noun

1. sharp teeth, fluttering hands, heart of a dying star— icarus himself could not imagine the heights you have climbed or your glorious, blazing fall. your bones are burning, your bones are ash, scattered across this never-place between life and death and eternal limbo.

2. you're permanently damaged, but it's fine, you're fine. you can always expect a myriad of scars to accompany the trauma. it's not like it's anything new, either. at least if you burn you might be able to take this unkind world down with you.

3. the inferno surrounding you dances with deadly beauty. and as we all know, beautiful things are lethal.

4. you understand you are a liability?

5. you don't want to go back to that dark place in your mind again. it would be better to be mere cinders.

h.f.m.

It's funny how
most nights
I can't sleep
unless I first
spend a moment,
a mile a minute,
drawing out words
from my mind
and putting them
on a page.

I lend shape
to my thoughts
and put them
away
so sleep
can come
and numb
my mind.

Be it poetry,
or a novel,
or discordant ramblings
akin to a blaring *****
between my ears
and behind my eyes,
I must first
empty myself
of myself.

The night is my enemy
that feeds off of my
overactive
mind
that I must
empty
in order to
sleep.

But I'm coping,
I'm fine,
I'm fine.

Five hours is still
better than four,
right?

h.f.m.

This place is constricting
My world is too small
A handful of towns, tied together with a few roads
A highway or two, lifelines
Beyond my borders the world still isn't big enough
There aren't enough destinations on the map to sate my curiosity
I feel like a dog on a leash, straining to be free
To run by untamed waters, to traverse great fields
Reined in by my handler
Preventing me from losing myself to the unknown
I supposed I can understand the sentiment
If I ever left to explore, I don't know if I'd come back
But my confinement chaffes like a noose

h.f.m.

noun

1. this end is only a new beginning, the man at the podium affirms. a better place, a new adventure, is waiting for all of us when we pass on. i care not for that, watching my family's stony faces. there is a terrible wrenching where my stomach used to be. it's name is guilt.

2. i haunt my own home for the next several days, the next several weeks, the next several months, the next several years. i watch over them, trying to pay back their kindness from a past life. there is a pull where my chest used to be. it's name is obligation.

3. a man comes to be, insubstantial. rid yourself of this burden, he says. you need not be their keeper. they have forgiven you long before your passing.

4. i am free, i am free, i am free.

h.f.m.

love is such
a hard thing to
find but yet so easy
to get hurt from