You’re the neighbor I don’t want to know
Keeping mostly quiet but always on the other side of my wall
You’re the great teacher who pierces me in places I didn’t know could break
You’re the dark side of a bargain

You bring us in and take us out
Give us breath and blood
Shepherd us back into an unknown I don’t want to know

All we can do is pretend we are stronger than you
That you didn’t ****** us unwilling into once upon a time
That you won’t ever drag us out

I could lose all of my possessions
and it wouldn't matter
I'm rich
because you fed me
meals and words of encouragement

Inside my heart there is a a dark place
a bitter place
where a doll-sized me lives
and she is sad and mad
and curses her God

She is broken to the core
her wounds run deep and purple red
she is utterly unworthy of love
she didn’t win the race

You can’t see her because she lives inside the dark place in my heart
you see only my courage and my loving heart
but I feel her
not when she screams
when she cries

ancient wounds still break
suddenly and without warning
an earthquake whose epicenter is your heart

silver tarnishes
in the rain
I almost won I
had one foot over
the line
but when they took you I could not stop them.

I am never sure if the language barrier made the details of our affair easier to stomach or so much more painful
part of me high on the thrill
while hopeless love bubbled like magma at the base of an inactive volcano
your matter of fact words and that thick roll of duct tape you carried
ensuring no possibility of eruption

Candle flickers
frustrated, I try to keep reading
flame smaller and smaller
why can’t I light this wick?
I could not see that the string had burnt down to nearly nothing
buried in a soft and lumpy ball of wax

Again I strike
a match and burn my fingers
upside down but
I scald them again
it took so long for me to realize
you were melting, charred

And then I was sorry and lost
blind without your light