I think Vincent Van Gogh sliced off his ear to drown out the noise.
Life is so **** loud all the time with its crashing and banging
And sounds of screeching halts in action.
Keyboard clicks and the voices of Charlie Browns teachers.
I feel lost in this soundscape and not in a good way.
Tires and church bells the sounds of the drooling mob drive me mad.
I can't hear myself think anymore,
My soliloquy swallowed by the utterances of curses and cries of crows.
If the world would silence itself for just a moment,
I could sigh in relief.

I seek
the whole
pitch
and whine
the petty
grasping
ridiculous
insecure
******* mess
behind the
lyrical niceties

but you know that
you get me
we ride the same
pendulum
apex
of light
nadir
of night
and like me
you're still learning
to speak

sometimes
words die
in your mouth
never make it out
resting roundly sweet
on your passive
tongue
bitter truth
I would forgive
before I'd see you
swallow


*Better to risk offending than let your truth die unsaid.

your words flashed quickly
                       like bolts of lightning
each.brilliantly.illuminating
     charging my perception.

words pulsed
                       from you to me
     and back again
luring me through dark mazes.

the storm lights my way
                 magnetizing our connections
                                   melding our words.

phantom thoughts
   become real
                      loom large through
                 your alluring
                                 inducements.

seduction played into
     the power
                   of the idea.

wanting more than just
               vague reminiscences
    wanting to wrap my mind around
                                 true understanding.

mysteries, enigmas --
       reaching
                              always reaching.

enticed by the unknown
      i lean in
                  drawn by an attraction
             that eludes description.

i cannot extricate myself
              from the web of enchantment.

Two days ago
My sister claimed
That you were emotionally abusive,
I didn’t think it was true until last night
When your hand struck out
And,
Gripped my shoulder
And,
You told me I wasn’t following the rules.
I watched the door shut in front of me
And,
My mouth went dry with words I couldn’t speak.

I try not to remember
The good things about you
Anymore.
Because a bottle  
Of cheap *****
Isn’t enough when
I feel like I’m swallowing
The sea.

Instead my mind
Plays back images of your hands slamming against
The punching bag that you kept hung in your basement.
I wonder if you’ve ever pictured
Your fist hitting my face
While you were sweating out your anxieties.
Somehow,
You still had leftover
Anger bottled up
And,
You raged at me.

In February
It felt like my first time
All over again,
Your hands were gentle and,
My heart quaked but
I tried my hardest not to cry.

I had always looked out
At the world with hard fists
And,
Cold eyes, but you touched my heart
On your couch.

78 days later
All we had left in common
was *** and hanging on for dear life
To the scraps of us.
Your knuckles were scraped up
but you still managed
To **** me
While the stereo
Played every track I knew.

I touched your back
Like I used to play piano,
I tried to read the knuckles in your spine
Like brail
And,
Bring us back to
January 27th
When touching you
Was like slow dancing in the rain.

lotus rising in my hands,
heat that heals the broken man.
clocks with crooked arms that span,
lands that hold the emerald pain.

inside her ribcage,
beneath her hide,
snow melts,
rivers grow,
rushing and raging,
into everything we know.

washing a furrowed countenance,
into crumbled crystal and sea glass sand,
where castles rise and fall,
waxing and waning,
endless dying,
endless rebirth,
rising and falling,
again and again.

~Lana Maree Haas