WORLDS AT ONCE

I watch you
sleeping
in the mirror

& touch
your image
& you echo it

only your laughter
inhabiting both
worlds at once

on the other side
of nowhere
a dream away

the mirror
laughs
in its sleep

every day I had to dig through
deeply rooted malignancies
and clusters of phosphorescent
spider eggs and webs full of
dead flies draped throughout a
long-abandoned domain
once inhabited
                    by my mind

the roots pushed and
twisted their way through
thick walls of the
foundations and membranes
of spirit mind and body
where I didn't even know
how to feel      all I knew is
that I had crossed unseen
         no trespassing signs

in life among the living
I lived as though I were dead
In the midst of vast human
knowledge I held
        vast emptiness instead

this lack of substance was
all that was left in my mind
I found myself trying to buy
back more of what I
had to
          leave behind

my mind and spirit were in
lockdown      in this death I
began to die      when I was
high I felt let down
     in the truth I saw a lie

the dawn of each new day
filled the sky with hues of a
darker light        since all of
the windows were barred
       and boarded-up

the only way I could see
glimpses of a brighter
light or others living life
were through any thin
little cracks I could find

like an addict trying to
avoid their addiction
each new day and every
waking hour I would find
myself learning what I was
        losing my mind
        trying to forget

I was so sick and tired of
     d . . . always going down
          o
        w
           n

truth only strengthened
         this neurotic depression

but in the throes of pain and
breakdown I found hope in
a New Day    
when I was lost
in the cycles of confusion
I at least found pieces of
peace and pieces of mind
        along the way

when I die with the sun in
the midst of the evening
I now find enough faith
   to believe I will
            rise with it again

when I seem to have lost
all of my chances I clutch
desperately to any strand
     of a chance to begin

saving what's left of my mind
buying what used to be mine.

Gunshots go off in the head of a man with a gun in his hand

He pictures an unload of the clip, and a picture of the clothes he was in, only picture to remember him by.

And it's nights like these when he's filled with regret that he thinks of wound drawing blood from his head.

                                                 |death|

find solace in his demise

I don't want to be down, but my heart is too heavy for my eyes to look up

I don't want to be found, not by others but, I'm hoping I can find myself
and
I don't want to be loud, because the ones that are, they don't often look like us

I don't want to be me, as a child being seen not heard, as a black not seen at all
and
As a man that bleeds, with scars that cry, and scabs that call for help that's not coming

I want to be proud, but of me I can't, I don't know what to be proud of
and
I want to be free, and I have the key to these chains, but these burdens start to feel like hugs

I hope you're praying for me, I hope you're praying for me, lately it doesn't feel like enough

I hope you're praying for me, I hold my hands in the dark, my feeble heart is searching for (what?), can you keep praying for me ?

I pray you're telling the truth, lately it doesn't feel like enough,

I hope you're praying for me

I hold my hands in the dark, my feeble heart is searching for love

Nobody's praying.