The best thing about me is that I'm mute
I can say whatever I like and no one seems to hear me
I like being mute
I don't feel the guilt of my words
Because they go unnoticed

The best thing about being mute
Is that I can throw my voice around
And I can scream my words of pain eloquently crafted into the night
And I'm not deemed, "drama queen of the year,"

The best thing about being mute
Is that I can I sing "Hurt" at Joan Sutherland volume
And the only thing suspected
Is that I'm widening my range
Becoming well-rounded in my repertoire

The best thing about being mute
Is that when I'm approached by my comrade
Four years my junior
And am scolded for not taking care of what I was "supposed to"
And now HE must bear the burden of my carelessness and selfish tendencies
I can drop my vacuum and set down my washing
Beseech him to not use those words against me again
And am later chastised for usurping my lieutenant's role
Out of personal, hormonal hurt
No-one suspects
The fact that I am scolded in this way
Means that they don't hear

And that's when I start to wonder
When my throat is sore and my lungs ache
If I'm not really mute at all
And if they're just deaf

The best thing about being mute
Is that no one hears me at all
No fingers of shame and eyes of admonishment are cast

The best thing about being mute
Is that I can look in the mirror and tell myself,
"I'm strong"
"I'm smart"
"I'm generous"
"I can do it"
But the words mean nothing
If there is no fog of breath
Ghosted against the glass

I jammed the space in my corona and poured the desert in my dove
We let our scars battle and breathe with their unprofessèd love

And I stumbled through the waltzing stars in your crayola eyes
As the light flickered and blind-we closed our waiting rings in line

My eyes carved words of fear deep into your winged back
And we'd hunt the empty space only to fill it with splintering cracks

How many times, love, were we fooled by dividing that same zero?
I asked and you broke to feed the void that would only growl and grow

And now I burn in the dust cloud's salty silhouette
I carry you in my hip flask and do the dance of the dead

It’s clear to me now
Why some burdened men and women
Try to lose themselves

Before I saw no intent
For drowning oneself in the sticky entrapment of alcohol
For burning away one’s heart and one’s fingertips
For vivisecting the pain and stopping the pulse of the problem
For inhaling the stench of despair and smokey desires
For wrapping oneself in the poison arms of another, if only for a night,
As a desperate attempt to seek comfort and affection

Not that I am not loved
For I know how much is given up for me
I know how much is sacrificed that I may walk the paths of my peers
If only to saturate the steps as a shadow

Not that I am a burden
Of this I am also made sure
‘Till the sleeping guardian of days awakens and sends his horsemen unto the earth-
I could be told that I am loved and I am treasured
I could be told
Yes, told

Temptation was a distant planet
Floating in the same path as I, yet, too far for concern and too different for comparison
But yet
It seems that I am even unsure of the physics of this world
And some unseen force that I should have accounted for (and failed)
****** me into its many tearing, sharp moons and blazing, sarcastic stars
Until I found myself composed of their same dust

Sometimes I think that I am disadvantaged by love
That because I am nurtured and privileged to some recognizable degree
I have no excuses
That because I can venture the haven of my room and come back
With all of my bones intact
And all of the neurons firing
I have no excuse for physical pain of the embodiment of my heart
That because I am told, “I love you”
Everyday
An automatic response
I have no excuse for the damp, echoing void I feel
That perhaps is the lack thereof
If someone would just hit me…

But I must haul myself across the fields
And I must carry myself onwards
Yanking on the lifeless pieces dragging behind
Because to fall into false help and lying love
Until two years time-
Or, worse yet,
To be ungrateful
Is worse than the weight of bearing all and being carried
Clueless, obtuse, waste
When they already suffer enough

I only feel the kindling of warmth when I bring the fire to others
But even then
Daddy locks Prometheus up
Because somehow, the little brat even managed to ***** that up

And now I’ve gone and wasted an hour
Thrown away the precious gift of time
For writing this spineless catharsis of complain
When I should be thanking
As I’m working,
Studying,
Reading,
Mending,
Anything but creating this raging text of teenage angst and ill-excuse

I only encourage myself when I fall back into the white riverbeds begging me to fill them with life
It’s no wonder that when I picture myself happy
My queen and I reside miles past the familiar horizons
Alone in an uncharted temperate road that stretches
On and on
Taking me forever away

