There isn't a word for the numbness that has infiltrated my soul.
I could write for a million years and still never convey my thoughts.  
When I first started writing redemption and purification was my goal.
Instead I've realized that the softening I feel is my spirit as it slowly rots.

I have little left to offer that seems original or genuinely mine.
The light bulb rattles and remains ingloriously dark as I cry out for inspiration.
My mind churns with regurgitated thoughts as my creativity has gone blind.
There's physical pain running through my circuits as I deal with my consternation.

Self loathing and sadistic degradation have replaced the path of light.
The voices must be real and telling the truth as I would never lead myself astray.
Now is the time to forget about writing and drift off into the wilderness of night.
I'll close my eyes like a child of four and whisper for salvation as I hopelessly pray.

There was a little girl whom found love to young. On the playground she’d sing a child’s innocent song in a beautiful hum. Boys would hear her song and watch her, entranced. A rebel of a boy came up and asked her to dance. “I heard you singing from the swings. Your eyes are beautiful. Will you take my hand?” Curious and delighted, the girl couldn’t have known what he had planned. He twirled her and kissed her five year old lips. He put his hands around her young and innocent hips. “I have something to show you.” The twelve year old rebel whispered in her ear. “What is it?” out of curiosity not fear.  He took her hand and led her in to the room in the rear of the building. He took off his pants while she looked at the ceiling. So much more happening in between. Those days have passed and that young girl is now a woman. Her heart is confused and her mind in ruins. The love she knew when she was young, the love where he would kiss her underwater and buy her cheese fries, the love that she saw glimmering in his eyes, she never saw in everyone else’s. It confused her. It hurt her. But no one knew of her love. Her pain she suffered alone. Still a child at heart the woman loves to indulge in encounters that temporarily fill the hole of her one and still, only, love. She also gets drunk or high, anything to make her feel numb. She smokes a cigarette and has and epiphany. “I’m going to get my life together, stop sleeping around, and find a love that’s true.” She got up every day. Went to work and school. She leaves her heart open to opportunity and the almighty, God.  She’ll one day become a mother. She’ll have a love that will accept all her sins and kiss all of her scars. He'll hold her close. Ask her to dance. It will be a love she understands. A love she won’t think she deserves. She’ll feel too tainted, but he’ll soothe her with words. Mend the hole. End the hurt.

I stay awake and wonder
what you think
when you hear my name,
what you think
before you go to sleep,
if you think of me at all
because I absentmindedly smile
when I hear your name,
I think of you
when I can't sleep at night,
I think of you a lot,
and I walk the Earth hoping
you think of me the way
I think of you.

And so the seas of
fresh and salty
liquid pain lapped at
the cold, pale cheek,
painting it the color
of transparency
reflected by the
anything-but-happy
young girl.