Your yesterday when the nights are sweet,

You run wild without care, the universe in your eyes

So raw and bare

When your soul was cradled and your worries invisible

How you wish you could go back?

To what was once home

To what was once your own

Without lines on your face

Without darkness in your eyes

Back then when you have not known

The world so meek so true, with glee

When your soul was cradled and your heart is new

Now it’s all dull, it’s all broken and used

Body and soul, filled with exhaustion

Back then the nights were sweet,

Unlike now where you count the things you haven’t done so you can sleep.

Fingers aren’t enough for those things you should have said

Your dreams now haunted – they count you down before you go to bed

i'm paralyzed between the fears
of being a nobody,
or letting the pressures of being
a somebody get to my head

not the kind of pain that tickles and pokes
but the kind that knocks you back a few feet when it hits
&
rips the air out of your lungs
like the few moments of excruciating pain you feel when you stub your toe or clamp your hand between a door
it's an unexpected kind of pain
& your nerve endings can't help but become overwhelmed in pain

it's a greedy kind of love
the kind that takes and takes and TAKES
it slices you open, not enough to be fatal but just enough to bleed
&
that's all that's left for you to do,
                                                           b l e e d
this love bleeds you dry,
it takes all that is you
&
leaves nothing behind
nothing for others to identify you by
it leaves nothing for others to
                                                           s a l v a g e

it's a suffocating kind of love
like a horrible case of claustrophobia
the walls seem to be closing in
the world is getting smaller
the air is getting thinner
&
you watch for a few painful seconds as you lay there gasping for life
clawing at the walls like a trapped mouse
aware that you are dying
aware that there you are utterly helpless to stop it

a love whose purpose is to cage
not treasure
it boxes you up
&
creates a world that composes of only two strong arms that feel more like a prison than comfort
they bind
&
enclose on you

it's a love that should know when to stop
but doesn't
it's a never ending cycle of violence
of heavy fists
&
relentless kicks
then sweet kisses that act as apologies
trying to soothe the pain
&
then whispers  
"I'm sorry, never again. I promise."
words that you know not to trust

it is a love with no way out

The past hurts like an ocean made up of opaque glass.
And you asked me to exist within the shatter-jagged fragments.
An amphibious creature,
Breathing the pain through shredded gills.
Numbed, bruised and bleeding.
Wounds are what they called them.
Battle torn from a thousand different edges.
Don't you feel them?
  The watery shards wedging into your sides,
  Piercing your lungs of the will to exhale.
I feel it, like rough hands upon my neck;
  Tearing through my flesh.  
  Slipping down my throat.
Till I'm choking on red.

You asked, and I confessed.
My passions, the black and the blue.
Inhaling the wine-water,
I want to save you.
Even with an ocean of glass standing in my way.
I want to save you.
Swimming and swimming, until this agony bled away.
I wanted to save you.
Even though I knew I couldn't.
*I wanted to be the one to save you.

There's a fine dusty line etched between the sands of time that attempts to separate the correlating traits of my native abhorrence and naivety.

Between the polar points of my timeline lies a multitude of flags that mark the many shades of personal integrity that were once plainly labeled by prying eyes internalized as "Me".

I've been defined as numerous things, many of which I claimed to be indigenous to the nature of which I've inherited.

When I hear people call me Pat now I think they're in the middle of calling me "Pathetic".

I don't want to "re"do that aesthetic that I was upset with when the "P.H" of me brains was chemically unbalanced.

Letters in groups of two surrounded by apostrophes arranged in a similar view;

The first has taken to using many faces which has developed into a case study of Mistaken Entity, or in other words (but still pronounced the same) A classic case of:  Misplaced Identity.
"Me"

The second group, when added to my misinterpreted title in the form of an overzealous prefix (or perhaps a premature suffix) would alter the meaning of the initials of my initial name which creates a title whose exaggerated truth is slightly waning, but still sleeps in a bed of accuracy.
"re"

The initial name was not mentioned, but is instead embedded in my genetic strains giving new meaning to the last acronym used previously to describe acidity.
In this context it lends power to contracts when inscribed upon loose-leaf to indicate my consent to relinquish, or relish in, freshly indoctrinated responsibilities.  
"P.H"

Patrick Hurley
Ingrained in the earliest states of living the characters now combine and slowly unwind as the darkness steeply inclines to bind together the letters that now define me as:
Pat Heretic.

This...this is my heritage.  
I'm doubtful that the surname will be passed down through marriage,
by that I mean I hope to abandon the ******* that carries it.  
The transformation has seen many stages, ranging from simple pumpkin patch to ritzy coach carriages.
Returned to the depths of humble beginnings after smashing to bits the glass accessory that brought me to be what I kept wishing for with such carelessness.

Alas, I know now what causes the despair in this...wait...I had this...
It's because of the duality we experience in this existence through the resistance
That pulses between what we have and what is given to us.
Karmic retribution in the form of poetic justice.

she was a living kerosene
combustible, volatile,
deadly
and my words were
her fuse

the assault would flare when sunrise meets sunset
and thats when I usually loose track of time
because
clocks freeze
the minute hands
viscously crawling by
as if oiled by the kerosene
they're right when they say time's relative

but i inhale it anyways
all her toxic words
fumes of swears
smogs of taunts
all of which left behind
ugly,
black,
soot
tarnishing my soul

but i smile as the smoke fills my lungs
and gladly let her words burn me
because i know
I wouldn't have it any other
way