Two more years

I can hear a drumming
A pounding in my head
Of footsteps hitting wood, tile and stone
Yet I don't feel the dread

And when the earth is softened
By the might and motion of feet
A torch-light gingerly carried down past all of them
To me

I stumble 'cross the ages-
Feet lighter than the last-
To pluck it from your tiring hands
You tensions flee then, fast

Although it is quite heavy
This light in my hands bare
I carry it high and smile by its light
To see you easing there

I trip and fall and fumble
In my cloudy, foreign trail
Although I, myself, am burned, this is
Not why I cannot fail

I cannot fail and cause the world
To stop from lack of light
I cannot fail to see you love
And live so joyous and bright

I cannot fail in any way
That'd ever cause you to hurt
For you deserve far better than
This path I lead of dirt

My generations past all
Rose up on sweat and bread
Thus for you to live free again
I'd bleed and toil myself dead

Dearest one you hear the agèd
Popping of my back
This bearing that I love
Turns my eyes old and black

Let it all to me, I beg
You don't deserve more hell
I'd fight skinless to get you out
And never escape, myself

Heavy from flight, I’m drawn back to his call
My knight’s tarnished silver in the clutch of peeling, old halls

Echoing in me the breath from his head bowed
Clasped hands’ silent weeping unravels my thread perfect-wound

My grace is alight, on fire and
Charring my senseless, absent heart
Oh, my wings are reaching, stretching but
Confined-won’t deliver me so far

Help me hold you; relax your knuckles white
Help me understand these chains that confine me as an ethereal stoic plight

A bond profound holding a trust undeserved
Lets go of fear; this is no hellfire curse

Hand in hand driving off jagged cliffs alone
I know you, too, feel it, else you would have let go

It puts me tight on the rack
Heal my senseless, absent heart
He knows I can’t go back
But its tearing me apart

Oh, my leather-clad soldier locks away his drunken thoughts
Like the picking of petal, and having it tell you
“He loves me not”

Knock it back, your temptation
See me not as desperation
For love is facing fears alive

White collars meet soil
Holy hangings, righteous men shake their heads
Throw your glory before the swine
And hold still your parasols, ladies
Hold high your chins

Keep bound any doubt in the depths of your dejection
Lest ye be like Adam
Y bounden
Betraying
That which is written most outright is the stone
That only the condemnèd break

Change is a sin
So take your pills and see to your woman, son
And silence that serpent that seeks
That seeks to remove the crown you wear
That seeks to find peace in those arms

The warm and thick arms of the ******
Collars of white
Books of blue
Robes of red
Two thousand years of turmoil and discipline
Brought you this?

By the power of my hand--in pain you’ll repent
By the power of their cloaks and their words
My boy

Love is patient; love is kind
So do not insist in your own way

To blacken your robe with pagan ways
Is a disrespect to the starry crown
Gather your pearls
For myrrh is no longer abundant
Turn to the sun, bow, and
Tighten their chains

Give them their aid with the strength
Papa taught you
Slack is cowardice, doubt
Rows chained up behind
On my knees I pray for their salvation ?*

I will pray salvation, truly
From hypocrites
From legislature
From the smoke and the mirrors and the smiting
“Justice”

In the arms of your forbidden
Light your candles and share your vows
I’ll pretend while I can
But don’t you keep your hearts
To yourselves

I knew a little monster
I called him, “petit-bête.”
He was my pretty china doll,
He was my fragile pet.

I saw him walking down the street
Towards that old country road,
But something wasn’t right with him
Something he wouldn’t show.

From my perch I studied him,
And was relieved to see
How brightly shined his cheerful eyes
And gleamed his happy teeth.

I apologize if this disturbs
Or is a bit contrived,
But something changed that boy into
A monster before my eyes.

That happenstance-I stole a glance
When a corner ‘round he turned.
His guard had dropped, and that which I saw
Made the fire in my belly burn.

His eyes deep pits of rage
And, choking on my gasp,
My trembling legs fast rumbled towards
That tortured heart he grasped.

Then petit-bête was sitting,
Just staring at the wall
Clutching with warm hands of health
A smile so white, so tall.

“Deception must have stirred!” said I,
“Waking from her sleep-
Invoking fear in my trained eyes,
Where it need not be!”

So there he sat and growled out
His chipper little tune.
My monster and his .45
Lost a battle with the truth.