I am at a crescendo of this mercurially
fervent woe, maimed by the visage of
smoke and mirrors;
"a death in chrysalis is to live once again."

Draping into the worn out disheveled
silk, beautifully withered
lulled by the sound of riverbanks
as if it's pacifying the feral.

A star-lit eyes deluged with bliss
rose with thorn-teared flesh
overwhelmed by a mawkish melancholia. Although we were haunted by our old love, it will never be the same.

I followed the vestiges of your footsteps,
everything is a chrysalis of memories and forgetting.

It was you,
who unfolds a life halfway through my existence; I wish I wasn't there in your forgetting.

To be empty means
Letting go of desire
And resistance

But not joy or sadness

It means giving up control
And even surrender —
Give that up too, and just
Go with the flow
With that impetus
That life force
That fire

You’re right and I’m wrong
Or maybe not — we are
Spinning polarities
In a beautiful, angry knot

To be empty means
I let go of explaining
And love myself enough to
Push through the chrysalis
Hungry to become
The Real Me

It means knowing you may not be there — and everything can be stripped bare — but still I remain

Magnetic fields can travel fast
I don’t ever give up on my beautiful self, nor should you give up on yours

My orbit is strong
You are stronger
Yet all the territory
Within my circumference
Is now set free, by me —
I’m the ruler, you see
The leader of me

You’ll see what you see
Our commitment runs deep
Our faith we keep

In sorrow, not greed
Lacking so much I needed
I found myself pleading
So much more than receiving

Giving off an air
A pale whiff of despair
Certain that no-one cared
No evidence contrary

I used to ask why
Why couldn’t you try
This would surely subside
If you’d only please try!

There was another question though -
Could love not break, but instead grow?
I look at you and know
(Gently, now)
We reap only what we sow

Something about your face
The way you hug me awake
They way my body shakes
You know just what it takes

You always say words can’t hurt
I would always beg to differ
Still, I know we can go deeper
With the courage to love beyond our fear

Knowing what I know now
About my sacred, personal power
I feel you crown me at the final hour
In our calm, evanescent harbor

You said it was a good conversation
I was fighting tears the whole time
We go way back with this
Back & forth you call talking,
To me it’s a battle and
You win, every time

I don’t know who
You think I am
But the me you think you know
Is a YouTube pundit’s scam

I wish you knew the real me
Analytical and accomplished
But also wild and free
It’s lonely in this bubble called “we”
Coming apart at the seams
Feeling understood and respected
Only in my dreams

these words fail
to capture any such real emotions
we talk and we talk, sure
but you can't feel my anger
frustration, my sadness
left to wonder
in a wander
through the maze that is the mind

with pen put to paper
the characters resemble more inkblots than letters

and so

yielding myself to the misery self-induced
that has, as of yet, only ate at the heels
my chrysalis burst
but no winged thing emerge
only pus, bubbling out my pupa

4 years... Daily fears. why do I stay?
because tomorrow brings another day.
Strong to survive this nightmare
Though nothing about it's fair
counter each negative with a positive
I've always been a leader, now, submissive
ready to reemerge, rebuild, and reclaim
wasting this precious life would be a shame.