Night's approaching darkness taunted you
Like a drummer boy leading in the troops off in the distance
You knew the battle was coming
Sleep.
Yes, sleep.
Sleep was on the horizon
You hated sleep
Last I knew you would fight it off as long as you possibly could
Because that's where he was still alive
Where he still spoke and breathed
Where he still had the disgusting ability to ******* you
In your slumber he could twist your peaceful dreams into nightmares
He did this with the words that were once your reason to wake come morning

"I love you."

Now the words are your reason to stay awake for days
You'll tape your eyelids to your face just so they'll stay open
Bags under your burnt cedar eyes grow with exhaustion competing with your heart to see just who will grow darker first

Exhaustion drove you mad
Pictures on your walls were talking
Your eyes stung like a fresh paper cut
Your mind and crooked thoughts just would not stop
The madness was cut off with an exploding
POP
You had shot yourself in the foot
Not to be excused from this battle
You wanted to prove that you could still fight
Despite there being a hole in your foot
Stale blood and your soul leaked from the wound
Filling the inside of your boots

So when people would judge you and your life
You would reply with a dead stare and say

"Why don't you walk a mile in my shoes."

This was not a question
No this was a demand
Your heart won the race to darkness
And now you expected every last lover to experience your pain first hand
You'll watch from afar as lovers fall apart
Just another first love swiped from this earth
Tragically beautiful like a shooting star

The star's life had ended
Far before us earthlings could see it
To us its light was still burning
But far out of sight
Its demise was birthing

Subject

Shortly after our
first date I joked
Don’t make me write a poem about you.

It’s been a year and I laugh
because my poems
have become your home.

It’s been a year and
you’re kissing
someone else and
I’m just kissing people
who aren’t you.

Waking up next to you
for the last time
we knew it was and
we had to tell each other
not to cry so we could
kiss for the last time

When we broke
you said to me
I don’t want to be the subject of one of your poems.

But I warned you.

Evaporate
        Into the sky
Return to this earth another time
        We will procrastinate in the wake of your
Return
         Isn't it funny
How the earth senselessly turns
         Everything happens for a reason
Each thought derives from a soul
          Each day words are caged in fear of treason
Isn't it funny how often we forget to
           Listen
Ah!  But certainly if the earth can turn without being noticed
           Then some words can be silenced
For they may lack a purpose
           Imagine the chaos that would erupt if
One day everyone
           Listened
The population of this world would fall
           Silent
To hear the earth's whisper
          My what a horrid
Picture

A hidden halo shines above your head
My hero
when I played with the twitching fires of death
It was you who took my singed fingers by the hand
Blinded by the masquerade of unearthly expectations
My brain left rattled
Demons singing a nervous chorus
You saw through my calm exterior surface
You shape shifter you!  
You morphed into any role I needed you to
You saw the things I had yet to be
What I had to live for, what I was to become
All the sights I had yet to see
Trained me diligently
for all the obstacles I had yet to succumb
Provided me with the confidence and armor to live on
Perceiver until the bulb of my life dies and my rightful time has come

Yet I sit here
Helpless, unable to do a thing
To shelter you from all the hardships
You've been cursed with
Life is a cruel, deadly serpent
I live in fear of the day it shall constrict around your neck
Swipe your soul from the earth's bed
Blasted life with it's under-tow currents
Vindictive earth with its cyclical  ways
But I suppose I have you to blame
It was you who had given me the strength to stay
For better and for the worst of days


Even when the fog cleared
When the sky was no longer grey
When at last all the demons had finally gone away
You stayed