Not evil, perhaps something lower?
An abyss of a person—a counterfeit soul.

I think the problem is,
There is not enough of me,
For me

I have been hurt so many times that it is no longer enough that you tell me of your love.

You must show me.

You are still so deeply engraved in my heart
Daggers on every page of this story
I offer flowers of reconciliation
Because that’s what fools do

I forgive you for taking so much
And giving so little
How many people must you be,
Before you become yourself?

Is love quantifiable?
Is it about plunging the world into darkness
Ripping the veil that separates us from heaven
And displaying the entirety of the cosmos
That exists for your express enjoyment?

Is love about grand gestures?
Draining the very seas
And telling you it cannot be measured
Endless like the grains of sand

Is love found in the quiet and still?
In the timid motions of a shy heart
Struggling to beat its pain away?

When you say my name, your voice drips with venom

You cringe at the bitter taste as it rolls off your tongue

When I try to speak your name it becomes heavy in my throat

Stealing away my breath as I churn at the very thought of you

You spoke of love so effortlessly

But tell me, have you learned that is not the same as being able to give and receive love properly?

Healing began when I stopped allowing what was left of my heart to be destroyed by the very things that had broken me.

No one is obligated to forgive you.
I am not obligated to forgive you.
We can learn from our mistakes,
Become the kindest person on Earth,
And the people we've hurt still won't forgive us.
Learn to accept that.
We still continue to grow because we're neither good nor pure,
We're complicated.

Some people destroy the things they touch
Just to prove they can break

I live for the pain you bring me. I craved the feeling of being let down by you, because in some way it means we were close enough for you to hurt me.

I thought I was done with this pain

And yet,

I am burnt to ashes

Only an elegy could illustrate this ache

I want to be free of you
I think of you
I smile
It hurts

It starts the same
Immortal, Eternal, Limitless
Yet existing only a moment
To be nothing and everything
To be in the world but not of the world
Both peasant and tyrant
Traitor and Thief
Kings and Queens
Flying but falling
Screaming in rage and weeping in grief
Running, Bolting, Irreparably damaged
Not everyone is so lucky to live
Fewer still give

Some day we’ll all be a little older
A little more weathered and restored
We’ll wake up and all this poetry will finally make sense.
Like a locked drawer underneath our ribs,
Fortuitously pried open by storm.

I wish the world were made differently

I wish growth didn’t have to hurt

I wish feeling happiness didn’t rely on knowing sadness

I wish pain were not necessary to know pleasure

I wish I could have learned through love

I think a part of you felt
That if you kept hurling stones
Eventually I’d use them to build a wall
And shut you out…

Once upon a time
I made myself small
So they could feel big
Told them they deserved
To take up more space
Mistakes were made
Hearts were broken
And being so small,
I was crushed underfoot

In quantity you were short-lived in my life, though quality wise as grand as any person could ever hope for.

I enjoyed each moment of your laughter, the command of your beauty, and the reach of your personality that taught me to want more for myself.

I hope the world lives up to your every expectation.

You are cigarette butts,
Empty bottles,
And nights spent hunched over the sink.

You are journals bursting at the seams,
Bad poetry,
And long playlists.

You are fingernails bitten down until they bleed,
Smeared eyeliner,
And trauma I never came to understand

You are regrets buried in the closet,
Broken glass,
And I hope you find your peace.

Is sadness just another precious thing you have given to me?

Who I am,
Is so deeply interwoven
With the broken parts of me

I fear if I heal them,
Then I will lose myself

It is the present no one wants
The unopened package
An uncomfortable silence
In a room full of people

Funny how I have convinced myself
The love I offer so freely
Not wanted,
Not needed

Through pit and prosperity,
All is well.

How easy,
To rip the unsewn stitch
Or tear the thread of an untold tale.
Often these tapestries,
Tattered and stained with red,
Have experienced one reign after another.

I try to untangle the parts of me that once cared

The remaining fragments like crumbs
Like drops of dew resting after the morning rain
The last beam of light as the setting sun flees.

Sometimes painful but seldom peaceful

Do you come here to love me?
All of me and that which consumes me?
To embrace both darkness and light?
I attribute it all to some horrific cosmic disservice…
Surely the only reason to warrant it.
For it is not enough that my heart aches,
And my body riddled by anguish each day.
Emotional dissent called debt by my creditor,
I am compelled to pay.
Truthfully I would tell you to run,
For such is the heartache that dwells within me.

