Sitting here
on the steps
no friends
no family
Just sitting here
Boxes stacked
books
clothes
movies
photographs
Where can they go now
no time to worry
no time to think
Just sitting here
on the steps
Holding the boxes
Staring at my life
so neatly placed in cardboard boxes
stacked on the steps
So many years of life
and all to show for it
boxes stacked on the concrete steps of a place I once called my own
Just sitting there

Pity.
Merciless ways of the universe
befall such a young one
Such innocence left behind
Forward darkness
Onward bound
Sink into the grieving soul
of the one lifeless girl in the white silk dress
So lovely were her words
So delicate her flesh
Seep through the wounds
grief upon the lifeless girl of blushing pink and milky white
She foolishly thought she could love another
when she hadn't yet learned to love herself.
And now she rests
Leaving behind a crimson dress
and the words on her lips.

I am at war with this water.
I understand its use in this world
I adore its beauty
the feeling
the smell
yet I lash out to it.
I fear I’ll be swept off to drown
to die trashing
as an injured animal.
But most of all
It serves as a constant reminder I have not grown.
As much as I portray myself to be strong
calm
and collected.
I am still the small child terrified of water that I once was all those years ago.
Every time I feel despair and pained from this world
I am drowning on the inside once again,
with no one to notice
no one to help
while I slip away into the darkness
never to be seen.
It seems as though I cannot escape the water
No matter how far I run from the sea,
The water travels within the darkness
and sinks right back into me.

It seems as though my simple path has come to a fork in the road
Now all that stands is choice

Where do I go from here
with no map to guide me
no compass to take me home

The signs lay askew on the trail before me
Offering no help
no direction to take to free me of my ultimate frustration

Forgive me if I ever think to turn back
from fear of losing myself more with this clouded mind I own and hollow choices I make

Which path can you take
If you are already lost.

How many reasons left did I have
to wake up
When the reality I witnessed
fell apart all around me

The final stages of youth
reveal themselves in the shadows that creep across the schoolyard and beyond the pathways I took every day without fail

To feel beauty fade in the cruelest of ways
Ripped away from me
before a chance could be given to restore itself in the town I would soon foolishly call my home

Among the many I hold so close
Decaying friendships
Abandoned parks
Rusted buildings
The memories are all that remains the same

Days pass
or maybe it was years
I could never quite tell
All I could ever be certain of was my loneliness
And the feeling that all would never be as it should
From now until the end of time

As far as the stars go
As many times I lie to those who ask
If I am asleep
It will never compare to the distance I bear with this heavy heart.

The burdens carried
along side my bed every night,
gazing at the night sky
I wonder if you have eaten
What you are thinking about
How many times you forgot your keys

The simple answers I wish I knew
and would forever keep close to my heart
If only to lighten the burden and somehow keep you closer.
But the moon holds no answers
and your phone will continue to lay on the table next to your body in slumber

I
remain awake
alone
through the autumn night,
In quiet conversation with myself
Hearing your voice answer,
but seeing only
the dark sheets below me
and the starry sky above me.

If I pray hard enough
radiation from our advancements
will destroy me
from the inside
For I would rather parish
than bring a life into this world
of distopian future
bearing no love
no shelter
or legacy
to carry on

To live long enough to apologize
for giving a life away
and offering another soul
to the crumbling world
around me
would simply leave me
broken beyond repair

If I pray hard enough
let me parish with my future sons of war
My conscience will not allow me to live or die
by leaving another life to a war
and simply fading away.