dead in the night
all alone
dead inside

eyes wide open
glued to the ceiling
gone all mental healing

all the overthinking
praying for redemption
followed by slow blinking
for shame, i'm left with feelings of abnegation.

Satin runs from dried stains
in torn reminders of convenience
Morning tastes of stale sweat and disappointment... again

Displaced retribution is a punishable offense
sentenced in hangover flashbacks fusing pain in lust heavy deviance
coddling complacency, impaling the nuisance of a persistent past

That serrated double edge glistens with humility and humiliation
licked clean by ravenous canine
flinging leftover apathy on unwitting pawns

Feeding on the deceptively needy
blinded by intoxicated cliches
mistaking release for emotion

Condemnation bartered in stolen commodities
Toilet water hydration reconstitutes enough to bleed
behind neuropathic armor and addiction to the nether

With tired wings you still soar
with a Grace few can ever muster
Sleep, my love
and dream of the days
the garden was full of flowers

Orange blossom sweet
and jasmine sultry
you will always glow like a gardenia
on a summer afternoon

Your nest, so filled with love
will warm your coldest days
keeping you forever beautiful
as you have always been

Fly with the angels on waves of peace
this world could never offer you
Every flower-filled breeze
will be like kisses filled
with memories of you

I found my grandmother the night she died
The room filled with mourning tears
My mother slapped me
because I hadn't cried in two days
At 18 how do you emotionally process a body that once held a life?

Disconnected from my thoughts
I felt neither pain nor love nor loss
How could I say that, without feeling defective
but I couldn't get past that shell with empty eyes
that stared at me until I noticed they weren't smiling

When the body turned to flesh
she was gone and I was lost
in those empty eyes that seemed to
hold a universe of nothing
and if I stared too long I'd disappear in that void
where her light used to shine

**

Too soon, I held my mother's hand as she passed
and watched the life leech out of her skin
The eyes were the last part of her to fade
I stared at her
Willing with all that I am that they would
spark and reignite the fire of who she was
But her skin ran cold the second the light ceased
So cold, yet so very soft.

Two days, and a blended family to hold up
Even with makeup, dressed to the nines
It didn't feel less... wrong
She was beautiful, but she wasn't my mother

I couldn't escape the knowledge
of invisible sutures
As I held her face and fixed her hair
I cursed those television shows I once watched with her
The ones that taught us how things worked
The ones that burned the knowledge of
the sutures into my memory
a memory I couldn't escape

Four days and two shoulders heavy with tears
Too busy with paperwork and wishes
to bleed tears of my own
Thankful for things to do
So I wouldn't get lost in her empty eyes
that stared at me whenever I closed my own

I sit here, grown, wondering how to
emotionally process a body that once held a life?
Praying that she will slap me for not being able to cry
Just so I could feel her