If he were the peak of a mountain,
I would have fallen headfirst into the air just to feel the sweet rush of not knowing where I'm going to land,
they call this losing your mind,
but I call it the one taste of ethereal euphoria that is one moment away from being called heaven,
and if heaven existed,
it'd be right in his eyes.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

When I was a child
I got told my heart was the size and shape of a fist
so I grew up using it like one.
The masochism I have developed
caused an opening for something destructive
and you slipped right through it.
And unable to deny your sweet prowess
I granted your re-entry without hesitation.
I threw words at you
praying to god they'd hit you in the torso
because your empty chest cavity
needs to be filled with something.
My words bounced around in your ribcage
until it cracked one of them
and flowers sprouted out of it
allowing a place for the words to rest.
Wrapping my arms around your body
feels a lot like a snake killing its prey
because you don't see it coming
and when it happens,
I squeeze you until you give in.
If my heart had knuckles
they'd be ****** and bruised
not because of the beating its taking
but because it's trying to break free from my chest.
Every time you're near
it won't stop fighting my ribs
and now I get why it's called a cage.
My heart is an untamable creature,
relentlessly fighting for what it wants.
But i'm learning to forgive your ribcage
for being closer to your heart
than I ever could be.

I sat beneath the fallen stars,
somehow finding fault in their guidance
when I walked along a deserted path
all because my pride was far too fragile
to leave in the open;

Woes splayed out like a forgotten book,
Tattered pages, innocence long faded―
memories hidden between every word,
yet the reality of my existence sets in at sunrise,
then my dreams crumble down to a lonely whisper into the night.

And I must face the pain,
the anger,
the confusion,
that has overcome every cell in my body
until I am nothing but a reflection of the scars their ghosts left behind.

But, I refuse to look back into that bottomless pit,
hungry for my sense of worth,
no matter how many times it calls my name,
begging to feel whole for just one day;

I won’t go back.

Still, I have traveled down that road with nothing but miles and miles of empty sky,
searching for meaning in every untouched stone,
and every shallow grave.

Yet, no one told me that the traces of skeleton touches would still burn holes in my skin,
that the silver bullets would rip through to my core,
leaving me vulnerable vulnerable in a world that preys on the weak,
and bleeding on the shards of my broken heart like paint to a canvas,
only the wounds never heal.

And it’s an endless ride down a two-way street,
signs screaming “dead-end”,
but you keep going,
thinking that maybe you can change its route.

Behind the facade of cracks filled with gold
and faltered smiles too heavy to pick up again and again,
there is a scared little girl inside,
unwilling to greet the future with open arms,
terrified to take the first step out that door because the minute she does,
it all becomes real,
and reality is the biggest dream-killer.

I've been running from the demons lurking in the past without actually seeing that they are only the contours of my mistakes
and they do not define me,
they do not define me;

They do not define me.

I’ve never looked beyond the ruins,
I’d only seen the darkness that I welcomed so warmly,
but I never saw the light underlying,
so much stronger than the misery,
and if i’d known that this journey,
that realization knocking on my door,
was so promising,
I never would have taken a step back.

I never would have believed for a second that things couldn’t get better
and that the darkness was forever,
but i’ve seen the future and its pleas for redemption;

And I’m listening,
I’m listening for the first time in so long.

It’s calling to me,
and I go because life is about taking chances
and if I hid behind my fear forever,
I would never give myself a chance to change

After all, I am simply human.

There I stood, at the edge of the horizon,
ready to drop into the void that has long since consumed me,
complete and utter oblivion on my mind,
and looking toward the angry sky,
my eyes watch the last sunset I'll ever see.

Before I plunge, I breathe in untainted air for the first time since birth,
and I count the palpitations of my still beating heart,
the sky fades to black.

It all goes blank, like watching a tragedy unravel from behind a one-way mirror and being powerless to stop it,
confronting the familiar sensation of drowning,
except, this time it's for real
and there is no way to escape the burning of your barren lungs,
now my heart trembles in the depth of despair,
its final beat pounding in my ears like the echoes of a drum.

Rising from the waves, I swim unscathed
as if I'd been above the water all along,
and I wash upon the dusty shore,
unsure if I've met my tumultuous fate,
my phantom longing to soar,
but invisible chains bonded me, forbidding me from leaving the uncontrollable storm that was brewing.

It didn't take long to realize that this was the oblivion,
the nothingness that I thought would finally bring peace,
all of my reasons seemed as far away as the sun in the sky that I could no longer reach.

The world was still spinning,
maybe somewhere my presence long-forgotten,
my thoughts and my dreams evaporated to dust,
everything that I had once touched:
gone and never to be seen again.

My soul is broken on the ocean floor,
the shattered remains left to fly on fractured wings,
pieces of me sent to every person I love or have loved,
and I can only watch on the outside as they ask themselves what they could have done to save me;

Why didn't they save me?

And I look up to every mountain top,
every cloud passing by,
all in a similar cycle that I had never noticed before because I was so caught up in my own pessimism that I did not see the beauty all around me.

I did not see the hands extended in the air to hold me up after I had fallen,
I had not seen the silent pleas in their eyes
or the ghosts of my past haunting them the way they had haunted me.

Now the stone girl had cracked
and all that they couldn't discern was displayed,
leaving me nothing but an illusion to vanish into the shadows;

and for the first time,
tears swept through my entire being,
the realization that ending my life was forever
but you never think about that until after you've jumped;

that the limits to my own mortality became clear
in the millisecond before the sunset,
the last glimpse of light I ever saw before I raced through the tunnel to find it.

They say that light can vanquish darkness,
but they never tell you that sometimes the darkness needs more than embers,
sometimes it needs a sunset.

And if someday I were to live again,
I would never take them for granted.

Sometimes I think back to the time we spent at school.

Hard plastic chairs, short desks and shorter attention spans.

We were children:

Indoctrinated with dreams of quiet homes and large offices. Of fieldwork, pride and gold-gilt fame.

We said that we would be doctors, lawyers, scientists, astronauts.

Never-mind the adult's delighted laughs! We reveled in mirth and wonder.

Now we say that we would be seeing doctors.
Needing lawyers.
Blood-shot eyes scanning tabloids that preached SCIENCE as if it were medieval magic. No, brother, correlation ain't causation.

How wonderful would it be to someday see humanity dance among the cosmos? Weaving between invisible holes cut into the pitch vastness of space.

Now we accept our jobs with a grimace and a sigh.
Uncomfortable as they may be, we've got bills to pay and loans to ignore.

We're all waiting for something to come after.

After puberty. After degrees of debt. After—

After we aged. Fragile from years of effort.
Snapping our backs to the rhythm of our daily commute.

I don't know what comes after, brother.

But I sure as hell didn't sign up for this.

I touched her lips,
reminisce of where they were last kissed
and I hold back broken sentences
that I may find comfort in telling her
if she weren’t the one who
cut off my tongue.

Speechless, she reaches into
my soul like a spear to
a bottomless river, expecting
to find my self-worth but,
instead, she finds a
blackness that has consumed me
long since she burrowed herself
within its depth.

Loving her was my religion,
and as she faded into the Autumn wind,
I knew that I could never love again,
not without travesty,
not without remorse.

Without her, there was
no meaning in the blue
skies or the phantoms that
hide in their corners.

I knew that when she didn’t
answer my prayers at night,
my faith had gone as well.