How many beats can you hear
in the stutter-still arrhythmia of my heart
as it slowly fades away?
Could you tell me how warm my skin is
just before it turns to dust?
Do you remember those softly serrated words
You whispered in my ear…
Like a lover’s last promise…?
I couldn’t help but think that you were beautiful,
Even when you hated me.
Then again I think everything is beautiful
right before you die.
The way your eyes burned
as I slipped under the waters of consciousness.
Six feet under.
As I hate you and I always will
echoed through my head the way footsteps do
in an empty hall.
You know they never hurt,
Those words you’d whisper to me
While you stole kisses that never belonged to you,
But I swear they killed me.
Agony sweeter than love itself
It wouldn’t go away.
If you’d only let me fade
Into the nothing that awaits me…
Maybe you could love me again
The way I will always love you.

Her eyes are hollow pools
Through which you think you can see the bottom.
What you think are the glittering
Smooth pebbles on the grainy bottom are really
Just the backs of the horrible monsters that swim
On the surface of her tattered soul.
Just. The surface.
Farther down, past those horridly
Beautiful creatures, in the darker,
Colder waters even more things swim.
Blind to everything, but the destruction
Of the few drifting remnants of
Her true self.
And even further down are the
Bones of her lovers,
Her family,
Her friends…
The people she never wanted to be
Dragged down,
Drowned. Along with the emotions
She never should have had.
They sink, slowly, in the silt of her consciousness.
Some with grim-bone grins and silent screams,
Others with spindle fingers reaching
for a surface they’ll never see again.

From the inside out I burn
For eternity I yearn
To be normal

Not to need an escape
Just so I don’t break
To be normal.

Not to feel like something’s consuming me
Entirely.
Whole.
To be normal.

Not to see the worse before the best
To forget all the rest.
Not to tell another lie.
Not to wish that I could die.
To be normal.

Stars in the sky.
That we put there for once.
Ones that don’t last long like our lives.
Bright sparks, explosions, excitement.
If only for a moment.
Colors that promise happiness that fades like everything else
Only leaving pale imitations of things that once were.

After making love we hear footsteps,
Quiet patter of bare feet on the finished oak floor makes us freeze.
No more after-the-act pillow talk.
I feel her skin prickle with fearful goosebumps, her breath catch in her chest.
Her husband doesn’t know.
As the slow beat of our hearts becomes erratic,
They stop.
Silence.
The door creaks as its pushed open
Ever. So. Slowly,
Making me think of a bad horror movie.
The greyblue sheets whisper
Over our sweat damp skin as she clutches them to her *******;
Her impenetrable shield, leaving me cold and exposed.
I want to hide.
Every atom in my body screams at me to do so.
But I lay here, waiting for the creeping door to reveal the intruder.
I listen to her whimper as he looks over us, sprawled across the bed.
His eyes, her husband’s eyes,
Are pinned on me and his face is flushed
I assume with anger as he stalks towards me,
Reaches for me.
The bed sinks as he leans over me,
Not saying a word.

In the murky grey-brown water she floats,
contained in a porcelain pool.
Plush and soft
Decorated in a riot of colors,
Splotches of red, green, brown, blue
Spattered along her graceful body.
Bits of her are missing,
Lost in the depths of the smoky water or floating alongside her.
Her long pale blonde hair streaked with fading red drifts by her pale fattened cheeks
And a wiggly white maggot tumbles from her empty eye
Making ripples in the water.
The front door slams.
Family’s home.
More ripples.

She was sad.
I didn't know why.
So how could I have helped her?
Eased her pain?
Her worry?
I didn't know how
Couldn't know
Shouldn't have figured it out
But I did.
I saw through the layers of steel
Of years filled with torture.
She couldn't see
Herself for the names she was called
Blocking the reflection in the mirror
On the shattered pieces of glass that litter the floor
In the puddles of tears she cried.
Her blindness slowly kills
The beautiful creature she really is
What I try to make her see
Through the chinks in her armor I've made.