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i wish sometimes that i could
that i would
talk to myself in the mirror

i wish sometimes that i could

ask what it’s like to

have a conversation with myself
and get a straight answer.

i’d ask what the words mean
when i can’t make them work

except that they work

they make me bleed

unless my tongue stays tied
it unknots my stomach
it cauterizes
the self inflicted

words

i can’t hide them
from myself

how do you tell yourself
it’s enough to be enough or

okay, okay
i’m not okay

how do you look at yourself
and know that
the wounds
you carry with you

are self inflicted

are your words
I have to remind myself to be kind to myself. It often doesn’t work.
I am barefoot on shattered glass,

Bleeding from the shards stuck in my feet.

I reach out to you,
Who will never meet me,
Who will never know me.

I spit blood
From the holes
Where the teeth,
I spat out,
After taking,
The punch,
That put me,
On the ground,
Used to be.

I try to push myself up,
To my feet.
I reach out to you,

Though, I will never know you,
I will never meet you.

I brace myself again,
Ready for the impact.

Dead on my feet,
Entombed in myself.

I can’t carry on.
I must carry on.

I pick the shards from my soles,
Fit my teeth into ****** holes,

I know that I will never meet you,
I will never know you.

The tears like rain,
Water fallow ground,
As I reach out again,

To you,

Who will never know my name,

As your name dies,

On my bruised and ****** lips.
My wife and I experienced a miscarriage recently. Poetry was a balm. Existence was hell.
It all flows together,
Like pools of water,
The ones I step between in the parking lot.
Like paint dripping from a canvas -
Indistinct and coagulated,
A beautiful mess in the liminal spaces.
It pools in the tray of the easel,
Falling on the drop cloth, and on the floor.
My thoughts are scattered nothings,
Dropping from a paint stick absentmindedly.
I am indistinct,
Not what I ought to be.
I am a clover field without daisies,
A cup without a drink,
A ghost in a long hallway,
A body without a soul.
I am a paintbrush without paint.
I am nothing but the potential I can't fulfill.
Saturninus Jan 30
Sable seasons and unfit dreams
Call out to me in the night
Speak to me like old friends
Loose-fitting and callow
A thought unburdened
Bids itself unwelcome
To fertile earth untilled
And your voice reaches me
From years beyond memory
Unconscious and unbidden
A wound not yet healed
Unconscionable, it changed me
A photograph, a ghost
And I dissolve unremarkable
I dissolve unchangeable
Into the sky

— The End —