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Peel back the scales
the blackened bits
the blistered redness
the purple putrid scabs
inside are paper thin cuts
unhealed
20 Words on trauma
RC 6d
I sometimes wonder what it's like to have real friends
and I realize the reason I don't think I have them
is because I'm not one
I'm selfish
and I don't want to know what you're going through
because I'm going through enough
and if I care I care too much
so I'm absent
and I'm convinced that one day
I will be able to fill my cup
so I can healthily pour over
but until then I am not a friend.
Love is strong. You are mauled and you come crawling back. You are frozen, and yet still you seek heat from the same wrong source. There is no partial reinforcement to explain this behavior. There is only the dark side of touch, the reality of primate relationships, which is that they can **** us while they hold us. But, the beauty is, we are creatures of great faith. We will build bridges, against all odds we will build them. From here to there. From me to you.
I have spent too much time alone to be fit for companionship.
My words taste dry and chalky like the essence of an elementary memory
I reek of attic and grandmas sexiest perfume, stuffed inside a satin jewelry box
The electric hum of our breathing machinery swells inside my gushing veins
I am painful unfit for this human body, my discomfort palatable and grotesque
Tortured by this strained existence, a circus elephant on a colorful ball
I swish my words inside my mouth, not ready to spit nor to swallow
Stalking eyes in silence pools, I watch peers like a fox watches a coyote.
I am an alien, I am painstakingly unfamiliar in every way that counts.
frankie Apr 22
Unceremoniously,
birds and frogs and men
begin their songs

and I decide it better not to join them.

For all the wealth and health
and warmth and rigor
as the restless tide --
waiting for silence --
breathes and descends

timid,
restless,
afraid and alone

rusted metal of apathy
and the forlorn sound of laughter very,
very far away

across the hall
wheat grows;
up the stairs
is moonlight,

and in one room,
birds and frogs and men
sing their songs

when the ground calms
and ground returns underfoot
and the fires are out

the wheat and the moonlight
and the birds and frogs and men
will be farther away yet

but in the throes of desperation
for far-flung mountains and sleep
and crayfish in the river
and hands in someone else's hair

no songs will be sung.

in my heart's aching survival lurch --
mad, hysterical stampede as it is--
the wind will blow again
toward fantasies and imaginations,
sunlight and clouds
waves' cold whispers and the wisdom of stars

but descend,
descend,
descend

what's done is not gone,
and those echoes from away in time
stampede themselves

surviving themselves
on tantrums
stubborn drama
impatience's reward

because above the wheat and moonlight
is a burden of love and company unwanted
and my heart breaks
for the birds and frogs and men
who have since stopped singing

and that I decided it better not to join them.
oh boy another entry in the "(thing) and (thing)" naming convention i do for some reason. i very rarely write in the first person; i tend to save it for the more vulnerable pieces, and in that sense i think it was appropriate here. this one felt more like a journal entry. coming off of a long writing hiatus so this one's a lil rusty, but i like how it turned out regardless
Keen Apr 20
You
were
making
memories
without
me.
Keen Apr 20
Things are going
south between us
because you muttered
the worst about us.

“We’re just two sad people”
Keen Apr 20
And
all I could remember
is that,
I should’ve
not known you.
First in 2024
BLD Apr 18
I envisioned these days so often,
fearful of the independence soon to come.
Repression has surpassed to grant this favor
of forgetful remembrance –
or perhaps my memory you’ve stripped as well.

Loneliness stalks even the proudest of prey,
probing the crevices stashed deep away
to betray the very promises endemic to your core.


Now do I savor the silence I once abhorred.


I lie and I listen to the serenity all around,
obscurities of the day whispering from my walls
as an auburn Cardinal serenades from outside.

The moon beckons me near, apologetic murmurs
of her needless façade from the past –
a revered box fan underwhelms the silence
and disperses my diffused Siberian fir,
crips notes of pine and aromatic wintergreen
to soothe the comfort of my nightly routine.


Now do I know myself more than ever before.
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