A secret not shared never truly dies.
It just sits on the sidelines of your heart
And smolders
-Forgotten heat from a raging fire.
What a lonely way to burn.

Scripturient means violently word obsessed.
How can someone obsessed with words
Not be violent, but not the way you think?
I am scripturient. The molecules that compose
My very blood are the same bits of iron from
A dynasty of stars that lived and died and
Shone their light and faded...some of them exploded.
Exploding stars-violence engineered in my DNA.
But that is everyone. Man. Woman. Whatever.
Violently word obsessed is in my mind.
In the (fictional?) rise and fall of universes.
All the ends and beginnings. Man vs. man.
Man vs. nature. Man vs. God. Man vs. self.
Make and unmake. Heal and then break.
History will dryly report the fall of the Roman Empire,
I will tell you of the last emperor who watched
The world he'd known crumble into ashes.
History will tell you of the Greek Fire used
In the defense of Constantinople.
I will tell you of the fire's reflection in the sea
And the distortions made in the reflection
As men dive into the salt water to escape the flame.
History will tell you what people have done;
I will tell you who they are. The truth is, if
I'm going to be honest, then my words will likely
Be violent. It's not just wars; it's the people who
Shatter each other every day, whether unintentionally
Or for sport. It is the little lie or the denied truth.
Our own minds often torture us. I am word obsessed.
I am scripturient. I came across the word as meaning
"Word obsessed," but then I learned that it meant
"Violently word obsessed." I denied it for a while,
But, if you want to tell the truth of humanity,
You must be violent. Bits of raging stardust
Who can never seem to be at peace. That's us.
Man vs man. Man vs. nature. Man vs. God. Man vs. self.

You took a red balloon by the string
And led it deep into the woods.
  You snipped the string from around your wrist
   With the switchblade I didn't know you had
    And let the balloon float away.
     You turned your back and didn't watch it fly away,
      So you wouldn't know that it didn't fly very far.
       The string tangled in the branches of an oak overhead.
        You didn't see it; you were already gone.
         I had once had a red balloon;
           I could have one again.
            I climbed into that oak tree after it.
             Wrapping my other three limbs around the branch,
              I reached my right hand for the string.
               It came undone easily beneath my inquisitive fingertips.
                I tied it to my own wrist.
                 It reached for heaven,
                  And carried me along with it.

There are secrets that we never even give voice to,
Like squishing them inside ourselves will make them go away.
But, they don't need lyrics to have their own voice
-even instrumental pieces carry feeling-
And the music escapes when I open my mouth.
It tumbles out like a discordant symphony,
And I can't take it back.
I try, but I can't,
So, I stumble over the wreckage my silence has wrought,
Still denying the secret all the time.

*Maybe you know, now.
Regardless, consider this my confession.

It's the color of your eyes and the
cold shoulder you're givin' me.

It's the sun dancing on the surface
as you keep dragging me deeper.

It's the sky as I lie on my back,
breath frozen in my lungs.

It's the cool of your whisper in my ear
and the chill as I feel it haunting me.

It's my breath fogging up the bathroom mirror
when I realize you're no longer beside me.

My life is So full of
Half starts, incompletion,
Should've, could've, would've,

My regrets ride On my back
Like I'm the One they've saddled.

I have mastered
The very elegant
Art of inexistence.

I've become so
Totally lost In being afraid
Of my life That I've forgotten
To even live.

This isn't living.

Don't hate anyone.

Does that include myself?
Scratch that. Currently lacking a self.

I'll stumble into faith. Or life.
Or faith in life.

No more. Never. Can't live like this.
Scratch that. Not really living.

Caffeine may keep me awake, but
What can coffee do for an empty soul?

The answer is nothing.

I can mend an empty soul. My empty soul.
Even as I dream of paradise while stuck on the ground.

Time to live.
Time to wake up.

There can't be any incompletes this time.

-It warms us-
-Illuminates us-
-Consumes us-
-Destroys us-
It unmakes everything
It ever touches,
But we need it to
remember we're awake.
Craving our destruction...
What a fickle race,
For the sake of a flame.