You're gone.
I stumble through the dark.
Thoughts explode, lighting the dark with mocking tones. I would gladly die to call your name, to reach the unreachable but it's too late to draw breath.

A scream escapes my throat, tiny against the lack of you it dies without echo.

I am alone, afraid of my need for your comfort, afraid of my quickening heartbeat, afraid of  myself.

I am the coming storm.
Shadows dance in my wake, wrapped in lace from the gowns of the jilted, they drink my tears as their music turns tainted flesh to stone.

I am nowhere.
Here reality becomes transparent. The illusion of happiness and love  revealed to me in rapid flickers, a tickertape parade of twisted lies lurking in the folds of lovers limbs.

You're gone.
I stumble through the dark.
Tonight I will give myself freely to the depths, in the hope of no return.

Six small words, that's all.


Six. Small. Words. 


Yet they sit mute on my tongue, held tightly by fear of the destruction they will cause. 

Seven syllables.
Swirling around my brain, screaming through my consciousness everytime we talk, begging to be spoken, consuming my every panicked thought.

Twenty two letters.
A small amount, though enough to tear two worlds into shreds and cast friendship into darkness everlasting.


They're only words, right?

If that were true, I would scream them across the sea, my truth drowning out the roar of the tide..... but these words would take you from me, so I bite down on them, imprison them within, where they churn and spit with fury at my cowardice.

Six small words I'll always mean but never say, seven syllables that would send you reeling, running, betrayed.  Twenty two letters that I could only ever follow with "I'm sorry" as I watch you walk away.

Bullet and blade
Have ended
Many a friend.

Some were warriors
Living by sword, others
Just unlucky.

No one safe from
Anything. I buy her
Pepperspray instead of

Flowers these days.
Keep leaving
Butterfly knives in the

Pockets of her coats.
I am a man of non-violence,
But one with worlds to lose.

I miss the days when the fight
Ended as ground was hit.
Knuckles and bones were

All we needed; men fencing
For themselves with nothing
But themselves,  

And women were there to be
Charmed and fought over. Not
Left torn and terrified

In a ditch, broken beyond repair,
Their men helplessly wielding
Lead and steel at the absence

Of the animal responsible.
I'll buy her flowers today.
Flowers, and walk her home.

Bullet and blade
Have ended
Many a friend.

The weight of their
Tragedies is about the
Same

As that of the crates of ammunition
It takes to keep the world
Safe from the threat of itself.