Soft tender touching
Trapped by our sweet memories
Gentle cage locked tight

We are the poor.
We have no wealth.
Don't ask about our mental health
In fact walk past us.
Don't ask why
Just do not look us in the eye
Especially if you knew us before
When we wore socks and brushed our teeth
And hadn't given up and sank beneath
The awful maelstrom in our brain
Of fear, pain and damning shame.

We are the shadow people
But I see you,
And I know that you have shadows too.

Insomnia strikes some nights

Tangible darkness standing tall
Proud like a protective friend watching over me as I lie in bed awake

Let me take trip to someplace sunny or warm
Any adjective that doesn't describe my room

Paint you on ceiling in vivid colors

Scribble your name over the walls in blood

In naked essence you are this-pervasive

Bend so you resemble something easier on my battered heart to feel

Knows you
Doesn't know who you are

Other nights I am not an insomniac
The darkness tucks in my sleeping form like a parent lovingly telling their child a bedtime story

My muse visits dreams and won't let me forget for even one second

Bewildered like arrows flying backwards from the target

And white birds sing melody similar to ours and it intensifies my agony

Surreal as falling snow in sizzling July

Tongues no longer twisted like tree roots

Moist darkness kisses goodnight like you once did
Not nearly as sweet

I yearn for it to be you instead

When we are in pain,
why do we remain
in the very place
causing the pain?

We are like vultures,
able to fly away
but choosing to stay
and watch the carrion decay.

Loneliness steadily chisels away my soul
Colder each moonlit night
Where heart was located is now just a hole
Empty bed without love will never feel right