There are barely memories left untainted
A childhood cut short
A trusting soul shredded with each stolen touch
Still now, after a lifetime of living,
Of forcibly refusing to be nothing,
Of overcoming everything
Remnants seep through the skin
From the depths of demon's lair
Distant cackles mock the resurgence of nightmares
Scouring pad scrubbies only removed skin
The stink of it remains
Filling every pore
Escaping in a sigh, infectious by design
Time heals nothing
It protects the broken pieces
Masking them behind affection & other surface emotions
The jagged edges of the memory of pain
Still violate innocence
Still ruin a smile before it is born
Used as brutal warnings,
They are jabbed straight through a heart trying desperately to heal
At the first sign of affection, the pain awakens
At the first sign of attachment, it skins the heart alive
Angered at defiance, it burns like molten metal
Scraping at the hardened crevasses of the mind
Searing pain in hidden dreams
Cauterizing the memories open
Reliving the blade time has dulled
Never allowed to love
Even if it's make-believe
Twisted sounds of tinkling music boxes
And the distant laughter of demons
CACKLE AND HISS
Cackle And Hiss
cackle and hiss
Muted into a familiar rhythm
Underlying the complacency of life
Only to scorch a soul into nightmares
When the heart dares to feel

Wasted
Alone in a land of wishes
Wanting to be wanted
Needing to be loved
Never realizing
It is in the very air
Taken in with every breathe
Waiting
In a world of half truths
And make believe
For a fairytale dream
Afraid to be dreamt
Longing
For what was deemed undeserved
In a life suffering in settlement
Searching
Through nightmares
For a pinpoint of light
For an alternate reality
For some semblance of home
Finding
What has always existed
What was birthed side by side
Created from the very same dust
Before time
Through time
Knowing
Loneliness no longer exists

The familiar is all but lost
Relegated to monochromatic melancholy
This place holds no joy
Once soothing, now both dull and lifeless
This is not my happy place
This is not my comfort zone
This place holds no peace
Backed into a box of light gray
Shhh...
Don't speak, lest you be heard
Don't watch, lest you be seen
Don't care, lest you be hurt
This place holds no love
A hint of freedom long gone
An air of acceptance
Lured by what once was
This place holds remnants of a dream

when your heart is heavy
and your mind is blank
and the words just will not come
sadness is too strong a term
for the emptiness that drowns you
thankful for the distance in between
for the moments in silence
without harshness
without the verbal daggers
gaping wounds begin to scab
grated off with the next conversation
each exchange naught but a reminder
of a past that held a different future

This poem has been submitted for possible publication.  It will be reposted as soon as possible upon final determination.  Please feel free to peruse my poesy at your leisure.

Thank you so much,
PrttyBrd

Across the room I watched as he stroked her hair
The gentlest of fingers brushed her face
From his gray eyes he poured love into her pools of sage
The sweetness touched me as I am sure it touched her
And I watched him, in that moment, be a man
The man I had hoped he'd become
With a full heart I turned away
Proud of who he is, who he has always been
Hoping, that in some small way, I taught him well
As I watched their hearts soar
I walked away letting him love her

Invisible she
Sheets of anger like a storm
Blinding as they sting

My love
My life
Blissful truths sustain me
Our time is just beginning
Tests and trials abound
tearing flesh open over scars
It changes nothing
My love for you grows
with each passing second
My heart is overjoyed in tactile memories
The smell of your skin soothes me
The sound of your laughter begs a smile
Your pewter eyes shimmer in love's reflection
The essence of you resides in me
as the truth of who I am resides in you
Unmasked and laid bare
I am at your feet
offering you all that I am
For it has always been yours
And you have always been mine
Our eternity is united, entwined
Through the flames that burn away
a world we were never meant to fight through,
we will emerge a sphere of light
a cosmic bubble of peace
Love seems too small of a word
though it is all there is
We.. are
We are love
We are truth
We are both reality and the dream
We cure the disease of distance
with a spirit that defines us
Meet me through the miles
where this plane cannot reach us
where time is eternal
And the blissful truth of us
remains pure
Untainted by an unkind world
which is nothing
But tomorrow's past

When I said that I'd be bad company
I meant that only you could brighten my day
The sound of your voice is my sunshine

