The spaces between us are filled by smoke
and pools of blood
you inhale poison
while I bleed out my exhales
our broken pieces,
fitting together like shards of glass
tragic back stories,
nights spent on the phone
you say you love me
but i know the lighters come first
I tell you we are perfect together
but my razors kiss my skin
instead of your lips
I know you love her
even though she sees the bottom of the pipe
while I see your eyes
baby you are better then the tar at the end of a blunt
**** it,
if it takes a gallon of superglue,
and a million packs of cigarettes
I swear to you, we will be okay.

Elated to see you aloft in the night sky
To what do I owe this enchanted boon.
In the merry company of winking stars,
Enthralled by this sight as I admire my moon.

Bathe me in your streaks of translucent silver.
Accompany me through my sleepless nights.
Watching over me with unwavering vigil.
Swathe me in whispers of peaceful respite.

Oh how you govern the raging tides of my soul.
Rest your gaze as the waters break upon my shore...
Erode and weaken the load strewn over my burning shoals,
Sands drowned breathless but craving for more.

Few nights now... Smitten as you coyly turn away.
Thick strands of shadow clad hair in gentle cascades,
Alluringly obscuring a slight fraction of your face.
A tiny crescent blanketed away; into the blackness it fades.

More nights pass... Now I see only a lesser moon
Leaving me with only half; darkness so had claimed.
Please make yourself last; you mustn't leave too soon,
I'm not ready to be left crippled and maimed.

I silently look up as more nights go by.
I watched my lunar love dissolving into space.
My heart too, torn away a morsel at a time...
Finally she had gone; without a sliver or a trace.

Every nightfall since is rife with emptiness and despair.
I asked the stars if they could soothe my gaping void...
But they'd only twinkle in indifference...
Regardless of the pleas I've employed.

Unsure of how many rises it has thus been.
Nights only brought the onslaught of mocking stars above.
Still I toy with the promises made overhead,
For the awaited return of my crazed elusive love.

I know it's frivolous to think I'm the only one...
There are others who pine just as I do.
But I yearn the most for your sought after attention,
For our hearts have sung in every colour and every hue.

Anxiety at peak, dismayed almost broken,
Then I hear a sweet song sung; distant and far.
A song that shared the words we once had spoken,
Again enveloped in translucent silver, with relief I sighed...,
                          "There you are..."

.

So many times it is hard to move
from this place
and I won’t leave soon
but you you’re there
to answer every prayer
Lord I’m thankful to have you here.

Though the night is dark and dim
the light of love shimmers in.
In hope I find you waiting strong
waiting for me to tag along.

How many times will I have to remember
that you are steady and never weather
a strength that I can bear
a strength to carry me near your stare.

I use your hope to get me through
and get one more second closer to you.
Not a drop of dreaming will I loose
because it is you I had to choose.

No one is more grateful than I to be here now
and use my head to bow
before your glory
because you are the beginning
and end of my story.

I hate myself. That's the short of it. I have struggled with this as long as I can remember. In talking with DT this week, he reminded me of some of the reasons that I am a good person. I hear it, my brain processes the words, my heart wants to believe it, but then the familiar words of "if he only knew" creep in and consume any hopes of believing it is true. Sad thing is, he does know. He knows more about me than any other person... he knows the nitty gritty details, the good, the bad and the dark & ugly. So if someone who does "know" can still find the good in me, then why the hell can't I believe it?

It's frustrating. I don't enjoy walking around feeling like this. Shame is my cloak and hatred follows me wherever I go. I envy the people who have good self-esteem because I am not one of those people. My husband is one of those who just looks comfortable in his own skin. My skin is too tight. So I cut.

I was taught to cut. By someone close to me who was hurting me. It is almost as if it was their calculated attempt to hide my feelings from the world and show me how to turn them inward. The sad thing is, cutting as I was taught did ease my feelings of guilt, shame, anger, etc. It was my release and my best means of controlling my feelings. A simple cut was a distraction to the larger pain. I believe this is where my self-destructive behavior took root.

