if you've never cried
while singing along to a song in your car
I highly recommend it
I recommend feeling your voice shake
as your mouth forms
the words your mind
knows by heart
I recommend screaming the lines
that hurt
the most
and letting the raw emotion
exist.
yes
you always feel like this
but today
I recommend
that you actually
let yourself
feel it.

you think they get it,
and they try to get it,
and all the pieces you allowed
to slice into your palms
for so long
shatter to the ground,
and they help you
sweep them out into the backyard.
but they begin to forget,
they forget to wipe their shoes off
at the backdoor
and they trail your pieces
back into the kitchen.
they continue to forget,
they forget that those were
once pieces of you
and not eggshells
that they must tiptoe on,
pieces that still shatter
under minimal pressure.
and then they forget altogether,
they forget the way
your body curved in on itself
and the way sobs wracked
up your spine and across your ribs,
like a fervent storm
slamming into the base of
a teetering tree.
they forget the way
you were unresponsive
for forty five minutes,
staring blankly out farther than
your weakened eyesight
could perceive.
they forget the way
you eye steak knifes
like exit ramps off of
long highways
and the way
your gnarled nails
press crescents
into your palms
until stars flash across your vision.
they forget these things,
and the soles of their shoes
splinter those blood soaked
pieces like fractured glass,
and they dig deeper
into your palms this time
when you have to pick them up alone.

Broken the diagnosis,
Change the cure,
Perhaps with prosthesis,
The subject may be pure,

Twist here,
Turn there,
Do not fear,
On to tear,

One looks on,
What ailment scars,
What is this spawn,
Behind phantom bars,

They tried to fix,
Tried to hear the clicks,
They tried to mend,
To make it bend,

A shriek cries out,
It is done,
To clear all doubt,
All saved but the one,

Though, what is not spoken,
It was never broken.

Red seas cross a bleak horizon,
They move yet they are still,
Robed and clad in red they were,
The men of the missing land,

They wander without reason,
Sees the man on the hill,
He ponders, with them to confer,
He asks what he is to think,

They speak with silence saying;
Help me,
Heal me,
Lead me,

What else can a man do he says,
That man atop the hill,

They speak with silence saying;
Test me,
Teach me,
Correct me,

If you wish he says,
That man atop the hill,

The seas stand still,
What could not be done, the miracle,
By the man atop the hill,

They speak with silence saying;
Move us,
Push us,
Change us,

What else can a man do he says,
That man atop the hill,

They speak with silence saying;
Watch us,
Control us,
Rule us,

If you wish he says,
That man atop the hill,

The seas were one,
Each and every the same,
Held in a current of order,

They whisper saying;
Release us,
Free us,
Leave us,

He cannot hear the whisper below,
That man atop the hill,

They scream saying;
What of this,
What of us,
Why us,

He thought to himself,
That man atop the hill,

He looked down upon the seas,
Robed and clad in gray they were,
Then he called softly from above,

You spoke with silence saying;
Help me,
Heal me,
Lead me,

What else could I do he said,
That man atop the hill,

You spoke with silence saying;
Test me,
Teach me,
Correct me.