You killed me softly in my sleep
Placed empty kisses on my eyes
You ate my heart
You gnawed my bones
Butchered me with silent lies
You planted roses in my chest
To bloom in honour of my death
I still feel the thorns dig in
Though I no longer draw a breath
I am a monument to pain
I am a temple to despair
Wholly still and ruinous
Forgotten love beyond repair

Lover —
This is not your home.
You are no longer
Welcome.
I mean to tear you away,
                  tear you apart.
We were entwined,
We were enamoured.
We were.
Midnight passed,
Hostilities
Commenced.
Wounds
Reopened.
All truths spat.
All bets told.
I will cut you from
My heart.
I will erase
Your name.
Lover —
You are no longer
Welcome.

Those promises became dead ends,
While we slept.
Familiarity turned slyly
On its head —
As warmth became hostility.
Love usurped by self.
Blighted.
Faded as the stars.
Am I disassembled?
Am I ruinous?
This perfect agony.

In the weakness
Of desire,
I became nothing.

I don't know how to continue —
Without knowing you.
Your goodbye
Left me a stranger
                  to this world.
The days
Are weeks.
The weeks
Are years.
The nights
Grow darker.
Each winter,
Colder.
You took my love,
My heart.
My lungs.
Hymns to the darkness.
Blood for the sun.
I wait.
I wait.
You don't explain.
Endlessly,
The daggers rain.

In your wake.
                I'm dead and gone.
                You left
My love in ruins.
Choices born in silence,
Old schemes replaced
With new ones.
I'd ask if you were happy now.
But you'd never reply.
Even if you answered me —
I'd only hear a lie.
I thought I loved a lioness,
Brave and true in word.
You turned an honest love to ash,
My fate was undeserved.
Now within my hollow chest,
Lies coiled a rattlesnake.
Only fit to hurt and spit,
A poisonous mistake.
The victim to your cruel heart,
                   I wish for some reprieve.
                   I dream beyond this ugly place —
Though I can never leave.

Now that you're gone
My life is but
little deaths.
Slowly languishing,
In the early hours —
Solace,
In the moon's strange rays.
I was a stranger to your love.
Perfect.
A destructive
Hunger,
            Spiraling
                       ­    Inward.

If this is the end.
If this is the goodbye.
Just
Keep me in your heart,
A
Moment
Longer.

**** the truth
**** the lies
**** the stupid
**** the wise
**** uncertainty
**** pain
**** your face
**** your name
**** the narrative
**** intent
Your love never
left a dent
**** the pills
**** the symptoms
**** logic
**** religion
**** your friends
**** the games
**** the cause
**** the blame
**** malice
**** fear
But most of all —
**** NEW YEAR

I'm afraid that there's
nothing left.
I'm afraid that meaning
is surely fading —
Dulled by absence.
A slow burning ember,
That was once an inferno.
This stage —
Once brimming with joy,
Holds now only silhouettes,
Ghosts.
Tender echoes.
Love letters returned,
Unread.
Counterfeit,
Plagiarised —
Empty.
This is how the world ends.
Without you.

You never
gave me a purpose.
You didn't
"complete" or define me.
I never understood
that need.
I was never incomplete,
Just broken.
I was
before you.
I am
despite your
destructive indecision.
**** your boredom.
**** your lies.
What came next was no surprise.
I was moving forward,
Regardless.
You just gave me motion sickness.

Were it not for you —
I'd wish the world would end.
All stories cut,
Mid sentence.
Humanity stubbed out,
Like a wilting cigarette.
Cataclysmic delight!
Even in our state of disrepair,
I love you too **** much.
Thankfully,
We get on so much better —
Now that we don't talk.
Our love,
Is death
by a thousand cuts.
Stinging us softly,
Into submission.

You say —
"Tomorrow is another day."
Like it's a good ******* thing.
You don't know about
My yesterdays but
My todays are numbered.
I'm falling away,
Giddy in the undertow...
Howling at the moon.
I want to write sonnets on your skin
with my tongue —
Eat your boiling core like a starving wolf.
Give me a reason
To stay,
And I'll dance, whirling in the craters of
your soul.