Over the years my self-destruction has taken many forms. Alcohol, drugs, more cutting, binge eating, not eating, and pushing everyone away who even attempted to love or care for me. "I will make them leave before they can decide on their own to leave me", that was my constant thought. I've always thought it to be better anyways because anyone who got to know me surely would be repulsed by my secrets. I work hard to ruin my own success because I'm terrified of the good happening in my life. Good means that it can turn to bad. However, it sure is a lot of work to live my life like this and from the outside looking in, it must look strange to watch me ruin the good things going for me. I know my husband sees it as strange; a frequent argument between us is my resistance to let him love me. He knows me, maybe not all the dark and sordid details but he still knows me. And even then, I still resist the good that is him in my life.

All this leads me back to the silent treatment. I ignore my own feelings, thoughts, emotions, and dreams. In a sense, I give myself the silent treatment. And in return, that pain created by the silence, leaks out as self-destruction and hatred. When the good comes in my life I embrace it for a time and actually attempt to feel. But then, like clockwork, I shut down and the silence begins. An internal temper-tantrum eventually ensues, screaming to get my attention only to be met with more silence until I can no longer ignore it. By then I am so out of control that I resort to self-destruction which temporarily cures the larger pain in my life.

In writing this, I can see that I'm actually quite predictable. No wonder people close to me are maddened to watch this process happen time and time again. So here goes, I'm going to start listening to myself and hearing them out instead of screaming back to shut up. Hearing myself has to be easier in the long term than continuing to make a mess out of my life through self-destruction because now, for the first time, my own destruction is hurting those around me who love me and that is something I cannot continue to do.

Oh the cringing  demon of eternal youth,
******* away promise and hard won truth.
I see far more than ***, lingering, in her eyes
I see, instead, the milk teeth of youthful lies,
of forever and today, hopes and screams
replacing tomorrows, frayed at the seams.

Oh, mere ***, be gone, you sordid troll!
Crawl yourself back in your hole.
If ‘tis *** you brought to this trapped piece of light
then speak to your own soul and leave me a bite
of the apple she does not offer
and the delights you think her youth will proffer.

I have no time to dance to your twisted tune
of youth over too fast and maturity too soon!
What stinks more of your *******;
her stretched, prolonged, aging youth or back bared, partial  ******?

I giggle as I consider her Eve-like dreams
of bitten apples and grander things.
And God said, let there be light.
Is that truly all He said when he banished the night?

Maybe she is wet from being born.
From demon Youth’s desperate grasp she is torn
and into the world, for a moment, she is cashed;
back bared and ready to be lashed
by the ‘cruel’ reality we keep from youth…
…like bronzed, baby booties and baby’s lost tooth.

Maybe, coquettishly, she glances ahead,
away from the bonds of youth’s birthing bed;
not, as you apparently dream, toward some sordid affair
you see in bared skin and strands of dampened hair!

There is beauty in her eyes, it is true,
the beauty of youth’s first, full faced view
of tomorrow and tomorrows again…
Exactly how long do you think, she should remain a youth, then?
Oh the Apple that lingers past ripe upon a tree,
Snakeless, Eve-less, unchosen, unbitten for an eternity.
Shall we trap, virginal, in iron cages of our blind, stupid lust
the false innocence of youth only tears and death can rust?

Foolish, foolish Adam and blind, impregnable Eve; is *** all you can ever see?
I can peer past your layers and layers and layers of false, bitter modesty.
If you see ******* then know this, before you atone:
You bring that demon wherever you go and it is yours and yours alone.

Next time I won’t let you give me that drink
And I won’t drink it
Next time I won’t let you lead me into a secluded corner
And I won’t drink more
Next time I won’t let you kiss me, your hands snaking down my side
And I won’t kiss back
Next time I won’t drunkenly slur "you can come to my house, my mom’s gone"
And you won’t come over
Next time I won’t let you lead me to the bedroom
And we won’t be in there
Next time I won’t let you take your clothes off
And I won’t take off mine
Next time I won’t let you touch me
And you won’t touch me
Next time I won’t let you push inside
And I won’t feel you inside me pushing
Next time I won’t cry out in pain
And you won’t keep going anyway
Next time you won’t be there
And I won’t let you inside

Inside is mine.
Next time you aren’t allowed in