Ryan Galloway

Ryan Galloway Jan 2016

Vices

No, You see I know
I already know
My faults, my atrocities
I trace them at night
I run my fingers through them
And catch their edges
As if they were the keys
To these rusty old things
That I locked away long ago
They are the ghosts
Those things so close
I couldn't cut them away in fear
That I would cut myself
Yet they whisper things
And in the darkness I listen
You see I trace their edges
Like a crime scene to tell me where they lie
Yet I am the one struggling
With these wisps of demons
I know my faults
And I'm afraid they have become me.

Ryan Galloway Jan 2016

Famine

You were as beautiful as the rain
And just as scarce
My love for you a river
Yet the Sun has run it dry
For I gave and you took eternal
Though the sky grew bloated
And the clouds drank their fill
They slowly blew to distant lands
And rather watered their fields
So if you are rain
And I a river
Carving through the glen
I gave freely from my banks
Yet you have brought my famine

#love #depression #sadness

Ryan Galloway Jan 2016

Wonderfully Odd

I watch, the way in which you move
Seemingly floating through a crowded room
With space lying in the pupils of your eyes
Yet you remain present
Ensuring that all you see and all who see you
Know the true gratitude, that saturates your lips
I look at you and see a moon
Reflecting the essence of stars
Into this stifling room
I rest with my arms in my lap and my hands on my chin
Attempting to close myself off from the pressure of people
Pressing on my consciousness as if in an attempt
To suffocate it
And I know that you feel the same
Or perhaps only similarly
The point being, you are as aware of this lack of space as I am
Yet as it is causing me to clench my teeth
To want to recede into a point of singularity
In which I can avoid encroaching on anybody
You expand,
You fill the space with your breath
Forcing others to recognize who you are
You're magnificent in the way a force of nature is
So unknowable that all we can do is observe
How truly wonderfully odd you are

Ryan Galloway Dec 2015

Propensity For Pride

I have not the propensity for pride
For all possible paths I have taken, away from my God
All forbidden fruit I have tasted
With the requirement set I have fallen short time and time again
So now that I stand by his grace alone
May I not cast out those who falter where I once was
Rather show them the path laid out for me
To stand where I am today.

Ryan Galloway Dec 2015

Promises

I promise to kiss your forehead
To drive away all thoughts of self-doubt
And the weight of the depression
Hanging round your neck like lead
Pulling your eyes toward the ground
I promise to kiss your hands
To make them strong
For I know that you think them to be weak
But Oh what strength lies asleep in your fingertips
I will kiss them awake
And make you see the marvelous things
That lie at the edges of your reach
And I promise to kiss your lips
As if we were drowning
Maybe we are
For I have lost the taste of air
And replaced it with your presence
And I have yet to decide which is more essential
To my survival
For though my lungs burn
I seem to believe it is from not being able to consume
Enough of you
To sustain my love
I promise to devote myself to you
For though my covenants may seem
Somewhat self-deprecating
Making me a martyr to my desire
Rather as you can see
These promises are rather selfish
For I cannot foresee
A future in which you are in any way separate from me.

Ryan Galloway Dec 2015

Handprints

They say, your palms tell stories
With flesh as pages and indentions as the vocabulary
Yet I wonder where I lie in the palm of your hand
Am I that scar you got when you were six
Trying to cut your handprint out of colorful pages
Or that callous you have from caring for your garden
And always holding onto things, and people, far too tight
Now that I think of it your hand is a reflection of who you are
I love how it tells a story with every line
How it speaks of your beauty with every imperfection
But most importantly, I love how it fits perfectly into mine.

Ryan Galloway Dec 2015

Us

Though there are
Nights in which
You and me sit
At a stifling distance
It is this darkness
By which I define us
Not you and me specifically
But rather the concept
The idea of a comprehensive
All inclusive
Sense of us
That though we distance ourselves
We are never separate
There is no distance we could run
Which would tear us from this existential thought
That we are one and should treat others as such
That service to others is service to oneself
That even in this, the darkest of nights,
In which the treacherous and the heartbroken
Walk the same sidewalks
That we belong to the same heart
And when one bleeds, it starves us all.