The walls are dripping black
My inner monologue
A flat, dull rasp.
My heart
Like the flicker of a dying candle
Happy to fade.
There is nothing left
                nothing to lose
                               to keep me safe.
You think I'm here
Playing those endless ******* games
Keeping score.
No
I've written my goodbye
Carved in flesh.
Idling,
Between Scylla and Charybdis
Just for kicks.
Courting the waves
In final damnation
Yours sincerely.
My empty gaze
This twitching wound
Your cruel tongue.

Every day is silently ending.
While your love remains,
Embedded like a splinter
—  in my heart.
You taught me so much.
Each day a lesson.
                  a blessing.
                  a joy.
I'm enraptured,
Helpless.
In the dying light.

I'm sorry if I can't remain.
It's always winter,
Without you.

My world is smaller.
I no longer know your love.
All beauty broken into pieces,
Scattered.
Each morning —
Grey and pitiless without
your radiance.
I am a shell,
Once breathing.
Cut,
Heartless and sore.
A soul,
Without essence.
Ugly.
Spent.
An empty memory —
Looking for its end.
Walking with shadows,
Doomed by a love that died
without warning.
You — were my heaven.
You — are my purgatory.

I'm so sorry
we don't talk anymore.
I'm so sorry
if I took it all to heart.
I don't know how I got this lost —
How it all fell apart.
I'm so sorry
I can't find my way.
I'm so sorry
I have to go.
This pain is inescapable,
Like footprints in the snow.
I'll leave behind
a note for you —
Words that once meant more.
Words that once meant only love
Though now feel more like war.

We are finite.
Each of us,
Limited — In light,
                    In heart,
                    In purpose.
We are ants,
Scurrying
Between raindrops.
Lost in hives,
Lost in war,
Lost in consciousness.
We are a ticking clock.
We are dying love.
Clinging — to hope,
                     to family,
                     to possessions.
Terrified of the truth.
That there is no order.
That there is no meaning.
That there is only fear.

I want to let go —
To leave this pain
                this emptiness
behind.

There is no secret —
No savage lesson in this pain.
This day brings no joy,
The sun — no warmth.
I can't see your face.
Your voice, faint.
There is no comfort in memory,
Only loss.
Each colour fades.
Each night restless.
Each hope vanquished.
Your love has taken
part of me.
Erased.
Organs
neatly stacked.
Soul perforated.
Spirit sullied.
Heart frantic/
Bruised.
Your lips —
My Sweet Armageddon.

I long to leave
this world behind.
I am a stranger here
without your hand.
A shade now walks —
Where once
there was a man.
This roar has been stifled.
Now mute,
Heartless and frail.
There is no pity for the loveless.
There is no time.
There is no rest.
There is no hope.
I see the indifference
in their eyes.
The distance between us.
It is unbearable.

I never felt more alone
than at a party —
Amidst the revelry.
The laughter and merrymaking,
Like an unfamiliar song.
Confirming my rank,
Outsider.
Fiend.
Ne'er-do-well.
Chasing the moon
in the gutter.
Far from the strange libretto of joy.
Far from the jubilation.
With your ghost —
All dark hair and poison kisses.
You left me out in the cold...
Where I belong.

All we have left are diversions,
To pass the time.
A pantomime reality,
Without function.
Without meaning.
Those jokes we shared,
Cutting the world down to size.
They aren't funny anymore.
That forgotten t-shirt —
The stray intimacies of lovers —
The lacerations in my skin —
The blood that I spill —
The ambulance ride —
The last face I'll ever see —
You.
My favourite girl,
My favourite hell.
Io fei gibetto a me de le mie case.
QUIT TORTURING YOURSELF.
QUIT TORTURING YOURSELF.
QUIT
TORTURING YOURSELF.
Quit torturing yourself.
Quit ******* trturing yrself.
Quit trtrng urslf.
Quit.
Quit.
...

