You forget
You forget that I've done this before.

I've stood in that spot sodden by tears,
Shivering in the snarling cold of loneliness
As my heart forgets how important it's supposed to be.

So you'll have to forgive me
For freezing solid
When I see that mirage of myself,
Stained in the hideous darkness of the past I've tried to forget.
You'll have to forgive me
For refusing to shed tears
Over the things that have already bled me dry.

Say it.
Open those flattened, tear-stained lips and blame me
For all the ways I've protected you
And somehow done you wrong.

Say it.
Tell me all about the smallness of my heart
And the coldness of my eyes.
I can take it.

Say it.
Guilt me into remorse for your return
To self destruction
Like it's somehow
My fault.

Say it.
And I'll stand or sit here and I'll silently take
The full brunt of your tears
And rage.

You and I both know
There is nothing I can do
Because you are blinded by emotion
and you seem to enjoy the blackness.

So say it.
Stain your cheeks with tears like acid
And grow angry when I'm not the one who burns.
Spit the words into my face
And I'll stand
Silent
And watch you throw yourself from the edge of reason
Knowing I have no power
To hold you back.

Say it
and we'll go on.

Say it
and things will change the way they were always bound to.

Say it.
*Say it.

I thought I could hold onto you,
That the emptied hallways
Of my mind
Would be perfectly,
Deeply
And eternally
Engraved
With every detail of
You.

But now you're fading
Faster than winter's sunset
From a frost-wearied body.

And all I can remember
Is the feeling of
Your heartbeat against my cheek
And your gentle lion's eyes.

There is a silence.
There is a crowd of people.
There is an aching cold.
There is a massive sky.

Chapped hands on bloodied cheeks.
Blue eyes on the yawning sky.
Frozen tears on a pale face.
Fading name on shaking lips.

The bleeding sun sets.
The yawning jaws shut.
The blue eyes flicker.
The fragile heart fails.

The sky begins to fold.
Someone begins to scream.

***** hands, gun-powder face
Pressed against holy robes,
Begging final forgiveness.

The father holds his son,
The grown boy
Clothed in military brown.

Steady, mourning lips whisper a prayer
Into the ******, sweat-soaked hair.

His life leaking away in the darkness of the stain spreading across his chest,
The soldier sobs.
Because his eyes have been dry
As his brothers have fallen around
And before him
As cities have erupted in boiling flames
As he has been torn from the inside out by the sounds of human suffering
As children have died in his arms
As mothers have cursed his name
As the world has grown black and charred beneath his feet.

He weeps,
Shaking in the arms of God's servant,
The sins of his work
The guilt of his rifle
Burning in his chest
Hotter than the biting bullet.

The words of the priest
Are drowned
By the malicious hum of aircraft overhead.

An angel of death
Finds them kneeling on the cobblestones,
The holy man and the soldier,
Folds them into its inescapable and
Unbiased jaws
And turns them the color of
Fire and gunpowder.

Oh, the horror.
When the teardrops falling
On your shirt
Stain you the color of dying roses
And the pale eyelids
Flutter suddenly shut,
The cheek in your chest and
Weak arms
Begging impossible safety
From your helpless hands.

And the scream ripping out of you
Is as warm
And as hollow
As the body
Resting quiet and heavy
In your shaking arms.

its cold out
the color of slush and mud
and blinding cloudy skies.
there's the dumpster
from years ago
behind the high school where
the *** heads come out to play.
but none of that matters now, i have somewhere to be.
the casting call
it's today
and i have a shot at landing a part
so people
can finally know my name.
but then you're there
unexpectedly
and i bring you along in my search.

and then because my subconscious is big on plot twists
i take you urgently and
kiss you hard.

and i can't tell if i like it or not
and i wake up
terrified.