Hello all my wonderful friends and talented poets, I am seeking advice on the following poem. I find it challenging to edit. Thank you all, for your help in advance.


Lost, and no one is searching.
Not for me,
                   definitely not,
I'm just an "Orphan", and so you seem to see.

I'm scared of the upcoming events.
I'm at a loss for words that are heavy—lead...
Leaflet
of page flips,
a collection of what I can't prevent.
I, it's my expense.
~
I, I bend until I break because of things like this.
No one gets it,
No one will ever get this.
People I live with,
Say that I just need to "believe in myself, and be positive",
Again,
They don't get it.

I just write a lot; I just write...
I have a lot on my mind.
I hate the idea of moving.

The sight,
of a suitcase makes me go blind.

I wish I could spill my eyes
~ like ink ~
There are words I need to write, words have become a monster in my life, crawling up my spine, like waves, ebb, and flow - walls of wakes. I'm drowning in this lake, the weight pressed against me—the cracked skull, and my peeling
mind,
Nothing feels right,
they're all I can think
~ of, words, words enough to make me sink.
Into my hollow chest deep,
and empty.
But inside
my lungs find
a return together, and my diaphragm
fighting—like the closing mouth of a dying-clam.

So far away,
To a University
and Dorm-room stay,
I'm quite a fog, no definition-no importance—I fade
In the grey.
I fade away, every **** day.
Take it all away?
Silly me...
"No, stop being negative", they will say.

It feels like another Foster home,
I just want to go,
disappear - collapse into the undergrowth.
But inside I've never been so low.
Famished, insatiable, and ravenous, the beast still grows.
Chewing through what I've created for you,
To -
Just cut my tongue, and slice my toes
trying to hold.
On to the walls as they slip from my fingertips,
I fold.
Into my brain - filled with holes.
Into myself, a mystery—a candle melting without a flame, a game, that gets dull, and so old.
I've lost again, on this, I've been,
'Ashton' without
a doubt,
My words, I know -
My words know,
no woe.
Losing your interest, I'm only a muddled groan.
A man who is such a child, has to find a way to become grown.

I've no certainty,
Certainly, I cannot keep...
What I cannot see,
I cannot see where I'll be,
Who'll stay? Nobody?
Who would want to stay in my life?
No one needs to say that I,
have become a joke,
and as I choke, I know,
I'm not funny...
~
Nobody?
Not even me.

Hey,
I guess it's okay?
They don't stay.
It's always been the same.
My mind's leaving me.
Nothing will ever change.
All my life, I've been drifting, deranged. Slowly, I fear that I may
never find a refrain ~
That I'll love to be in this state
of mind, so insane.
—They never really did, and slowly,
Through my fingers, they...
Slipped.
Away.
From me,
and my weak grip, white knuckles behind the bleed.
- I wouldn't lie, I tried -
everything...
but it was my weakness that gripped
so I slipped'
like they did.

I guess,
I'm just going to have to get used to this.

I swear, I've been,
Lost, now I'm even more lost when
...I'm searching.
I'm looking
From outside of myself—in.

My ribs open,
I'm an open book, but now, I'm a loose-leaf—dropped with a pen,
~
I, to not be picked up again.

My skin is paper thin,
Go ahead take a look right in?

See what's really inside of me?
That my heart is just too big, to bear its own beat.
Maybe -
Maybe - my wounds will bring you to me?

I have so much love to give,
I cannot keep it contained within.

My heart is exploding,
and I know it...
This life is no longer mine to live.

Why do I feel like this?
Everything is going great, it is.
Yet something is amiss,
I'm reckless, I try, and end up defective.

I feel like I am obsolete.
           and when I fall asleep,
                           I don't even want to dream.
Thinking about more than I can think.
I've been getting better at buying,
The lies between
the pages of a book without a spine - me,
getting better at hiding
that I, I'm just, weak,
I'm obsolete.
Hung up by the seams,
~
A nail in the wall holding me.
A puppet without strings,
The nail has a name, 'PTSD'.
Hang me in the hall,
Watch me drop down, and fall
~
On my face in the heat,
Watch my colors-fade-to-grey
as they blend in the bleed.

A painting of melting color, that drips, and drips,
No worth, I'm worthless...

I'm just that foster kid from the streets.
The one that no one needs,
I don't want to be,
Believe me,
I woke up, and don't want to be me,
I just want to be free.

By: Ash

When the rains fall from the sky,
I upturn my face,
embracing every drop.

Let the clouds cleanse me, reverse today. Erase
the blood, the sweat -
may the Heavens cry for me
so that I don't have to.
Let the thunder clap above me,
the lightning strike beside me,
charge me,
for I am drained of the day.
Bring me back to life because the day has weighted me and I am tired.
I am broken.

Let the rain melt me,
break me down until I am nothing left
but another puddle
among other puddles,
pooled upon the ground.
And after the storm is through, let me rest.
When the ripples have subsided,
and when the sun returns,
I will rise.

