Share with me my pain, my pity
Share with me my loss, my loss
Don't pretend, don't play games
I can see what you hold in
I say nothing to this knowledge
That you hide on the outside
I know what you really think
The secrets you wont share
On the exterior your mask you wear
I will keep your secrets safe
Never let you know, I know
I'll never let you feel ashamed
Thinking what I'll think of you
I will share your pain, your pity
I do feel your loss, your loss
I pretend I can not see within you
I let you wear your mask
I love you either way!

©Crystal Erickson

1.

The rain is falling on the neighbourhood,
Our garden takes its share, and my good hat;
Out of the border shelter of its brood
A snail creeps in the wet across the path
Leaving the soaking flowerbed for the grass
Seeking continuation of its good,
Slow through the time a timeless quest for food
Elaborates the beating of its heart.

The creep is me, a wierdo what I am.
What am I doing here? I don’t belong here,
Enchained upon the dirt, constrained responder
Bellyfoot, headfoot mollusc, unmoving clam
I try to stir from where I first began,
Make in the gulf’s depths one thing new appear.

2.

A drought within my throat, an aching head,
Stoically for this world’s shock wave I brace.
The life which thus far has my spirit fed
Despairs, yet faithfully girds itself to face
The waste and rapine of this nightmare place
Where theft under coercion’s always bred
Mass victims all unjustly ***** and fled,
Violated to their utmost inner space.

What is the soul to do with this its life?
Awakened from the nothing of a sleep
One time? To local manners keep?
Or for some travel, hard to purpose drive
By that for longer to at least survive?
It’s wet again. The snails are on the creep.

Early morning dream,
Ends with a pain scream.
Snooze...
Flashbacks of peace,
Soared knees.
Need some *****.

Aware  I am again, A.M.,
Missing zen.
Stretched followed by a moan.
Again being all on my own.

Repetition becomes definition,
Head noise, drums.
Boys firing guns.

Lack of med,
Feeling dead.
Not able to stand,
My brain lost the command.

Loud "tik tok",
Terrified by the sound,
It's still 6 o'clock
Patient, for the death hound,
Snapped, maybe possessed.
Being mind trapped, depressed,
Almost drowned,
By surviving at eleven feet under ground.

Down in the poor quarter where
no quarter is given
where there's no life in the living and
the dead are not missed
I sprawl out in the shop doorway and
get ******.

No one here cares about that,
the shop has been closed since the riots
no one spares me a second look and
I'm getting more ****** so
what the ****.

There are reflections in the broken glass and
they pass by me, like butterflies
the colours make me realise that this is
not a home
that this is me being all alone in
a lonely place where the broken face in
the broken glass
is me.

In the poor quarter
all I can see are the prostitutes
among the destitute and
reflections of me.

fake smiles
empty eyes
filling up
on tired lies
don't you see
i'm almost done?
trapped in sadness
i can't run