Moss and Mushrooms

Scenic painting

A collection of poems written as if describing different things/life experiences as places one could visit.
TW: trauma and addiction mention

House of a mind
I stopped questioning what color the walls were painted because I could never really tell. Yesterday they were a sunny yellow and today they are a swallow purple. Despite the change they always looked the same to me.
False projections linger in every room, you know these things are simply movies, stories of moments that have never existed, but knowing they aren't real doesn't mean you can't see them.
In every room you have paintings, you have paintings of the days you know await you, and maybe you have only just begun to sip them, but they exist and you believe that.
In every room of your house there is a soft whisper of a voice that reminds you of moments past, you know the worst is over, you know he doesn't live here anymore, but you still hear his voice everywhere you go.
In the bathroom you write letters to yourself on the mirror in red lipstick, letters no one else will see, at least not today, it holds the obsession that fills you today but you know the honeymoon period will come to an end.
Your bedroom is exactly what you want it to be. You tie dyed blankets and paint your tapestries. You recreate yourself to be someone you love.
You have poetry written on your walls. You have books of beautiful stories in every room. Each square foot humming a different verse.
You threw away the hollowed out pens and hidden compartments, you don't need those anymore. You still have a photo album of days past but the memories are no longer hanging in every room.
You often stand in the living room and feel the light shining down upon yourself. You enjoy a moment of feeling the warmth on your skin because today you cannot stop feeling grateful that it is not raining.
You invite others into your mind, you show them your stories and your paintings, you sleep alone but you know one day you will be able to be held without fear.
You have made this place your sanctuary. Every room is like a home in your heart.

Life on a screen
You lived your whole life without ever visiting the movie theater, you would never be the type to spend their entire life rotting away in front of a false projection.
You would never succumb to such desires, you would live in a world you can see and hold, you looked down upon those who lived in a manufactured reality.
It was late one night and you watched the visitors' elated faces as they left the theater, this intrigued you, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Maybe it wasn't as bad as it seems. Surely you won't ever find yourself in the position of those before you. You can prevent yourself from becoming another hollow body.
You step into the theater, your heart is racing, you can feel it quickly pumping blood into every inch of your body, you ask yourself if this is the way you should be spending your night, you tell yourself it will be another night left forgotten.
In the movies you see a world you could have never even imagined possible. You watch the screen as it tells you a story of heights you didn't know existed. How did you ever live without this?
In the movies the world is more colorful than it's ever been, in the movies there is a storyline that keeps your heart beating, in the movies everything goes how it is supposed to.
You watch as the characters fly through the sunset sky. You see things you've never seen before, you've felt things you have never felt before.
This is everything you could have ever wanted, every question you have ever asked yourself could be answered in this way.
Everything in your life has led up to the moment. Maybe you cannot hold it in your hand but this, this is real.
You instantly find yourself being pulled back here, when you arrive you feel as if you are coming home, so you do it, again and again and again.
You have never felt this way before. Maybe you could be sitting with your friends and not alone in an empty theater but why would you ever choose to let go of something like this.
It doesn't matter what you do when you wake up or how you spend your day, this is all you want, this is the beginning and the end. You never let yourself have a quiet moment to reflect on what you are, because maybe you have changed, and maybe you have judged these people only to realize you are one of them, but that doesn't matter, not in the slightest.
Your sister misses you on family game night, your friends know that you are not the same as you once were, everyone who surrounds you sees what you are and they don't love you like they used to, but you don't care.
You see changes in yourself, changes you told yourself you were above. You don't really do anything besides thinking about, going to, or talking about the movies, your mind has been eaten by it. You don't write or laugh or dance, but that is nothing worth dwelling on.
Sometimes when the show is over you feel a hollowness from within you. You stare back at yourself and you wonder if this really is the way you want to spend your life. It's happiness or some semblance of it, but it exists in 2D, it's made of paper and plastic.
Every day you feel the blood drip from your fingertips a little bit more than the day before, this isn't what it used to be, and sometimes you wonder if it's anything at all.
You are alone now and you know why. You are what you said you would never be. Do you believe it? You don't want to. Maybe this isn't what it seems.
You tell yourself you will never go back to this. You throw away every ticket that reminds you of it. Maybe you can be more than this.
It is difficult in the beginning, because you know what exists within the confines of those walls, the world is empty and gray in a way you never thought it would be.
The sun is shining on your skin but it is not warming you. You flooded yourself with a plastic happiness and you are now in drought. You sit with those you know who have let you back into their home and you know you will never be the same. How could you ever live without it?
Slowly the world starts to make a little bit more sense to you. The memories still exist within your mind but they have quieted themselves. You start to feel like your breathing for the first time in years.

Haunted residence
You feel safe here, you feel safe everywhere, you stare at the green walls and you never really question it because you never had a reason to.
This is your home, this is a place where you know you are protected from all that could go wrong, here you are exactly where you need to be.
You look at the family photographs and feel a yellow light from within you. Every drawing of yours is somewhere on the fridge or on the walls, nothing is to be hidden. You never have to lie or pretend and you never will.
You never expected something like this, you didn't even know what this was. Everything was exactly the way it should have been and until one night all that you knew changed.
This is no longer a home. You become accustomed to being a ghost, now you know how to play dead. Maybe you can pretend like your home is a place worth being but the child you are is hollow and bleeding.
It shattered you, night after night you were disregarded as a human being and now you don't know what you are.
Even when it's over it never really feels like it. Even when he hasn't stepped foot into your home in many months a part of you is still waiting for him to come back. Everyone reminds you that it is over and that you are safe now but the house is still this house it happened in.
The things he said to you are written on the wall. The television replays the worst of it over and over again. You look at the family photos and you see the bruises. Maybe the house verses about moments past.