High above in heaven a prayer heard
A man whose heart feared
God almighty I did wrong he said
Yet to gain pardon my sacrifice not paid
For Iam poor and cannot pay
A sacrifice needs money the elders say
Father in heaven his heart did pain
oh for the love of tis human to gain
To make a sacrifice his child he sent
To know the human pain in earth to spend
A child in a manjor was born
to them in darkness awaiting joyous morn
A sacrifice to our sins God did give
The greatest gift for poor to live
Christmas a time with joy to celebrate
Gifts and toys and rituals humans create
Doth not for poor God as a child born
yet humanity doth make his heart torn
its not gifts that mark the day
its a love of God to humaniny with his life to pay
Joy not in the gifts we do give
joy be found to give the dying a life to live
Not in the feast a christmas sprit found
A smile to them that cry a melody of joy to sound

His face trembles in my hands, melting into a mirage of colors, dripping to the ground. The picture falls face down on my bed, tattered and ripped along the edges, crumpled and water stained. I sit next to him, laying on my back. I stare off at the empty void above me. My lights are off. The doors are locked. Windows cracked just enough to let a lightless breeze in. The air is crisp with snow, and I know the carpet is getting wet but I don’t care. My fingers graze cold metal and I grip it tightly. Why did he have to go? Why couldn’t he just stay and fight like I did for him? Was our life together not enough? I twist the ring on my finger absently, realizing that it will never have the second, matching ring on it. I get up with shaking legs and open the top drawer of our dresser. The smell of him hits me like a ton of bricks, right in the face. Holding my breath, I reach blindly around, trying to ignore the feel of his shirts. I find the little velvet box with one ring from a set of two in it, remembering the last time I opened this drawer.

The dress's collar is too tight against my throat and I pull at the itchy lace right before the music starts. The steady rhythm is the only thing allowing me to walk. I march to the beat, lifeless, like a zombie. He's waiting for me at the alter and I hurry, wanting to feel him again. His eyes are closed. I wish he'd look at me, tell me how beautiful I am, hell, even cry a little. But no, he just keeps that dead look on his face. My heart squeezes painfully, and the wrong kind of tears run down my cheeks. The priest looks at me mournfully when I finally get there. I wrap my fingers around my soon to be husband's cold, stiff hand as I look out at the crowd one last time, a solemn sea of black. I turn my attention to him now, never taking my eyes off his face as I say my vows. I give a gentle squeeze in recognition of the response he can't give, and slide the ring on his swollen finger, then mine on my own. "I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the... groom." The priest has a hard time keeping the revoltion out of his voice. Ignoring it, I plant a soft, loving kiss on my husband's pale blue lips. He no longer smells like he used to. The priest allows me a moment before he begins unlocking the wheels on the coffin. I hold my husband's hand as we make our way down the aisle. This is not how I imagined this day two years ago. The rest flys by; lowering him into the ground, the prayers, and I don’t even know if  I'm crying. I can feel nothing. I am home, except I'm not because home is 10 miles away under six feet of dirt. I can't stop staring at the ring on my finger. It is consuming me in thoughts I never wanted to think. I rip it off and throw it in the top drawer- his drawer, so that I'm not tempted to go back for it. The thought of taking my other ring off passes through my mind, but it is so unbearable I cannot entertain it. I've gotten so used to it, feeling the absence would only remind me of what else I have lost, so I keep it and then collapse to the ground, a bottle of xanax in my hand. I swallow three and wash it down with the half empty bottle of wine next to the bed. I fall asleep with the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other.

The memories shake me, and I regret ever taking the **** ring off. Ceremoniously, I slide it back on, placing his picture on the pillow on his side of the bed and lay next to him. The coldness of it bites into my palm and makes me tremble harder. I feel it brush against my temple and suddenly, I am doing this. Fear leaves me. Now it's just me and cold, hard determination. I breathe deeply for the last time. My finger pulls the trigger back, and I am bathed in a newer, more permanent darkness.

I don't have to miss him anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Infinity's Mirror by Nat Lipstadt

Two mirrors, set in opposition observe created notional blending,
a reflecting pool of bonding's of unglued, contrary compositions.
Mirror to mirror, his imagery, fuses to Sylvia's images, hers,
faintly recollected, now living face, face to face, with his past insurrections, alters his future visions.

From cold water lake she's drawn, impaled by refracting regrets,
retrieved, drawing her words upon him, an awakening slap to drink,
beloved, tragic magic, infinitely captive.  But this old man's tiddlywinks, land-locked words, blunted instruments, needy for release & salvation, are neither silvered or exacting, just stains on a dulled, tarnished brass spittoon, except for the brunt'd bunting of lines across his roughened terrain'd face, black and white, pen and ink etched illustration of howling agitation.

His words worn down, hardened, red faced, purloined speckled pellets, damp to roll on down her rutted, almost ancient, tear streak paths, disbelieved superstitions, sacrificed for one of her living morsels of words.

Man, here to her, pledges allegiance, audaciously defiling her poetic sanctity, a visage endless repeated, delivers her shiny poem-poised countenance, even though no forgiveness from time can a mirror afford for either, from her words,  confession born, terrible truths beyond, beyond the finite.

                                                
~~~~~~~­~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

I've spent my morning on adjectives,
trying kindly to describe her. I couldn't make them fit. I'd lost the joy in remembering us & saw under my eyes what difference the kitchen floor made. Quite sad a way to look at something so beautiful. One heartbreak away from holiness, I'm afraid I've forgotten how to long for something. I found metaphors under the rocks I'd grown too large to hide under and sometimes it's just worth digging in dirt to find the proper use of my indignance. My not-so-subtle search for dignity. & after all the cigarettes and kicking, I made my coffee and a vow to myself. That I would leave my bones where they were from now on. That I was a woman, full of blood and empathy and feeling sorry for myself was useless. That I hadn't fallen in love after all. I'd leglessly tripped face first  & from now on, I was going to watch where I stepped.

My words are but a shooting star
To be seen in all its glory
But as shooting stars fade in an instant
So do my words to be read once
Then fade into obscurity