Like too little butter scraped across too much toast;
something in me, one called it darkness,
another, a monolithic flame,
but by whatever name,  is growing thin.
Cynicism trickles
in like little drops of noise,
and inner strings grow silent,
quivering music hardened to quiet in the hours.
Winter without Christmas, spring without the flower.

I dare not strip the armor, I dare not taste the time
for shame is a hunter in the minutes
a demon in the bind.
Soundly safe
I am hidden now
cloaked by all the pressing down of memories
by distractions in the speed of feet and fighting,
fighting with the day, warring with the wanting to return
And all the while I am growing thinner, scraped across the morning

and the end.

I am sick with all this fumbling through the not yet darkened hours
let the anchor of the life that was be now ripped away complete
let mourning of its passing hasten and begin, and in the gritted eating of the dust
find me a solace and release of all the **** of ravaged trust
But this grey and bitter twilight, this death of death not yet
is an illness to the days that must be borne by bones my own
and every morning, in the mouring, I would find a silence still, sweet, and complete
but this unknown hesitation, this nagging fainting hope for all that was and should of been
is worse than any dying, such a thing sweet, final, and complete

So fly, vanish, disappear, depart! Leave to haunt another heart!
Go and keep your light glowing somewhere upon another set cindered coals
leave me here to mourn your parting, to let this story fade in the growing old.
Or for God sake, and for mine, become aquainted finally now with the valley of the floor
set your words to groaning and to praying and to begging in the night
and when your knees have grown sore and stiff from the bending of your will
all might be returned with joy and sweeter pain than weeping at the sight
of a prodigal returning and the end of long numb night
Until then, and if even there should ever come a when,
all is grey and dark and sick
as minute hands remind and memories sharply *****

Somehow, somehow, you are still God
those words hang heavy in the air
steeped in withered expectation
bones of mine own regret laid bare

there is nothing left for me to do now, nothing more than to wait
the walls will crack and break and crumble, and I will feel the missing
of all the vanished touch, of all dreams lost and not yet mourned
of all love worn to bitterness, swallowed and then scorned.

All that is left is to sign a name.....and watch how all is changed
to never be the same

And yet somehow
somehow
you are still God

Racing, pacing, screaming, bleeding
leaking through the cracks in the walls
Dams are breaking, I am taking
breaths that yield no air
I am drowning, in the sounding
of my horror and dispair

All around me there is a great and pressing nothing
Nothing I can do, nothing I can say, nothing that I may want
The waiting is for nothing, the hoping is for nothing,
My anger is for nothing, and it is for no one.
And yet I am angry at the nothing, in rage at all that is not.
Yet there is comfort in the nothing, for there, there is no pain or past
There is no sin a midst the nothing, neither is there light
There is only nothing,
and it will last and last

I am running from the quiet that threatens my every moment
fleeing from my very ability to feel, the very beating in my breast.
How could you ever let your soul ache for sunshine
or the red of your lips beg for a drink,
when all that is left is winter and all that you taste is dust?
And so I pull myself back, in and away from my own finger tips and face.
I make myself small and retreat deeper and deeper in,
in and away from myself, farther and farther into myself.
Thus I have become hallow thing
but a hollow thing is safe from all the quiet and the rain,
safe from just how real it all just might be,
safe from all the screaming and the wanting, and the weeping and the waves.
Thus I have become a hollow thing, running from my bones
for they are yet still burning
with the memories of home.

Echos whisper past an empty place
where your body used to be
and my arms remind me of the absence
...I breathe in, and then I pray

But words, they steal away in the quiet
what have I to say?
Nothing, and yet
I hope He is listening anyway

There I see the ghost of sleeping
but there is no solace in that grave
for then there is still dreaming
and I still dream of you