Stoic, strong, world-wary (weary) beyond years
Teary but not torn, wrecked and wretched but not worn
Young in face but old in taste, in breath and waste.
This hole in chest, my bloodied breast, its’ gaping maw of murdered rest,
Makes me neither cold nor heart-less.
A deathly howl – the darkness comes rushing, crushing ‘til both deaf and blind.
It finds me there, binds me, holds me down
Surrounded by a sea of stones, all alone,
Tear-soaked fears drop without a sound, streaming silently on hallowed ground.
As rain falls from hazel skies
And graying clouds make hazy eyes
My head, my heart, my whole is heavy;
Their ev’ry word etched with clichéd sways, makes and stays, urges prayer and praise
But it’s silent cries hidden behind too loud lies that breaks the silence of my soul.
I’m falling into this role while you follow a road I’m told leads to someplace better.
There’s just not enough ways to lay 26 letters to explain how much I miss you.
These hands, this pen, fail me once again as I bend beneath the weight that you missed me too
In the end; it’s more than enough to rend my fragile heart in two or ten,
Driving emotions behind self-made walls so tall, so wide
With me, so small (too small) on their other side.
It’s the only way I know to stay sane though I know it insane the way my brain tries to deny these feelings tearing up my insides.
Inside me, there was something once, I felt it.
A fate, a destiny? A test or three,
Something that made me see something that doesn’t ask or try or beg or buy –
A place beyond this that doesn’t have a word for goodbye.
Scars cross scars ‘til they’re the only verse I read
All that makes up the curse-soaked pieces of me and mine, poison and whine.
I wish I could find the rhyme or reason to this madness
This sadness, this depression that reaches into, out to, blood and bone
That makes me rage and moan and swear and groan.
I drop to knees and bear a weight beyond shoulders’ strength
As l add your name to a list whose sight still sears, where faith and fears collide.
I’m forced to hide until I see it; your face –
A light breaching, reaching, into even my darkest place.
Now, the space is filling – yesterdays and laughter cuts and sprays in star-bursts and rays –
A remembered time of sunny days, a memory loop that plays and plays.
So, like it, I’ll keep moving, keep screaming
Keep fighting to keep believing anything at all to keep this broken-heart beating.
It won’t last; I’ll never not be grieving.
In every endeavor, no matter weather or whether not I think it behind me at last, passed and past,
I know, forever, that
I’ll only (always) miss you when I’m breathing.