Maybe it’s your self aggrandizing behavior,
Or the downward spiral into an elegy
Which I cannot stop myself from revisiting.
They say,

“He speaks of you as though you were dead”

In this lies a modicum of truth
Silent witching hours where my dreams are haunted.

The still, dead of night gripping me in terror
As I am unable to determine where the chains that bind me end, and the ones you carry begin.
Skulking through the corridor of my mind like Marley’s specter.

How has it come to pass that the line between elegy and ghost story is blurred in such a manner?

In times of tragedy will there still be songs?
Aye, there will be singing
It will be about the dark times.

Deplete me
Bind me
Break me
Wash me away like the tide,
Dragged by irresistible force.

I do not forgive you.

My blood is still boiling.

I’ll never get closure,

You’ll never set me free

You have left me with paranoia,

That I can never escape.

Knowing you is a tragedy
Familiarity a stake in the heart
Absence a cup of tea gone cold
To everything clings a sense of “after.”
When I awake it is in this after,
A distant place where I do not know you.
It is peaceful.

Messy people
Write about it what you must
Then walk away

Boundaries as suggestions
Like lines drawn in the sand
Washed away by the tide
They mean nothing in the end

There were times before music
Times were times before laughter
There were times before hope

But there were still sunsets

What I mean to say is
Even when life resembles the dead of winter
When empathy and love have fled
The rosemary and sage will come back
And there will still be sunsets.

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned—
I have fancied myself a god
Whose only transgression is hubris.
That like Him, I can create something beautiful,
And make it immortal through word alone.

You shine,

Like the buckle of Orion’s belt,
Like the intertwined wrists of Castor and Pollux

Two soulless constellations locked within solar flare and interstellar disconnect.

I wonder if you shine because comets trail from your eyes

Or if maybe you are trying to catch the gaze of Orpheus, whose love for Eurydice is dampened by the glow of your smile

I adore broken things.
Because even roses come to be without thorns,
if not to be just as beautiful
to smell just as sweet.

We are meant to be loved as wholes not just as the pieces others adore
We are meant to be loved completely
We are meant to love with forgiveness and grace

Love is the closest to the divine we will ever find

(On a more personal note I had archived most of my writing during a bout of depression and general ambivalence towards life. In a way hiding them away was like hiding a part of myself. I decided to bring them back in the hopes you all will  enjoy them as much as I loved writing them)

To be seen differently by every person who walks across the work that now holds you in it.

To be seen as something that brings creation.

To be seen.

That is why you hate it.

Lie to me,
Tell me that I am alive
Tell me that I am free

Little one,

You are resilient, you are compassionate, you are generous, you are brave.

You are so much more than your lovely bright eyes and mischievous smile.

You are hopeful and stubborn. Surprising and curious.

You have too long loved those who thanked you for taking up so little space.

You were made for more.

You are ready for more.

Ask for more.

The sympathetic villain is passionate; even they feel pain.

Not evil, perhaps something lower?
An abyss of a person—a counterfeit soul.  

Calling to memory the despair of a black hole.

You destroy, you rot, you steal the light.
You feel nothing and let nothing in.

And you infect me, too, when I know I must share my existence with you.

Eh oui, c’est la dure réalité …

(The oceans are full of plastic)

Pouvez-vous m’aider?

(I could write about wars but which one?)

Ça te dit ?

(I use my passions as a form of escapism)

Faut pas casser du sucre sur le dos de quelqu'un!

(Is the sun exploding? Are workers being paid?)

Il faut croquer la vie à pleines dents.

(Am I ungrateful to want more?)

I bring you the burden of my longing
I am the wanderer without drink
And you are the pool of water
In my desert of desire.

I bring you the burden of my love
It has waited for so long-
(And there is no crucifixion like waiting)
It shall cover you-
It shall be the girdle of flame around you
It shall be the pyre
Whereon we shall perish

The ordeal of trust is mortifying
but I still give myself away within my words,
laying my heart bare
hoping it will be held gently

I do not fear intimacy
I fear being ripped open and found lacking
I fear the damage you might inflict,
And the damage you will find.