Her voice dripped dagger wounds into soft flesh-
jagged holes; un-patchable amendments in my life's canvas.

Tearing up at the thought of those tears is a daily occurrence, and oh how those currents pull me deeper still.

Suffocating-an unknowable fluid floods my lungs. I believe my doctor when he tells me nothing is wrong; nevertheless, I drown.

Dragged, kicking and screaming, to the bottom of my psyche.
My foundation eroded much faster than I could have ever known.

Though my foul foundations and pitiful psyche are pieces of
~me~
I thought it pertinent to remind you of my persevering personality.

Thus the following is true: Life is NOT like a box of chocolates, that ****'s hard, not sweet, so stop it. Secondly, without any strife, is it really a life worth living?

"Carve the iron from my bones"
I wish there were another way

"Mold me, clay-like, into the idol of your adulation"
My skin burns from murderous hands

"Things bend and break at your wanton will"
Skeletal snapping fills the dusk

"Drain me of my marrow by 'morrow"
I'm running out of wishbones to believe in.

"I won't be me by morning"
But that's ok, because I've only ever wanted to be you.

-C

I am a writer.

A pen-born pathogen
whose purpose is to infect and inspire.
A teacher who might light their fires
or bring them up from where they're mired,
before too much damage is done.

The disease of apathy is running rampant;
a lack of care,
tons of resentment.
Their education? 'Tis seemingly turgescent.
They've survived by only a hair.

Unfairly they've been told
to do or die-
fit the mold. But,
I won't lie when I say
neither they, nor I, are sold.

You sarcastically said: "what a life-"
it has been impetuously so.
Yet at times it too has been
unknown; perhaps, since we were five.

That moment I could comprehend
thoughts and feelings tied to existing-
which, as you know, are tough to amend;
I was falling, twisting; condemned,
with only one truly possible ending.

Though, unlike those sidewalk preachers
and pretty bad teachers, my end
is rather far. I could take
a plane, a train, or someone's car,
but alas, my weekend is meager.

A troublesome tempo
that I so coolly kept
locked 'way inside my chest
for far too long-
Brought forth in time, at your behest.

Those silvery eyes must truly be
like slivers of marbles made from the
dawn high. As if an angel -in perpetuity-
had plunged from the heavens
directly to me.

She is soft, like the beat of a butterfly's wing-
and her hair, it flows like water in the wind, though
the greatest thing of all
which will, or won't, appall,
is by luck alone I've somehow become her beaux.

And truth be told,
She's got me sold.

Love disembarked~
Empty-handed; heartless.
Thus it walked that plank
and 'Twas lost amongst waves.
Noting that not much was left as thine heart sank;
the bottom of the ocean, it's new grave.

Twenty-four.
A number just one before
twenty-five.
A number that signifies
one quarter
of one-hundred,
-in this case-
years of age.

I've circled the sun so many times
that time itself has begun to blend together:

Days spilled into
                       Weeks cascaded into
                                                    Months plunged into
                                                                                  years; incalculable.

I neglect to mention that throughout it all I have,
in fact,
been vaguely happy at worst and genuinely blissful at best.

And so I say to thee;
If on your birthday you cannot breathe,
If every moment is lost with ease,
I implore you, see the cost of these
things-and learn to set yourself free.