The subtle sadness comes to send you off in grandest fashion, just quietly drift away..

Goodbye Mother,
goodbye Father,
goodbye Brother and Sister, please..
Don’t mourn for me, none of this was your fault. You tried listening, but now is the time where numbness speaks and silence takes the stage..this place is equal parts history, tragedy, and misery of my own making, so forgive me for taking the initiative, but I’m finally coming home, to a peace so rarely known.
Goodbye for a final time.
Don’t follow me,
Make this life your own,
Forget me if you must,
Just please, don’t follow me.
There’s so much I never got to see,
So I’m begging you..be my eyes,
Take me with you beyond tonight.
Try to remember how much I love you,
Don’t let this world, or our distance apart, take away your good heart.
Goodbye, and goodnight.

I want someone close to understand, not some stranger who I’ve never known beyond a simple hello and the exchange of some bills so they can listen to me talk about nothing for a few hours. But that’s all it is, nothing, blissfully reaching out for validation, for reason, for acceptance, looking for any reason at all to be something justifiable. We all have our stories, but we let others choose if they get to define us, and for me it’s enough for a friend to hear, and just tell me I’m ok every once and awhile, you don’t even need to smile when you do it..just listen, and tell me it’s ok so I can finally make something out of all this crazy nothing in my head and move on. But I’m rambling, so listen, I don’t like telling this stuff to strangers but I’m worried that’s what we are sometimes. So before it gets too far down the line and I’m remembering you with a smile you’ll never see. Please, hear me out, and acknowledge that my somber nothings have a reason.

To the hope that I have lost,
Of spilling here, a single drop,
Of worthy ink upon this page,
Why have you fled,
To better days?

In times of love you moved so freely,
Writing every word so keenly,
succinctly, yes!
Truly I, was blessed by love,
And ever since, the wounded dove.

Two years apart had rusted wit,
And aching heart had dulled my pen,
To a point,
Of wounded pride,
A vestige of such happy times.

Yet still I cling to those old ways,
My ill-begotten glory days,
Of love, hope, and fluid pen,
All forgotten,
By the  end.

She said to me, she said,
“What happened, you use to laugh.”

And I came back,

“That was before the aftermath of depressive spats tackled head-on. Before I developed a habit of asking what’s wrong for every sad face I see, before I tried listening because no one ever heard me, and it was terrible.”

And I got an earful of awful sounding words.

“You took their hurt, but what’s that worth when it’s tearing you up inside? When every night you struggle to say goodbye to faces long gone, and you just have to carry on like nothing’s wrong? I can hear it in your voice now, the spark is gone.”

And I said,

“No one’s perfect, but for for what it’s worth I’d do it all again. And maybe that’s because I miss them all so much, my dear friends who never heard the meaning in my words..We all hurt, but I’ll take it all in for them, again and again. And if my laughter is reduced to a smirk well then, I’d say that’s a small price to pay in the end.”

I have no leg to stand upon,
physically and metaphorically so,
When it comes to the world of pain.
And how ironic is this, that bliss should overtake me when drawing upon that well.

As I’ve had my fair share,
Of scars to bare, when it comes to conflict.
Yet when looking at it by that lens,
I find it necessary to append the phrase,
“It’s not so bad.”

Because those days have come and gone,
And many more will follow,
So when time comes to call upon,
The pain I’ve gladly wallowed in,
I have no leg to stand upon,
And so my sorrow ends.

For her I would do all,
My rise and fall facilitated by fate,
Was not enough to keep me apart,
For in heart, I am hers forever.

My spirit asunder,
Has held true under perilous time,
From the ashes of her memory,
I rise to be a stronger man.

That in her features I see,
Breathing as calm as the ocean,
And let there be, my source of strength,
Through vast and loving devotion.

My heart is yours forever,
Yet I cannot give it so freely,
Cursed be this ****** fate,
Yet neither time nor distance, may ever take what is wholly yours.

I’ve seen the place where women drive low
The spirits of good men and play the victim. I’ve seen unconquerable hearts fall under the siege of great Helen and question their own self-worth. Likewise I have seen Alexander spread his influence too far and ruin what could have been the world’s greatest empire, until he is forced to burn his own cities to the ground rather than concede defeat. It is easy to lose your way and view the world by this great struggle, but don’t. I can tell you that even as a bystander to that line of thinking, I’ve been caught in it’s grasp on both ends. It’s a poison, a lie created by vulnerable hearts so they can play the victim like it’s something to be proud of. Instead, remember that there are good people in this world who are completely separate from that struggle, and you could be too.