I don't know how it happened.
This leviathan,
Dismissed so casually.
All glory —
Now fading and unknown.
Promises emptily rescinded,
Without consequence.
Without care.
The woman only known in my arms.
Now happy without this tender embrace.
One of us in ruins.
One of us reborn.
All passion and fury denied...
Rendered in pity,
Shameful and frail.
Once a lion,
Once a titan,
Once a myth!
Now a fool.
You are the hunger I never knew.
The night rain.
The stars.
What is left without you?
Only disgrace,
Only mourning.
Empty breath.

I regret nothing.

What we knew
As love,
Now only sickens
Our hearts.
Our memory.
We are fallen,
Graceless.
Sacrificial lambs —
Hungry
For
Our
Fate.

Bereavement
Means
"seize by violence".
As you were torn
away
So violently —
It left a wound.

This is permanence.
This is finality.
This is failed ambition.
This is faded youth.
This is compulsion.
This is rage.
This is impotence.
This is pain.
This is despair.
This is shame.
This is punishment.
This is contrition.
This is the gallows.
This is blood.
This is marrow.
This is annihilation.
This is damnation.
This is purgatory.
This is rapture.

Early morning.
I hear a fox
Out in the cold, damp light.
Screeching.
Is his song,
Only for me?
A communiqué
Between worlds.
Beyond words.
A cry for help.
A reminder,
That chaos reigns.

I am not afraid
To live,
To die.
But to stagnate
Is
To pull my heartstrings
From
Its hard casing.
Abandoned,
In a world that
No longer understands.
There is nothing
Left,
Only a love that doesn't
Touch us.

This midnight hour,
Burning in the brightness of my hell.
You left your mark.
Settled our terms.
Defined our tragedy,
(Ridiculous for all to see).
Cut to ribbons.
And left
Love to hang its head in shame.
Soon we'll mean less than nothing to each other.
How did it come to this?

To give away love,
Is like letting blood.
Drop by drop
An ocean is formed.
Tho I will not remain,
To gaze
upon
the waves.

Your love
Twisted
A cruel blade
In my heart.
I smiled
Unknowingly,
As each
Loveless
Incision
Hit their mark
So perfectly.

You brought radiance
Into my darkness.
But now,
In night skies
No stars remain.

Before you
I was never weak.
Before you
I was never alone.
Before you
I was never loveless.
Before you
I was never loved.
Before you
I had no purpose.
Before you
I had no need.
Before you
I had so little.
Before you
I never knew.
Without you.
Without —
You.
...
I just have no ******* idea how to carry on.

My heart,
This colossal piston
Is slowly halting.
Sickly,
In its cavity.
Poisoned.
Bleating,
Its final rhythmic chorus.
No more.
No more.
No more.

You loved me,
Darkly.
Speaking in silent tongues.
Secrets
For us alone.
My stygian heart —
Exhumed,
Glorious in your rapture.
In you I am burning.
In you I understood.
Without you.
Lost,
Wandering.

I have outlived suffering,
I have endured pain.
I have gently walked
thru fire and rain.
I have swallowed anger,
I have eaten sin.
I have bled
and lost what lies within.
I have surpassed doubt,
I have suppressed blame.
I have taken stock
of what remains.
I have absorbed sadness,
I have taken loss.
I have appraised the damage
and paid the cost.
I have been loveless,
I have been true.
I will never
be beaten by you.

Today, is greater than my words
Today, is smaller than my love
Today, is sharper than my pain
Today, is duller than my truth
Today, is
Everything
Nothing
Today, is undefined
It is woe
It is glory
It is our genesis
It is our end

This loveless shell
Has
no pulse,
Just an ache.
Has
no emotion,
Only time.
No more friends.
No desire.
Countless scars.
Left in howling night,
infinitive.
Stripped.
Anonymous.
Wanting.
I'm not
afraid to die.
But mercy terrifies.
Euthanize
this wounded beast.


I am a ghost in your wake.

She,
my silent lover.
A dagger,
in her black dress.
Secret
as the night air.
Now endless.
Counting,
joy and pain.
A beauty —
Silent,
in her black dress.
Her heart,
a forest.
Inescapable.

Down into the ocean
black.
In the bitter grasp of pain.
Falling,
Never looking back.
Not a trace of me remains.
Dragged deeper
by my heart, a stone.
Flesh undone
by careless deed.
Loveless —
Drowning, coldly stung.
Without care or hope or need.
Hold me close, oh silent death!
Nameless
in my last goodbye.
Happy to retreat at last,
As I learned
that love will die.

