Dear self,
Tonight is hard.  
You are being flooded
With memories and dreams
And your soul is heavy
With self doubt and destruction.
Your hangs heavy
With thoughts of disgust
And the emotional scars
Sting just as much as the physical ones.

But hey

You are tracing old marks
In your skin
Please, Do not repave them.
Remember all the nights like these?
Your lonely tears will wash away.
And while I cannot promise you that tomorrow
Will be better
But it will be new.
Every path we make
Will diverge into unknown territory
And I promise
You will smile
Again

You watched me letting out tears as I cry
You heard me scream till my throat hurts
But you'll never see what my mind hides
Behind every butterfly is a worm in the dirt.

You watched me smile with my teeth shown
Grinned with lips stretching cheek to cheek
But you'll never see that I want to be buried below
Because light only exists when things are bleak.

I always tell myself I've been a glass half full person
But mirrors break and glasses shatter
When I hate someone I will curse them
But I just want nothing but to be a splatter.

Hidden away is all my sorrows
So everyday I'm feeling more hollow
Because I know I'm living on time that is borrowed
Just waiting for a day where I won't see tomorrow.

Wearing a mask always suffocates me
But if I owe people one thing, it's honesty
And honestly I don't see the true me
I see a fake smile, fake humour as fake as fake can be.

There's nothing left to look forward to
The sky is tumbling and blue
There's nothing that will be new
I don't know what I'm suppose to do...

I'm on the Empire State Building.
The air has never felt so thin,
my clothes so light,
almost weightless in the way they fit.

It's rush hour.
Below me, the bustling pace
of the Big Apple. New York City
never sleeps, so they miss things often.

It's a Sunday morning.
I can hear the bells...
They're louder than usual today.
Is there a wedding?

Everything's black.
The dresses, suits, the ties, the back of my eyelids.
I'm at the peak of the city that never sleeps.
The angels have begun descending.
I'm ready.

Hiding in my spot
Where no one can find me
Glazing over
To stare into dead space
Emptying the trash living in my head
Sitting here
In a ball
Holding my knees
Hoping...
Just maybe
I can cradle my own heart
A place reserved for me
Without thought
Appearing like a robot
Getting lost in my shut down
Exploring oblivion in my insanity
Amnesia is a better alternate reality
While I reboot in my corner

(C) Jl 2016

when you wallow in the past, the past is your future
dark days behind become dark days ahead
when those ghosts become your rulers
join them, because you're already dead

Stage 1
I'm tired of being wrecked
My heart beats in my head
I'm tasting my thoughts
So fresh
My mind is racing
A marathon I never signed up for

Stage 2
I'm sick of being crippled
I'm stuck between two walls
Repressed
But now I can't move
The walls fade away
Into snowing noise
Static Siberia  

Stage 3
I'm bothered by defeat
Sole in this somber corridor
I see my comfy bed with plush linen
Summoning me
With taunting plea
I unfold in my blankets
concede to the voice
The corrupted trap
My wrists and ankles, shackled
Squirming to flee
I can't retreat
The night owl snarling inside my ears
I slam my view

Stage 4
My milky eyes are bleeding
I'm zooming again
Fleeting faster
Things are blurring
Sensory overload
I fall to the ground as my legs buckle
I look up to see..
The finish line!
I hardly stand, treading towards it
The last traces of energy
Escaping me
Yawns of hope
I just want to sleep

Stage 5
Only to find out I'm in a dessert
The finish line, simply an empty mirage
Sadness of lost hope
Disheartened and frustrated
I find myself racing
Repeating my cycle of marathons
Until morning catches up behind me.
Still running inside my tired mind

© Jl 2016

Intensity was the face he wore.
That grave and gravel voice
that made such guttural noises.
Face scratched with a thin greying beard.
Razors that cut against the grain.
A ***** that bled him.
The red that wet him
was not the barber’s blade
but bullets biting fiercely
dropping bodies near him.
Hearing nightly pleas,
Young boys cry
“Please, please let me survive.
Let me make it out alive”
While they dig their own grave;
In holes that tare both ways.
And on the other side
of the barbed wired enemy line
Other young men cry
“Ich will nicht sterben”
Still as stone and twice as stern,
he watches the world
and both sides burn.
Each rose plucked,
each stem broken,
replanted permanently in the battlefield
to feed the fierce war machine
which is never satiated.

The light has a pulse.
There is no in between of darkness.
This perception is the only reality,
What we touch and see
Under the limited spectrum
Our eyes are allowed.
         My eyes see nothing,
My hands feel worlds,
         My thoughts create the shadows,
In the shadows I cry for the light,
        The light scatters my world,
On the other side
        Light cannot see me in the dark.

Words don't come to me anymore
silence grows deeper in my soul
the pain gets stronger and stronger.

My hopes, they turn to ashes
at the touch of my hands
I lose them, they slip through my fingers
and they're no Phoenix bird,
won't ever reborn.

Disappointment,
Failure
At every step I take.
My life,
a sinking ship.
My fears consume me day by day.

My love makes me rot inside
light burns my eyes,
music hurts my mind,
my soul is full of scars,
hopeless,
empty,
weak.

I shall die in the darkest silence.