 

A mountain of white with just dashes of colour.

You were made to fail.

But then, what makes us so different

When we throw away spoiled food?

When we get greedy and do all we can

To claw our way to the top? 

Hold up consuming as our holy grail, the pinnacle?

Praise those who take and accumulate, and 

Despise those without the drive we burn with? 

Have we learned nothing from your example?

Why flaunt our superiority,

What makes us better than the 'other', you?

Are we not the same kind of broken beasts

In the same broken system

That tells us we needs more

More than we could ever have use for? 

Are we not miniature versions of your flamboyance

Playing out in every loop? 

I've lived my whole life in a valley

Travelling away I see

The way my home is swallowed

By distance and land;

The sky hangs heavy above the caldera

And it has sunken like tired eyes.

I've tried for so long

To claw my way out of it,

To tear up the hills and make it over,

Bursting past the summit 

And to somewhere I want to be,

But it's never enough.

Gravity draws me back

Like a bird stripped of its wings.

I am pressed back into the ground

Like an engraving, a warning

You will never leave.

I envy those on higher ground,

I resent those who climb out around me

I smile and clap, swallowing bile and wormwood

With every name called one last time,

Released to freedom.

I harden my heart and freeze my fingers and toes,

My limbs turn to stone

But I am still breathing.

I wish I could do more, I ache to be elsewhere

But I still live in this valley. 

I climb a tower every day

But when night falls, it turns to dust

And I am sent plummeting

To the ground like a fallen star. 

Some days I sit on the first step,

Stubborn.

Most days I bolt up, trying to get higher,

Thinking perhaps one day I'll reach the top.

But what even lies beyond these twisting corridors? 

Will reaching the top even be fulfilling

After such a sisyphean journey?

What could possibly be worth so much in the first place?

I tire of staircase after staircase

Each day goes on to some unknown

But I am never any closer, either way.

I wonder if everybody else's tower crumbles each day.

How do they find the strength to go on? 

we find that our emotions are

the most human part of us

I pretend to forget

but it keeps clawing

at me, I fail to keep

it from satisfaction. 

I wish I was like you

your confidence is an elixir

that I can't take

You walk into a room

with your head held high

while mine is on the ground

I wish I was like you

your words felt real

I can tell your breath

has not been taken

I wish I was like you

glares roll off your back

like nothing,

while my heart is aching

You don't know your luck. 

Click,

click,

click,

click,

Komboloi beads fall together

click,

click,

click,

click,

A tradition showing time is nothing

click,

click,

click,

click,

12 gone 21 worries still there

Narcissus and Echo

You walk away to "freshen up"even though you already look perfect, 

It's never good enough for you though,is it?

You always have a mirror,don't you? 

You'll never love me as much as yourself,will you?

But of course you won't,

You're Narcissus,forever loving only yourself

and I'm Echo,forever loving only you.  

This is my first piece of poetry so I'm open to critiquing from you beautiful souls. 

I don't remember the end of the movie

because my heart turned into an amateur gymnast and

was doing crooked cartwheels through my ribs 

as soon as your hand slipped into mine. 

did you feel my stuttering pulse?

was yours fluttering in sync?

our heartbeats some swarm of butterflies 

drunk on sugar 

circling each other into the sky. 

did you know I haven't done this before?

could you feel it in my frozen fingers?

terrified to twitch, 

as if your grip was as flighty as 

the robins that perch on my windowsill 

in the spring, 

as if any sudden movement would scare you 

into flitting away, 

but instead

my fingers flickered

and you 

just held on tighter.