These tears once belonged to someone else. Long ago they fell from the eyes of another. They fell onto the earth and evaporated. Then they became rain, which fell from the sky. They collected and became streams and rivers, lakes and oceans. Over and over again for a thousand lifetimes. Until they found me. I consumed them and they became a part of me. And then they rained from me, from my eyes. I pass these tears down for a thousand lifetimes until my sadness finds another in this cycle of falling tears.

The clear fluid chases away the pain, the darkness, the sadness burning the feelings away with it's fire casting temporary and illusionary light over me, washing my soul in bittersweet emptiness. And in that emptiness, devoid of feeling, a repugnant solace takes me. And for a time my mind relinquishes, silencing my heart which suffers all the more because the heart doesn't forget. The heart takes those feelings the mind disgards and keeps them locked away in a deep place. Slowly cracking under the pressure until it breaks. A mind with no heart is the soul of madness.

Bottle caps and bullet cases surround my feet, the glass beach of failed attempts at evading memories.

For all the things i let you put me through I still don't have the will to blame you.

I wish I could be weak in this moment, let my soul be seen but stuffing it down and shutting everyone out has become routine.

So I'll hang my tattered dolorous soul on the hook by the door. Exchanged for the vestigial smile I wear when reclusiveness isn't pragmatic anymore.

I'll pretend that each day doesn't bring me closer to shattering into a million crystalline pieces of who I was in memory.

And when the day is dead I'll climb back down inside my solace, and shed the burden of this emotional carapace

I'll remove my mask and wash away all the hate and fear from the dour face staring at me from the mirror.

I'll drown my soul and sink to the bottom of this internal sea. Into the world devoid of light, of sound, of memories.

An occasional wooden jab meant to inspire footsteps.
But I'm numb now and the pain slips between the folds of my thoughts.
(An ephemeral thunder clap in the distance.)
Even the sounds surrounding me become a nearly inaudible murmur from some far off place.
Women weeping, children crying, false promises of hope from men who have lost the light of such ideas from their eyes.
(Thunder, sudden and fleeting.)
The paths we walked as children in better times now so unfamiliar.
Turned to mud by tears and stained with blood.
With waking eyes I see a thousand memories unfold before me in lucidity belying such verisimilitude that for a moment I feign to question the corporeal nature of these apparitions.
(The transient thunder again rings out.)
I involuntarily breathe deep the smells lingering on the crisp air of an autumn morning.
The smell of earth reminiscent of spring in the countryside.
A tenuous fog clings to the air, drifting in silence.
An acrid smell like smoke from a match pulls me from my reverie.
Solemn faces hastily filling a long shallow trench.
My thoughts grow quiet.
Led to the edge and forced to kneel.
Peering into the wretched abyss I see them.
The tortured faces of everyone I'll ever know.
Bodies contorted, sticking up from the dirt like discarded mannequins.
(Thunder.)
It's so quiet now.
Like a candle snuffed out under brass.
It's so quiet

The boughs did creak
And branches snap
The sky turned then
Quite suddenly black
Dead leaves stirred
As willows mourned
The whispers of
A coming storm
The wind then died
And silence fell
Like echos from
Within a well
It started slow
The sound was soft
The arpeggio of
A single drop
Then like a wave
Before the break
A crescendo rose
From far away
And broke upon
The shattered earth
A torrent's rage
From heavens birthed
Thunder clashed
Darkened the night
The sky was cracked
By blinding light
Alone I listened
To the sound
From beneath
The hallowed ground
The war of thunder
Rage of light
The shallow grave
Of the sleeping Knight

She pulled at the tattered threads which bound my heart, inviting it to break again under the strain of her touch.

And in the seclusion of it's asylum it beat, bleeding out from between the ruptured walls of it's confinement.

Each fissure seething a long forgotten red, like teardrops in an endless chasm.

A slow red rain against black canvas

Looking out over the city night entices me to shudder my eyes which otherwise would feel the thousand piercing needles of endless light.

Bathed in darkness I feel whole. A dark armor against the ******* of the all consuming nothingness.

The bleak abatement of perception withholding the inner workings of natural thought replaced by extraneous rhetoric.

The dark star shines in spite of the sinful rain and jet black flowers bloom from barren earth where dreams have died.

A blood stained sky looms in regret and longing over the scarred eye of the world.

This flood of tears casts a dysmorphic shadow on the horizon.

Immutable darkness holds it's breath as an ephemeral light chases shadows once again across the earth.

If you knew me in the rain drops, through the puddles we walk through, in the streets we grew up in. If you knew the clouds, the gray, the sounds of trees losing their water in an arpeggio of falling drops... You knew me, even if only briefly...

In dreams I've died countless times but when I open my eyes I'm still here

I've felt the cold embrace of ocean depths crushing my lungs as I drift deeper into darkness

Felt the jagged edge of blades and watched my blood spill onto the ground

Felt hollow steel pressed against my head and warm tears fall from my face

I've felt the rope snap and blood vessels burst beneath the surface of my skin

Yet every day I wake to this broken world the ghost of my dreams, lingering and longing to close my eyes once again

The blade slices so cleanly it's nearly painless.

The flow of red, like a silk ribbon attaching this arm to the bathroom floor.

The heart reacts... A futile attempt.

I give myself to pain to rid myself of the agony I've endured for far too long.

I can't help but think that this red is the most beautiful color I've witnessed in all these years of suffering.

This is my love pouring out.

This is my pain leaving my body.

Some day, I'll see you again... Some day...