Tell me
   When
       Did the lines
          Between
             My nightmares
                 And
                    This reality
                          Blur
                               And
                                   *Break

It was a graveyard and overcast sky
and I sat with book and accordian in hand,
hearing the world with its screams
swallow up around me.
The people whom I had loved and lost,
Papa with his silver eyes
Mama her sharp tongue and tough love
Rudy whose hair the colour of lemons
and questioned why, the living and dead,
worlds apart, yet both did not have a choice.
I stood and screamed so that everything shook
the burning rubble and ash and dust
willing my words to bring it all back
but it did not come, and my breath rose in gasps.
Death had looked me in the eye and said,
“It’s not time yet.”
I would shut my eyes to the world
only decades later.
I will understand that there was hate and pain
there was sadness
but even more so, there was love and joy.
I will know that the people I loved had reason
to kiss goodbye
whether it was their own hurt
or saw it as a necessity,
but they were never truly gone from me
always somewhere nearby,
in the thick and thin
frail and worn
of times.
I would learn
to forgive Death that day.
I will understand that
and I will be hurt,
but I will be okay.

~

Not all deaths are sad.
Some, meant to ease their own pain,
Are called freedom.
While some,
Meant to ease the pain of others,
Are called love.

© BT

You say I'm running from myself
I guess you're right
Maybe I am
All I know is that the reason
I hear my heartbeat so clearly
Is because my chest is hollow

I am made up of layers
Too many layers
As if my skin
Was preparing to survive
Out in dead winter at the South Pole

I'm annoying
  I'm distrustful

    I'm stubborn
       And I'm doubtful

           And secretive

Maybe downright manipulative

   But most of all I'm exhausted

Exhausted of the nothingness
   That I float around in
Exhausted of everything
  That comes and goes
    Ensuring chaos
Exhausted of everything and nothing
  And all things in between
         Exhausted of
                     **living

Because sometimes you start to fly
And realize your wings were simply a web of lies
Tell me, when you shake off the illusion
Who's going to save you
When you come crashing to the ground
Who's going to catch you
When your heart catches up with reality
And realizes dreams are just that
That life's nothing but an anchor
Weighing you to the ground
So that only when you shut your eyes
Can you lift your feet off the burden
And grow out real wings to fly

She's always the center of attention
Gracefully floating through seas of people
Swimming in the flashes of stardom
Surrounded by millions
And yet
She's so empty inside...

Tell me how does a smiling face like her's
Feel so alone and broken
While surrounded by so many people loving her?

Tell me how does a privileged status like her's
Feel so isolated and depressed
While surrounded by so many riches adoring her?

Yet behind her smile
And into her eyes
I can see it all
I can see past that disguise

Because beyond the lights
There hides a lonely girl
Who'd been tossed
Into an unforgiving world
One with plastic smiles
That slowly robbed pieces of her heart
...
Till she was left with
*Nothing

My heart
Is not your toy
That you can come and use
At your leisure
Then throw away
When it becomes used and broken

And I'll let you in on a secret...

It may look shiny and new
But its shattered to the core
Broken beyond repair
Simply dressed to impress
So it can stay on the top shelf
For its highest bidder
So that its cycle can continue
Forever