I long for still and silent sleep
'neath rugged stone and pretty flowers
to lay in peace at turmoils end
as larks sing by the passing hours.

I do not long for mourners tears
nor wringing hands to mark my loss
Just quiet song to lift me up
from where I lay beneath the moss.

And once my soul has flown it's last
and bid farewell to those held dear
I'll whistle through the summer breeze
with joy that I'm no longer here.

My skin is but a map of scars
a journal of all the times I have betrayed myself.
Raw emotion settles in silver lines
multiplying with every breath taken
in fear and rage at my reflection.
I write meaningless lines in hope of cure as I carry the weight of their shame. I let them go, to travel into the ether in hope of reply, of friendship, of hope that I am sometime seen. A doppelganger of my former self, I writhe and spit lines at shadows, the longing too deep to name, my loneliness a constant echo within the barrens of my mind.

There upon the foamy waters
boats rock with silent ease
all about reflects the sky
forget me not blue
stretches the miles.
Hushed I watch the majesty
of simple lives
Under the toil of the sun
boatmen sing their nets ashore
shimmering with life
as though the dawn itself were caught
within
a single bell, chimes skylark sweet
keeping time with the rhythm of all.
Calling home calloused hands
to pretty parlours
where rest and the devil take hold.

I am doomed to keep repeating
this hateful cycle, self defeating
bleeding red through open sores
set up to be deaths only chore.

These many coloured choking pills
that rush my blood but cure no ills
have taken hands too raw with pain
and bound them tight against the rain.

There is no finer love than this
between my soul and fires kiss
which burns my throat and scars my heart
while keeping love and life apart.

I was made of glass
fragile and hollow by design
reflecting those around me
but never quite fulfilled.
I shattered, tiny fragments glistened
like tears
But still I felt nothing.
Sorrow slipped silently
numbing a soul hungry for all yet thirsting for none
I sat in darkness waiting
for you to see the sunbeams
glancing off the shards and think them beautiful
but you were blinded by so many splinters
that you could never imagine the whole.

Empty spaces
Blank mind traces
Of what I could once do
Wonderful descriptions
Unfinished stories
Of children running
From banal dangers

New depths of mental pain evoke
Change in me
How did that child think?
I can’t find the words
Or remember

The grapple for more adult structure
But simply lack the
Vocabulary
Once proud of a sentence
Now every letter is saturated with
Insignificance