When I offered for you to let me be
I meant that I would never force you to tolerate me
But hoped that you would want me by your side anyway

When I pushed you aside, however delicately
I meant for you to not want to go
For you to just sit with me for awhile

When I said I wasn't in the mood to talk
I meant for you to sit with me
In comfortable silence until you kissed me happy

When I sent you a message warning of my grumpy
I meant for you to call me
And make sure I was alright

When I said that I couldn't
I meant for you to show me that you believed in me
To help me believe in myself

When I set you free
I meant for you to not want to leave
For you to stay with me always

Warm arms around me
As we lay in sighs of silent pleasure
Tucked into the safety of each other
Lost in the rhythm of our hearts
Basking as desire is laid to rest, momentarily
Deep breaths subside as our bodies settle
Curve against curve we remain
Bodies sated, hearts filled, and dreams turned to reality

Minutes to hours to days to weeks
No one can find what they do not seek
Persist even when the future is bleak
Make better choices
The heart is strong when the spirit is weak
Don't heed the voices

The ones that speak to you alone
That talk you into what you can't condone
They say you have no mind of your own
And the flesh will rule you
And you feel a child, even though you're grown
How the mind can fool you

Feelings overrule the mind
The heart is ever so unkind
With temptation close behind
It's logic or passion
It's a battle you will find
of brutal fashion

Lodged between the moral wrong
More than tragedy in song
Walking where you don't belong
The path's not chosen
Standing still, yet pulled along
Toward a heart Ambrosian

when his lips touched hers
the rest of the world disappeared
and in the moment she could taste his breath
she believed it was the only air she ever wanted to breathe again.

So weak is the mind
That the heart feels drained
Evaporating love in respire
Pretending inviolate love
Has a place here
Ascension of the soul
Negated by nocturnal verbosity
Insipid words of discontent
Exacerbated by the irrationality of emotion

How deep the depths to which you have touched me

Places that laid waiting in shadows, drowning in stagnant air

You have pulled up the blinds and opened a window

Lighting each corner, each crack that had only been accessible to the darkest fog

You have quietly healed what I had long forgotten was broken

Reluctant to share
Loathe to believe
Defenses worn thin
Weakened by saccharine kindness
Cliche grandiosity seasoned a bland bland world
Black and white, lost in shades of gray
Colorized emotions drip life into an exsiccated heart
A sunlit spotlight of warmth
Faded painted colors can never return to grayscale
Changed forever by a moment, if not by accident

Eyes closed and frozen time
A place so warm and free
The pain of today erased
Future ceases to exist
There is only that moment
Behind closed eyes

by the light of the moon he came upon her
her skin glistening in the moonlight
her dark eyes reflecting the stars
so beautiful was she, at the waters edge
watching the moon wave in the ripples
only noticing him when the heat of him grazed her
she saw his gentle eyes in his reflection
felt his heart as his lips brushed her ear
whispering only, "i am yours"
as their reflection became one with the moon

Traces of you line every moment silver,
     even in my darkest day
Traces of you can make the empty linger,
     the second you walk away

Traces of you are my hidden treasure,
     a joy that is all my own
Traces of you are too fine to measure,
     yet brighten my darkness alone

Traces of you make life worth living,
     the birth of my very smile
Traces of you make ease of forgiving,  
     though memories tend to beguile

Traces of you turn hell into glory,  
     then turn back the other way
Traces of you rewrite the story,
     every second of every day

One only needs to gather thoughts when searching for something nice to say

Frozen behind a weary mind
Thoughts like a blizzard of pain
Unable to be sorted
Unwilling to be tamed
Helpless, left to ramble
At peace from without
Tumultuous within
Life passes while standing still
Loved and Alone
Smoke chokes lungs
Sun burns eyes
Stillness in body
Burning soul steeped in pain
Wings bound by fear
Brittle from the war
With heart and mind
To languid to move
Motivated only to disappear
I can see in through a window
I can feel from across the room
But the sensation of life
The will to fight
Has all but disappeared
A ghost in the real world
Filled with the pain
Of the memory
Of love

