We are all moths
seeking the moon
but finding streetlights
instead.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

T is for the way that you cry upon my shoulder when he doesn't treat you right
O is for the only one i see regardless of how blind you might be to it
X is for the crossing we came too so many months ago
I is for just how much I love you even if you can't see it
C is for caring about you even when we came to that crossing and we cried together in the night because we failed to march on.

Poor bluebird...how late you were to your own party;
I see her standing there on the dance floor, alone.

just Turn and see me, Oh please just turn, lets give that Crossing another shot, I need you Can't you tell?

...
This morning:

The quiet bleeds when you're not looking.
i did not know that the quiet could bleed.

Depression enters my room,
the garden wails in protest, death kisses my stomach,
Sadness whispers that she will not take my chalk outline and teach it how to walk today.
Today the sun stops working.

My mother buries
whatever slowly died in me
under the duvet.

Last night:

i guess,
anything can be a gun
if the darkness surrounding it
is hungry enough

i don't know how i make it to his bathroom
in time, but i can already feel the autopsies
they will preform on me;

i tame ugly screams beneath it all,
tell myselff it's not suicide if
love hangs in my mouth.

The other day:

"i have no sympathy"
"if it's killing you, then why are you still with him"

This particular stain of anger never quite
reaches my reflection in the mirror.
But it sets my clothes on fire.
All the same,
i seethe endlessly; and slit the throat of forgiveness so
it is not an option i could consider.

My father wakes up inside of me sometimes;
i am not afraid to be
a weapon in which i was designed,
a nuclear war in which i will return home from.

A while ago:

"you need to figure things out between just the two of you, none of your girl friends should be threatening my baby boy"
"i would have married a man i didn't love..."

for the love of GOD---

To ALL the adults who have tasted false wisdom
and wish to share it with me;
do not speak to me as if you could translate my suffering
for me, you do not look like a ghost to me,
do not treat me like i do not know that trauma is a thief to my innocence, you do not look like a victim to me,
do not ******* tell me that i am to contain myself to your benefit, because you know nothing but the way my name tastes on your lips,

i will
paint targetson your back,
with your own words--
and i will feed you to
the bullet feast when you least
expect it.

Don't patronize me with your ignorance disguised as watercolors.

Later tonight:

A little like all at once,
all over the world,
i fall out of love with you.

i used to baptize myself in
the things my phoenix would whisper to me,
all his solids and shadows
oh, the world was so beautiful in his eyes.

And how i wish there was a softer metaphor
that could lower me into this grief,
cause isn't heaven heavy enough,
isn't this hurting plenty?

Now:

i don't know how to describe the aftermath
other than----

"there is just a lonely hum in my mind
where my name used to be."

If I admitted, that you still hostage my love
Now if I admitted, would I turn into the one that you want

No, this is something I doubt

If I released, all of my inner thoughts
Yeah, if I told you, it was you I picked out

No, I doubt, that that'd be enough

If you were to come home, with a smile on your face
Oh Kali, please come home, another day I can't take

..."No, I love you more from far away."

"I love you more -"

"Like I said, from far away."