You are the only one
you want me too
please me
I hope you're happy with your family
my god and my life
god is perfect
and you can be the god
god bless god.

You were once a scared soul
trapped inside a child's fractured imagination;
driven to believe
only the best truth lies could tell,
driven to want
that which you could not have,
and driven to love
all that came too easily.

If only there were a god greater than fear,
we would have won by now.

You packed your things in an orderly manner;
made no fuss on your way out--
no, we barely heard you leave at all.
And then one day,
things were stranger than usual:
a note in your place,
but the pages were blank;
your name, a trace
etched into our wall
as if to say, "Don't you recall?"

And I can't say we do,
though it occurs to me
from time to time
that somewhere
you are waiting
for a day that won't arrive,
biding your time
and regressing forevermore
into the empty abyss
of no recollection.

No, we barely heard you
leave at all.

It's a special day

when black coffee and cigarettes are enough to get by,
when numb terrors of inadequacy subside;

when the flaws you wanted so desperately to hide
become new things you calmly confide;

when worries cease your paralysis of mind,
a day when your heart feels open wide;

and, for once, when you said, "I'm alright,"
I could tell you really mean it.

The warm crackle of static laughter resounds;
the red-hot embers of reconnection
boiling down to the marrow.

I remember home,
though it all seems so long ago now.

Familiar faces,
neglected lovers;
our teenage dreams,
and childhood rivals.

Where do they all go
anyway?

Sometimes I dream that I am being hunted;
a wild rabbit
frantically and narrowly
escaping death
At every irregular turn.

The hunter is shapeless,
nameless,
faceless;
an amorphous enemy
lurking in the foggy haze
of my unconscious terror,
stalking my every panicked move
with an untwitching, cold gaze.

I want to stop running,
the blade grows closer;
I want to turn around,
my breath becomes sharp and jagged;
I want to know who you are.

I awake in a cold sweat,
gasping for thin air.

What a thrill
to have escaped your knife
yet again.

Inspired, mad thoughts
threaten to seep forth
from the confines of my skull;
too terrified to exist,
festering in my brain,
waiting for approval,
for someone to say,
"It's all OK."

A hooded pedestrian
shrouded in black
is slinking past my window;
and I want to hold them
and tell them,
"It's all OK.
Please
forgive me."

There is no point
       these days
No joy from anything
   these days
No emotion
             these days
No anything
       these days.

That afternoon, I remember it well:
Mother screams at me
for not displaying proper sympathy;
she cries
at my lack of human emotion.

I want to screech,
         and laugh,
  and yell,
and thrash my body about,
   and inform her
that asking me to feel anything
    toward anyone
is like asking a paralyzed body
to dance.

Instead, I stand there
and watch her sob;
gaze unaverted,
silently vowing to remain.

I thought that was a nice thing to do.