You are
words never spoken
truths always held close to the mouth

You are
things left untouched
regrets

You are
independent
funny how we
have something in common

The answer sits awkward in my mouth
Like an Egyptian vowel
Some language I have yet to learn

And I stand like a third world country that there are no commercials for
There are no heartstrings to tug
No Sarah Mclachlan songs
No one sees the hunger
Building in the bellies of my motherless country

But if there must be indifference in this love
I want to love you more than you love me

We’ve accepted that we’re already dead.

Like the soldier
Like the victim
No, the veteran of love
(and subsequent heartbreak)
We’ve accepted we’re already dead
So we can keep on living.

I was broken.
No longer working
No longer dreaming
No longer wanting
Pushing away
The hands that tried to help me
The encounters that didn’t last broke me.
I was embattled.
In the trenches of my own existence.

Those we met
Under picture-perfect circumstances
When we thought utopia could be real
woefully disproved this theory.
Rude awakening to what agony feels like

And sleeping all day so we could self-medicate
all night.
Self-medicating with ***** and cigarettes
Not because we needed to but
For respite
For the moment
For a friend in the bottle
Or the lighter.

Life is war
Survival is the only option
Death, inevitable and imminent

We are the ones in the ring
We have lived here
We will die here.

There are those who are weak
Succumbing to the needles
The tap tap tap on veins
Or worse
Ordinariness
Boring as the 8x11’s
found in printers
All around the world.

I will not be ordinary.
Surrender is not an option.
Because I am a gladiator
I have adapted.
I’m still in the ring
But I will defend myself now.
They are the lions;
The king of their race
But I
I am a gladiator in a Gap V-Neck Tee shirt.
I will die with love in my heart,
Belief in my soul
My ashes will spell out the word Hope.

Nothing will break me ever again.

Men who look like ferris wheels
every color representing different aspects of their personality

The first three words don't have to be beautiful
they just have to make sense
like connecting dots on paper

men who love with their fists
and hate with their mouths
who once were boys taking things apart
like remote controls their own fathers used to beat     Obedience into their small bodies.  Left them with a fury tattooed across their hearts
Just to give them the challenge of putting themselves back together

They buy their wive's flowers after
a four day bruise isn't so glaringly purple anymore
not so accusing-
kiss her broken ribs
and tell their children midnight stories

children trained as mood detectors
human robots
know when to shutup
speak when you are spoken to*

Men who speak like cutting boards
Every slice of the knives in their toungues leave
hollow aching missing parts
just to teach their children that not all
things can be put together once taken apart

whose daughter glues together the parts of old telephones
to spite the missing pieces
so every welt he beats into her bones
she sings herself unbroken
until she stands robust and imperfect
there are holes in her armour
but she holds it together

with her fathers fists.

I smoked, turned music on, and wrote this stupid ****.

i found the secret to life
scrawled upon a crumbling brick wall
all those years ago
in a down-town pub house bathroom stall
and i wish i'd never read it

some things just can't be erased
not with paint thinner
and not with the sands of time

no
some things stain
some wounds scar forever
leaving cursive reminders of fights we've survived
and nights that parts of us died
to make room for something bigger

sometimes you have to paint the walls
in an attempt to silence the stories they whisper
recalling all they've seen

all that we've witnessed
and wished to forget

all the one-liners
and fist fights
and nights that should have never happened
those foggy moonlight memories
of evenings soaked in adrenaline highs
and cigarette smoke

sometimes you have to demolish the walls entirely
burn the structures of your nightmares and your fairy tales both
and spend more of your nights
with nothing
in between you
and the stars