Her words are like sharpened knives that slice me open, revealing the red raw of my flesh. They know where the deepest parts of pain lie - it's the first cut. The second rips away the small walls built to protect hidden secrets. They leave me vulnerable; open to hear more words that she screams as she drives another wedge into my heart. It's always screaming. The hate leaves her mouth almost as fast as it does her eyes - it's like a button she presses to reload the ammunition - newer, harder bullets shooting through me, leaving wounds in my chest, stomach, arms. An ever-ready finger pulling the trigger, shooting them out of black, lifeless eyes that don't really see me, don't acknowledge the hurt, but see what they want to see: another unguarded target.

It's like as soon as I'm alone the walls fall down.
The insecurity returns, back to it's usual places: a nook in the cavities of my heart, a hole in the veins that should be bringing me blood. I can't hide it, it's like the pain of a memory that never really heals with time, never fixes itself. Instead thin layers of 'I'm Okay' wrap around the wound as if sticky tape trying to glue together cracks in the road earthquakes have parted. It's just another one of those nights where every hurt from every sound spoken hits me all at once and cuts like the original impact.

Lonely nights offer moments of silence

and one dish suppers where candlelight seems a waste

Seated with pen in hand, I smooth the ruffles beneath

as if that will help the words flow



Upon closer inspection I find

heart shaped patterns on the dining room tablecloth

mimic the movements of my hand,

layered one atop another, calling on each to oblige



Crossing lines, intersecting at pre-destined points,

repeating in harmony with one another

as my thoughts gather in the tiny squares

of this colored graph paper staring at me, waiting



Moving in sync with butterfly curves on the corners

and scribbled etchings along borders,

fantasies of a mind in a dream state

swirl, touching each box of this formatted design



Folds neatly collect the shapes of spilled ink

seeping slowly through the cloth

like raindrops on a leaf following the veins

in an abstract yet confined flow



To the blurred eye sits nonsense,

a collection of nothing on a vast white sheet

dancing like uneven feet on a rounded floor

of no particular meaning or feature



Yet to me, my penned innocence calls loudly,

even in the darkness of lost words, these patterns,

as is everything found filling me is you…

and my pen pleads in heart shaped longings

The rose lies, carefully placed next to his name.
His eldest son has just turned five and doesn't know he's buried there,
among many other faceless graves.
The soft glow of a candle, lit over his last letter.
She holds it close, his warmth she craves.
His last words, only written to ease the suffering
merely prolong the pain:
"I'll love you, always."
Twenty-one when he left,
cold and breathless when he returned;
wearing an expression pleading to be spared from the
tragedies already occurred.
Sleeping restlessly in a coffin, he died in combat -
a knife to the waist, legs severely burned.
So as not to wake the children she sits and attempts to calm herself; grabbing a pen and paper to write one last letter back to him:
"They taught you ******* and not care, how to
mercilessly end what you couldn't possibly understand.
You learnt to block out the dying screams as you also
silenced your own fears. You thought you were freely giving
part of yourself, while they crept in,
silently like a cancer; they took
everything from you my dear."