You walk the valley of the blind
and call it wisdom
yet you see nothing.

You drink from envy’s cup,
mouth full of rot,
and still pretend
the flavor isn’t bitter.

Your tongue splits a serpent
forking left, right,
each hand ignorant,
each hand guilty.

You preach love
but every kiss is venom.
You swear honesty
but your breath stinks of deceit.

You sing your holy lies,
choirs choking on righteousness,
but your heart
your blackened, rotting heart
beats only for sin.

I would rather vow silence,
starve to death
on the edge of truth,
than feed on the carrion
of what you serve.

I would rather never sing,
than bury my voice
in the filth of your song.

What is pure?
Where is it hiding?
The scent is gone
nothing left but ash
and the stench of man.

Even the candle of the just,
the brave,
flickers, fades
because oppression laughs,
and the strong
are gagged in chains.

You have been called 'too much'
just for feeling.
Silenced,
when all you wanted was to be heard.

You’ve fought the invisible.
You’ve overcome the sadness
that had no name.
You climbed out of the pit of depression.
You walked away from a love
that called you a burden
just for existing with emotion.

And yet —
or maybe because of all this —
you stand here now,
ready to take a step
greater than any step
you’ve ever taken before.

Perhaps what holds you back
is not lack of ability,
but the ache of becoming vast
after being made so small for so long.

Understand this, sweet girl:
no one sabotages themselves because they want to fail.
They sabotage themselves
because they fear rejection
for daring to shine.

And so your soul whispers:
“What if I could fly a little farther?”

Let your blood remind you
that you are still alive.
No soldier waits to feel confident
before entering battle.

I have conquered silence.
I have conquered erasure.
I have conquered the darkness of the mind.
Now I conquer my freedom —
because it is mine by right.

I will no longer live half of myself.

When everything is beautiful
and everything is strange
when everything is lifeless
and beautifully arranged

when everything is sorrowful,
and takes away your breath
when everything is living
but life's a silent death.

when everyone is laughing
but all you do is cry
when others are thriving
and you just want to die

when everything is passing
and you live in the past
holding onto strangers
that were never meant to last

always hoping
that reality will bend
and you won't talk to me
but I can always pretend.

always replacing
the void that's always there
so I won't be lonely
and I won't despair

something always changing
always inter-phasing,
I have many faces
for the many things I'm facing.

call me a kaleidoscope,
always cry and can't let go
I am a sad cube,
Inside a vacuum

These tears are hot and sting
I really like to sing
Whenever I feel like
I have nothing

It's all a silent death,
but it's not colorless
It's my internal void
that always gets destroyed

when everything is lifeless,
and beautifully deranged
and you're rid of your innocence
and wonderfully estranged.

when strangers marvel at you,
like a plate full of meat
and nobody loves me,
it's all just deceit.

when the world is so vast
but your room is so small
and the monsters are so big,
but your dreams are too tall.

when intimacy is formless,
and you're making love with ghosts
sitting in anger,
at a pain no one knows.

and with the simple pleasures,
you really mean the most
cause' although I'm suicidal,
I want to have a toast.

when your ex is everything,
but you're nothing but his muse,
and he calls you his 'friend'
after you were violently abused

when you forget your age,
as he forgets his
and your childhood is seamless
life's as if you were dreaming

but everything's a nightmare,
and everything is slow
and everyone is happy
and everyone lets go

but I move silently
I walk as slow as my breath
because time is passing
straight to the silent death.

"She left the city as a girl
And returned a woman
In the same shoes
On the same night.
A face in the darkness;
The reaper glimpsed
At journey's end.
He straddles the bridge
Between tonight and tomorrow--
He's a revolver with
One bullet missing
From the chamber;
He's the Wheel of Fortune
With its terms unwritten;
He's an unsigned DNR notice.
He's the end of the line."

...Now, here, I stand,
miles ahead,
on disconnecting tracks,
a once-raging fire,
slowly fading,
to a silver smoke...

Wondering,
...where did you go?

Have your own wolfish eyes,
peered into glassy irises
that even, in the silences,

reminded you,
of mine?

What existed, in me
that you let me, survive?

Mister, oh, please, let,
me in on your secret...
and tell me, now, do you regret ...

how you kept me... alive...?

The moon leaves the night
to find the sun,
the sun leaves the day
to find the moon
and I stand in the shadow
they pass between them.

if the reader
falls in love with the character of a book,
their love can be eternal.

he can over and over re-read
each part of his beloved.
he can just stop for a while
and gently touch the mirage.
he can even ****** a piece
and carry it for a lifetime.

but what happens
if the character
falls in love with the reader?