The familiarity of helplessness
Thrice-fold upon return
Has churned up the sleeping trolls
Now dancing on the nerves of the lost
A happy dance it is they do

years of a life
encased in concrete
and double-paned bulletproof glass
climate controlled
to a nice 72 degrees
nothing to fear
no place to fall
nowhere to go
home sweet Hell

And so it has been reached, the threshold of what was and what will be

Rip me limb from limb
In silence I will suffer
Absorbing the rending of flesh from bone
Happily
Thankfully
Repeatedly
So you suffer no more

It rolls in slow like the fog
Helpless to stop it from stealing
Stealing every emotion you're feeling
'Til you're a bump on a log

Colorful, vivid trails of motion
Consuming visual acuity
Leaching verbal perspucuity
Making reality a useless notion

Wringing  beauty from stagnation
Colorizing gray cement
Brick by brick it paints lament
Into farcical animation

Taking over fantasy
Cartoon smiles and laughing fits
All the fruit without the pits
Beautifying all you see

It lifts my spirits, even when they aren't down
It resonates with all things happy
Makes me tremble to the core
The expectation of its warmth
Comes as waves of unforeseen joy
When the ride ends it is always bittersweet
Until tomorrow
Until next time
When that time draws near
I wait with bated breath
In hopeful anticipation, I linger
Almost as an afterthought in throaty air
Like distant thunder in a cloudless sky
With a deep rumble and a Southern drawl
Sweet dreams always follow

carbon copy
******* kids
all square and full of holes
chasing
someone else's dreams
doing only as they're told

gaping wounds
conformity
it's useless to resist
grayscale thoughts
behind closed eyes
rainbows do not exist

follow the leader
play pretend
grown-up rules, abide
broken backs
and camel straws
there is no place to hide

technicolor
memories
it was just a game
forty years
of servitude
society's to blame

here and now
when youth is young
and colors bold and bright
uncharted paths
with neon skies
teach them hold true and tight

planets turn
and water flows
when dreams, have yet, to die
tomorrows
more than yesterdays
the young see bluer skies

Drowning in verbosity
Lost in time
For I cannot express
In prose or rhyme
The beauty that enlivens
Kindred by chance
A victim by choice
or circumstance?
A victimless crime?
A passionate flare
Unexpected rawness
Enter, enter if you dare
Challenges accepted
Without hesitation
Jump into darkness
Accede consummation
Oh my pretty, pretty one
Whatever have we done
With hell deep in your eyes
The claiming has begun
Every calculation
And each strategic move
An action for an action
Every step it does behoove
How easily the game is played
When lines are drawn in black
Maneuvering each bitty piece
Not giving any slack
Training like a solider
Satisfying every need
Holding on to nothing
The past promised to impede
Eating demons in the flesh
A Knight in rusted armor
Feeding darkness innocence
Inherently a charmer
There you are so handsome
Seemingly sweet and kind
Hidden far behind those eyes
Lives a *****, evil mind

Time has passed old friend
And a call across miles
All came to an amicable end
Once again I heard you smile

Catching up is good at times
Wrapped in warmth across the wire
Listening to the sweet talk chime
Fading that you were a liar

Still more than a footnote so it seems
I stained your heart with mere affection
I'm glad that I dance through your dreams
It pretties up the recollection

Thank you dear old friend of mine
I love that you just had to call
I miss the good ways we entwined
The rest, I just don't miss at all

Across the room a subtle glance
Victims of bad circumstance
Hoping you would take the chance
Yet, nothing changes
The makings of a great romance
But time estranges

There you are just out of reach
In my mind there is a speech
Of how your heart I will beseech
I still, can feel you
The words you say I will impeach
I know the real you

The one whose kindness from the start
Has torn my faded world apart
And shown the truth to half a heart
There's so much out there
Happiness you do impart
With how much you Do care

Still it's like just yesterday
So close and yet so far away
I need you in my arms, to stay
That's my suggestion
I want you each and every day
There is no question

So sunshine mornings I have seen
Because there is no in between
The love we feel has always been
Our worst disaster
If only kisses dared to mean
Forever after

Bad dreams fill the soul with a sadness all too real.
A soul searches through the darkness
A distant beacon beckons
Stretching through shadowed tears
Touching with such earnest longing
Guided peacefully to that place between dreams,
Where emotions leach into reality
That place where "never" does not exist
It is here, where true happiness its bred