I cannot stop drinking tonight
I cannot stop smoking
I've had my fill
but the hunger resides
There is always something more
that I should be doing
There is always an impossible deadline
a misfortune in the breeze
I cannot stop thinking tonight
I cannot stop thinking

This isn't a story
about how I overcame a past demon
or how I beat the bully with the power of friendship,
because you and I both know
that didn't happen.  
I don't want this to be another sad teenaged story
about how my boyfriend broke up with me
or how my best friend kissed my crush.
This is a story about how
I was born an unlucky kid
who I was blessed with
tears instead of smiles,
who has more love for other
than for herself,
who is more willing to die
than to live.
I'm just an unlucky kid
who debates whether to live life
or to end it.

My eyes are strained against an LCD,
my fingers mindlessly tapping away.

                                                          ­        [My eyes are on the road,]
                                                          ­        [my fingers intertwined with yours.]

I look up at the clock,
the entire day is behind me now.

                                                           ­       [I look up at my rearview,]
                                                      ­            [the entire city is behind me now]

I lean back in my office seat
and let out a sigh of exasperation.

                                                  ­                [I lean back in the driver's seat]
                                                           ­       [and let out a sigh of content]

The droning sound of the printer
drags with my monotonous heart.

                                                         ­         [The melodic sound of your laughter]
                                                       ­           [lifts my symphonic heart]

I work until the sun drops

                                                               ­   [We drive until the sun rises]

                                                  and then
We drive.
                                                          ­        [I work.]

Scar
Scratch
Which made you crack
The memory or the action

Could it cause an attack
If we brought it back

Burn
Lick of the fire
Which gets you higher
The smoke around
The one within

Who will win
The memory
Your action
Or your repetition

long ago our feet only graced the ground
now we can soar beyond the highest clouds
long ago we were fortunate to live long
now everywhere you look, there is silver hair
long ago we only knew how to boil herbs
now we can cure even the most complicated diseases

yet, we are statues
we choose to see only what our eyes can
we refuse to look into the souls of others
we reject the thought of understanding each other
refusing to let go to the ideas set by our ancestors
keeping certain people in certain places

how long will we stay in this position?

I call myself a writer yet I'm awful with words and every time I say sorry it's more like an exit wound than an apology. It's difficult to tell you what I'm feeling when I don't know how to speak and I'll go on talking in my broken languages until you realize you will never understand me. Everyone is telling me I need to stop running away from my problems but I've already tried hiding from them and they'll just keep finding me. I keep thinking that maybe if I smile a little more you'll always be here and I want to **** the thing inside you that makes you leave. I have attachment issues because I remember when I was little and not understanding when people told me they'd "be home later" that they never considered anywhere that I was a home. And maybe I don't want to talk about what you did maybe I want to talk about songs and cities and which direction we're going to walk next and if you want to keep the shirt I'm wearing and if touching each other a certain way is okay and how many buttons you leave open on your flannels and how I'm getting home tonight.

He opened his eyes in a night sky,
Waxed black and fed by dews darkness,
Ebon and incarnadine mists consumed the air,
One hundred ravens in coracinet played

Soft music gliding her pale feet,  
Quivering a flutter she swayed dreaming,
Before his black oak door,
Long his finger enchanted the path,

Fluttering onward in rapture,
The bell rings and rings,
Come dance, dance with thee,
Enchanted ye be

Her naked withering pallid body,  
Of silk and chiffon he enfolded,
Her lips tasting amber and figs ripening,
Coruscating maidens swirled an epitome of dance

Not until she was dark grown repentance,
Renouncing all others,
Only then he shall devour upon her,
A bargain be struck,

Swept away riven by her dreaming plea,
My lady crowned dance with thee,
Beholdeth spelled she be troth,
And the Raven King hungered upon her lips

Forever radiant enchanted black,

── Unto the dance of night, his eternally bound


© Arnay Rumens 2015