"Most people aren't happy you know."
a statement
earnest in its desperation
a broken bond
t r i c k l i n g
from your throat
inane
and
wheezing
I'm not like you
I'm a cold, dead species
the hollow son
a shadow on the wall
I'm a tourist in your ******* world
neither
among you
nor
of you
sinfully removed
dancing on the tips of spears
above the pantomime
sick
and free
and cruelly
brash
tho.
above the door
the sign reads...

Darling,
This pain will last forever.
I'm bleeding out,
Lovingly dismembered,
Hung on hooks.
Cherished.
A spectral heart
Pumping dust
throughout my veins.
This holy temple,
Now in ruins.
Now a tomb.
Burning, desecrated.
Love laid gently to rest...
Godless, evermore.

I don't remember,
The last time I cared as much
As I care about you.
Everything,
Everyone
Else has always
Felt rather temporary
And disposable.
(And I never minded that).

I don't know if that's
Tragic or beautiful.

Don't mistake my silence
for strength.
It's not acceptance.
It's not me moving on,
Nor indifference.
I am quiet for you,
Lovingly so.
Sweet in intention.
In meaning,
In heart.
So if my tongue is cut,
Lifeless.
It's because I love you.
Despite
This solitude.
This suffocation.
In every minute,
In every pause.
The cost —
You're removing me.

I'm trying to be a good and patient man.
Purpose-built in her honour.
Each missing aspect,
Quantified by necessity.
To reconstruct
This urgent self.
Block by block.
Measure for measure.
A lie,
Built on truth.
Beauty,
Born of ash.
Love,
Stacked on sorrow.

It's easy to forget,
To become lost.
To sidestep this wound,
To smile,
To subvert,
To walk away.
To reject the pain of being a man.
To choose my monstrous shadow,
A cocoon.
Pale and absent.
Without consequence.
Without emotion.
Without need.
To stride across burning bridges.
Impervious.
And
never
look
back.

My heart is a bloodhound,
Relentless in nature.
Bounding giddily toward oblivion.
Without remorse
or comprehension.
My heart is a hammer,
Blunt, forceful.
Each obstacle in its path
a nail.
My heart is driftwood,
Lost among the waves,
Ebb and flow —
Futile.
Without destination.

This regret,
This division.
Love's exit wound.
A fragmented heart —
Good but now damaged,
Weary.
Buckled under the weight
Of sweet intention.
Perfect vows.
Empty exhalations
In crystal air.
Beautiful in their impotence.
Hurried
last
gasps.
Needles in skin.
Pricking tenderly,
A gentle torment.
Like lips on skin.

In you I knew love.
Not the tired fumblings of ecstasy.
Not unreal in expectation.
Never staged,
Unrealistic.
But something new —
Handmade,
Resplendent.
Warmth, shelter, nourishment.
Fever, passion, majesty.
Acceptance, forgiveness, rebirth.
Endless gifts!
How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.

All things move toward their end.
Now without you.
In mourning,
A final lesson.
Your happiness is my true desire.
I'll be here.
Always.
Remember me,
My love.

I lost my job.
I lost control.
I lost my friends.
I lost my soul.
I lost my appetite,
My thirst.
I lost my blessings,
Found a curse.
I lost my dignity,
My pride.
I lost my heart.
I lost my mind.
I lost my vices,
Virtue too.
Nothing hurt —
Until I lost you.

He wanted to get up and run to her,
Now.
Emotional gravity.
There was no thought, only feeling.
No bags to be packed,
No flights to arrange,
Just an instinct to flee.
Regardless of location,
Without her — he was a stranger.
Run.
Don't look back,
She'll be waiting.

I can't undo the past,
I won't take steps
To forget our time together.
I won't make new mistakes,
To fake a life of meaning.
I won't demonize your heart,
To justify my pain.
I won't bawl and **** and fight
To feel alive again.
I won't.
I can't.
This love
Was beautiful.
It cannot be undone.