A trail forms from the pieces of me crumbling off as I go;
I apologize for the mess, what it is and that it's left behind.
There should be no denial nor delay in this acceptance:
I will never become better than I am, all I can do now is decay.

To describe my life in sound: one sustained and deep note;
the growling hum of an obnoxious instrument too difficult to play;
the master of this song silently regretting his years spent,
wishing he weren't so **** in love with the melody.

To see through my eyes might convince you I am blind,
selfishly I stare inward and pretend that nothing is there,
unwilling to let even the faintest glow into this empty space
in fear of what might be waiting in the dark.

To touch with my lips or fingertips, you might find too delicate,
afraid that you or what you gently caress could come apart,
never again to have the warm, silken texture of that privileged trust,
licking wounds that will nurse into rough, unfeeling callus or callous.

To know me is to know the thin shroud of half-truth and fantasy,
the shimmer of glitter and a fake smile, its age in cracking paint;
my costume now faded and stiff, my dance now only a shuffle and turn;
no longer what I pretended to be, unable to remember what I was.

I will never be better than what I became; all I can do now is decay;
for all that I was given, and all that I acknowledge: this I accept.
I apologize for the mess that I will become and leave behind;
a trail ends as the final piece crumbles from me, and I am gone.

If I were given to feel fictive ideals,
I'd have thought I saw you smile;
I would imagine a world anew, where we two
dance with palms pressed atop our crumbled dreams.

We'd speak of the weather, whether we're together,
and act happy for a while;
Then we would wither away, left here to decay,
and unravel each other at the seams.

But only in my creation does sensation
give up such a pleasant figment;
In blistering awareness I'm teased with careless
gestures that mock who I am and will be.

My reward is only found in vision and sound,
pointless since I'm blind and silent;
If you could ever know what you've done to my soul,
it would be clear that you'll never love me.

I was mechanical, husked from a man,
pieced back together with my mechanical hands;
and though my only pride left rest in my hands,
I was both machine and man.

You sat me beside you and gave me a name,
you told me you loved me and asked for the same;
I acknowledged and promised to give you the same,
though I could not give you a name.

Your delicate question came with a tear
as you whispered it into my mechanical ears;
but your question only echoed between empty ears,
and my skin began to rust from your tear.

You left one last touch and sighed your goodbye,
you walked so far away until you were gone from my eyes;
and so I shut off my hands, my ears, and my eyes
so that the last thing I felt was 'goodbye.'

That I am granted to feel this tremble
which shakes my knees weak,
what calls every fiber to attention,
and pains like catching the icy chill of a winter wind;

That I should meet your gaze
by intrigue or simple fortune,
I warm with your eyes fixed upon me,
wrapping like the embrace of a dry blanket when escaping the rain.

That I must succumb to fantasy
of our destined and entwined romanticism,
I waver as such a machination is exposed,
shattering this dream like an old bulb after its final and dying light.

That I come to realize my intent
would have me trick you into what I call 'love',
I collapse under the weight of shameful ambition,
and see there is nothing quite like this selfish thing I have done.

Crimson sheen considers an orb of golden beaming
upon its dust-flecked surface;
Ropy drippings welcomed into its totality, save for the tails
plucked by a soft breeze.
*****, ivory half-arches splotched with blackened patterns
cast their slivered shadows onto the pooling;
Raggedly are they covered by dried out leather slightly caved-in
from the weight of those this gift has come to nourish.

Trembling impression stirs a withdrawn romantic
to that passionate profession so frenzied and frantic;
with its wild ideal in disregard to affection,
a fantastic reveal brings this dream of perfection.

But the stroll towards the threshold winds minute to millennia,
a fever within the mind turns daring to dementia;
and what felt so domestic slowly becomes foreign
as harmony, once majestic, slips into distortion.

Another delay now convinces this retreat,
where 'always was' will stay in fear of defeat;
denying this memory from a time never crossed,
only granted to reverie and allowed to be lost.

It seems this low hum comes haunting again,
a soft and mad lullaby I miss now and then;
overture of sound pounding through sleepy tears,
as I can only cry: "Why is this all I hear?"

Whispers in the music ***** a nerve in my head
as I lie wide awake taking count of what's said:
it's hard to explain pain caused by just words,
so I try but I shake, aching and stirred.

As the new day is here, fear is all that I feel,
and what I pretend bends and breaks from what's real;
and everything I remember: relief, grief, and shame
started to end when that low hum came.

I'll relive the memory every time it's deserved,
it will leave my mind numb from being unnerved;
but then that mad lullaby I miss now and then,
that soft, low hum comes and I sleep once again.