i need help
before i help myself
because my helping hand
is only leading me to hell

s.s

I sit here...
Undiagnosed.

Myriad symptoms
that tell a thousand stories.
Plethora of aches
that divulged
where things may have veered off course.

Those around offered what they could.
I face open palms daily
and I recognise them to be
gestures of good will and empathy.

I accept with only appreciation and gratitude.

But the wisest could only
provide uncertainty at best.

This is me.
And I'm undiagnosed.

my soul
has turned into a house
with leaks in its roof
my words are the raindrops
that fall through
and i
i am trying to catch them all.

This house
slowly unraveling
peeling off in layers
            like citrus of sectioned
freshness
      squeezed out of bounds
                            my heart
                    all caught up
in rooms, furniture
f l y In g
no longer rooted
by familial gravity
My veins wrapped
in long strands of
              live wires
hugging each item tight
                 as if to unlock
       the memories that
scintillate within
and I
      radiate my  
            feelings of forever
to somehow imprint them
before they
whirl and swirl off
into the universe
Snippets of our lives
in angled slices
of colored mirror
a look
    a smile
       a glint in the eye
children laughing
               a garden surprise
               crazy kitchen singing
                      first solids and a bib
              first little sweet dance
      beatific smile from the crib
the bedroom for cuddles
little bugs wrapped in blankets,
so close and so dear
flanked by both of us,
guardians of light,
keeping out fears
Once, we claimed private time
velvet kisses down
trails of skin
hot lusted shadows
gently sliding within
This is how love corrupts
         how old batteries explode
            burning rust that erupts
                        as I break out
            from the mold
Now your words hit my skin
in bad chemical reaction
knives and arrows of rupture
as my bone marrow
                       gets fractured
Insides are spilling out
guts all over the floor
all this chaos created
as I split
     through
              the door

he moves the pace of the river,
his home a houseboat

he eschews dry land, for that is where
they are all buried:

a wife, his only son, the anonymous victims
of his rifle's rabid rattle

whatever ghostly litany lives in the lapping of waves
against his hull remains mystery to him

on the water he'll stay, drifting downstream
until he reaches the sea

where he hopes he'll have no memory
of hard earth and tormenting souls