When you think about someone so much,
your dreams start to smell like them.
And you have to wash your linens
because your sheets started to smell like them.
Had to get a grip because when you breathed,
it still smelled like them.
What I'm saying is:
love isn't love when you're without them.

A touch of darkness
Gently lifts the veil of dawn.
I smile.

You are not there.

Take on the morning waltz,
Like ghosts ー drifting on;
Cycle of love,

Harrowing raptures.

Your scent, an acute absence
of apples, roses and sunlight,
Fills and intrudes and begs to consume

The remains of my rationality.

I step into my bathtub, my blue skin steaming as it hits the water,
hoping its hot enough to sear off the ***** feeling your touch left,
but god knows I’ve tried so many times and I still can’t peel back my
pruned skin afterwards to reveal the innocence I once wore,

I stay up until I physically can’t. I try to focus on the constant taste of ***** or blood in my mouth at night to keep my mind from bringing back the phantom scent of lukewarm beer and menthol cigarettes when I close my eyes.

My head is flooding (I think you’re the reason I only ever drink liquor, but I know you’re the reason I scowl at people who smoke Newport 100s) I am disgusted- No. I am disgusting, you made me disgusting.

I can’t let go of this fear of no control, because when you held power you pushed my limits far past their breaking point and even then I was too weak, too weak to say no, too afraid I’d be the one condemned.

You eradicated every rule and broke me and it’***** me harder now than ever, because the dust rose after you leveled me.

Now I can see you as the monster you are, now I just wish I was numb.

- S.G.

They shed no tears as the bridges burned
A lingering stench of phantosmia remains
No pouncet box can mask the memories
Their shame leaks through guilty pores

By Darren Wall ©

Their freedom granted by bifurcation
Roots severed from the family tree
They mourned the living, in brief
Discarded the wither and blight

Shed no tears to the fallen branches
The stench of phantosmia remains
Spring can't mask the memories
The wretched guilt shows no bark

The sap leaks through each season
The moss where blossom should be
Old wounds cast in the amber
Preserved for the life of the tree

Half dressed in a dawn chorus
Juxtaposed by muted decay
A lowly woodpecker knocks
Broken by a solitary shrill.

By Darren Wall ©