Rip me limb from limb
In silence I will suffer
Absorbing the rending of flesh from bone
Happily
Thankfully
Repeatedly
So you suffer no more

A worst-case-scenario mentality
Breeds emotional nightmares of what-ifs
Methodically feeling the pain in each possibility
Preparing for Hell, knowing it is impractical, improbable, and unkind
Each reaction gauged
Smiles erupt in each better choice
A familiar road traveled often
Lead only by a history of pain
It ebbs and flows, bobs and weaves at will
This reality is organized, easy to understand

Random thought of an unlikely, unfathomable future
Vivid like a film
Unwavering, persistent
There is no controlling its outcome
Forced to watch the images forged in a broken mind
Tears burn flesh and a naked heart bleeds
Stop rolling, just...stop
No amount of pleading slows the images
The pain is overwhelming
Far beyond self-inflicted, torturous, methodical thoughts
Uncontrollable, inconsolable
True and real
So very real

There is but one way to stop that future
The one shown in visions of just deserts
The future that smolders through present joy
Preemptive pain is just not an option

I've seen the future my heart has built
The shards of a shattered soul
Offer no comfort

My worst-case-scenario was but a benign freckle on the elbow of a body invaded by metastatic melanoma

In shadows they live
On the other side of sunshine
In the corner of the eye
Just this side of vision
Insanity on the cusp of reality
Truth in duality of time

In echoes they speak
Mumbles behind everything
Calling out a name
Underneath the traffic noise
Whispering in words a thought can hear
Irradicating silence

In the very air they hang
A change in scent in the air
The stink of someone else's memory
A grating plea for a void of exsistnce
To the keeper of dreams and nightmares
As the coin flips, before the call

A heart so callused as not to feel
Scars too deep for wounds to heal
A soul of kindred spirit seeks
The one, the same, however meek
And so a rip in flesh began
And blood, down tattered souls, it ran
For one to feast on demons grown
Gnawing, both through flesh and bone
Crashing casings over pain
The scars are what the feast remains

You are two people
Detached through silent self-loathing
Torn between flesh and fantasy
Nightmares tear your eyes from dreams
Tasting the flesh as you awaken
Aroused and *****
Frightened of who
Of what you're turning into
Praying you will not become
That sickening desire
Losing sight of the fact
That a dream is just a dream

I hate
          when dreams
                    feel like memories
                              you never had

Razor-sharp fingernails scrape layers of flesh from eyelids
Splaying them eternally open
Can't unsee what's been seen
Can't unhear the sounds
Or unsmell the odor that rots in nostrils, infecting every rose
There's no stopping when they all stink the same
Can't undo, can't undo
Safety in bile where nightmares are birthed in reality,
In places that fester like the remnants of the lids that blinded
Bleach doesn't clean untruths
Fire doesn't  burn hot enough to mask pain
Blisters seem like hope
Hope to heal
Hope to resemble something familiar
Peeling skin back with teeth
Wishing for them to bleed
When scalding tubfulls try to cleanse
the grime that sludges through a broken mind
Attached to a heart mindlessly lashed in the shame of

Love

With all the exhuberance of a child on Christmas
The smallest gift was received
Ten words on a page
Joy beyond measure deluged a happy heart
Pieces of a soul....more precious than gold

And in return
With all the exhuberance of a child on Christmas
The smallest gift was given
More excited at the giving
At the anticipation of joy

Waived off upon receipt
Forgotten on a page
Unread pieces of love
Bore holes in a happy heart
Chagrin unassuaged by reluctant glances spurred by pain

Longing for all the exhuberance of a child on Christmas