A lump forms in my throat at the thought of placing words in their places like shoveling dirt on a casket.

Like every living day I swim further from the shore while my mind remains landlocked,


Picnicking with my emotions,
Enjoying it as much as two rivals could.

In the end the mashup seems harmonious,
Like the dance of two blades,
Each with a wielder who finds drive and desperation in each blocked blow,

Hope and solace in each hollow swing,

A thousand whind chimes choking each others sound into oblivion,

Or otherwise sounding shrill and panicked on their own,

Theres a duality to it all,
Lose some and find some,

Let some live and let some die,

Keep some safe and ship others far and wide,

I've forgotten where my mind was,
I suppose I've pushed it off somewhere if that's how it works,

I suppose that's not how it works,
And it will  come floating back.

It's like a cold,
Or a sinus drip.

An ever present itch in the back of your brain that somethings off.

A quiet droning from somewhere too far to be loud but too close to be silent.

Burning Parchment screams the kindled words as each letter sparks to life,
Leaving their meanings lost somewhere in the wind, is it the same online?

I'm doing well,  I'm still moving forward.

Only slower now,
More cautious of who's caught in the wake of my journey.
The thoughts of victims passed surface here and there, but they dont float for long before they gurgle back below the surface.
Where they belong.
Our odyssey has seen us lose many moons time caught in storms and whirlpools,
There is none left to dawdle with,
Only enough to finish the journey.

I rest easy,
With no time for troubled dreams.
I keep my eyes forward,  
Set on finding the truths obscured by the mystery of life, and the beauty therein.

I'm never alone on my journey,
I'm thankful for that always,
It makes the days breeze bye
When they feel the nastiest.

I'm mapping the coast as I go along,
Making note of the fauna and flora I can see,
I'll keep it close,
And stay the course as long as fate allows.

My hands were shaking when I saw you
the blood, dried up and masking your face,
your lips looked soft against the harsh black scabs
and your eyes looked full beneath the stitches on your brow
with bands on your wrists and
the little white clip on your finger measuring your pulse,
you looked so fragile, so small
I wanted to pick you up
stick you on a little orange wand and blow you into a bubble
so that you could float around unharmed and small
and I could make sure nothing popped you, and if it did,
I could catch you. and put you in another one.
Anything to keep you safe.

my hands were shaking when your mother told me you were in the hospital
my hands were shaking on the way to visit you in the icu
I couldn't shake the vision of a boy laying in a casket
I wondered what shirt they'd put you in
I know you're okay now and that is getting me by
but the anxiety of it all comes back each time I close my eyes
it comes pouring out of me like the blood from your head
and I can't find the medicine to clot them

I wish I could wipe the blood without reopening wounds
But your face still looks nice with gashes across it
you even look a little brave
like you fought wolves all afternoon
i'm just glad you won

the books of poetry I’ve found on coffee tables and book shelves disappoint me
young adult white boys writing about kissing and oxygen like no ones ever had a drag of a cigarette or thought about a girl or looked at the stars before
they’ve reduced poetry to single thoughts that they pretend are important
And the twenty something year old girls who took a creative writing class congratulate them with a poem of their own
Broken into
Small stanzas
With few words
That mean
Nothing

...

The dramatics are too much.
There is more to human emotion than cliches and empty romantic lines that maybe you should just tweet out instead of, I don’t know, trying to publish a book.

But the funny thing is, oh the curious little thing is, they are published in books. Everywhere.
And where do my rants about childhood trauma or abandoned hospitals or ecstatic adventures get me?

writing poetry in private waiting for someone to ask me if I ever like to write, and I’ll say, I dabble, and never show them a word.

Some nights I can’t cope with the fact that one day
I
And everyone I love
Will someday
Die

There is no way to put it nicely, the sobbing that comes from the already mourning of the soon to be skeletons walking and hugging and loving

I can’t sleep at night knowing one day I won’t wake up
I can’t breathe when I think about it and sometimes that makes me think I’ll be taking my last one gasping for air
Which makes the air even harder to catch

I can’t believe there were days where I wanted nothing more than to just not wake up
And today that fear is what keeps me up

I forgot to tell my mother goodnight before I retreated back to my bedroom and I don’t think I checked to make sure the back door was locked

Who created an existence so fragile
So miserable
Who gives us the pleasure of feeling such intense emotions and love for others and is okay with ripping that all away in an instant for some and allowing the grief for everyone else to linger until another loss distracts them

I don’t ever want to pick out funeral flowers for my father.

Do you remember all the drunken phone calls you would supply me with on countless three am mornings? Stumbling and fumbling on your words while you tried to tell me how horrible she was to you and all the little digs she had taken that day. Do you remember convincing me of her "sickness" because no sane person could ever dare touch your body and not fall madly in love with it. Do you remember the power you probably felt as you realized i was buying every lie you were selling to me? Because I remember the day I actually met your so called sick lover and how I looked down upon her because of the things I thought she had done to you. And the time that I wandered into that little coffee shop you both work at only to find her there and not you. And the conversation I had with her that night which blead into the next nine months and counting. And how surprised I was to find that the heart I was once convinced of being black is actually thriving. And the time that I realized that you weren't lying about the relationship being toxic but the cancer wasn't coming from her hands. And how mad I got that you spread rumors of abuse and torture that never truly existed. But see the ironic thing is after all that time the girl you claimed to be ill, your own personal patient, doesnt even hate you for the placebo you've been injecting into everyone and you know why? Because after all this time she was the doctor and you were the one needing medical attention.

A door I slammed and sent accross the sea,
I told it,
"Lock yourself I never want to open you again"
Now I fumble around in the dark corner where it used to be for the doorknob.
A flower I found and picked, not thinking far enough ahead to realize that if I truly appreciated its beauty I wouldnt pick it but let it blossom. Even wilted and withered ive never found another like it.
A bump in the road on someones ride home from work that they didnt even notice as they sang their favorite radio songs.

While you were reading "the Word" in that hotel room in new mexico or California or wherever the ******* slept with her that night, you should have been looking up passages on forgiveness or some other godly, holier-than-though horseshit that's supposed to make you into a better person.

I don't need a bible to tell me that what you did was wrong and I definitely don't need one to tell me that I should forgive you.
Because despite the horrific time we spent together, I know it wasn't all your fault. I've learned to forgive not only you, but also myself.

I don't need an angel to pull me out of depression. I don't need an angel to tell stories to of every glorifying good deed I've done in my life to get me into the gates of Heaven. I don't need Satan telling me I'm too good for Hell because let's face it: none of us really are.

I hope you know that when people ask about you, I tell them how lovely you are, that you're genuinely a good person who's dealt with more struggles than she deserves, who I treated poorly when she deserved her feet washed and her presence bowed to.

So when you tell those same people that I'm a pathological liar,
perhaps maybe you're right.

But I'm not lying when I say, I hope for happiness in your head.
I hope one day you don't feel the burning need to fill others' with pity for you and hatred for anyone you feel is against you,
that burning desire you have to destroy yourself so you throw everyone else into the furnace? Yeah. You know the story.

I hope you know I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.
I hope you know I never wish I hadn't.
I hope you believe yourself when you say that I'm a liar so that none of this makes you feel an ounce better about yourself.

In Jesus name I pray,
Amen.