I fell in love with a broken man
thought I could put him back together again,
but instead he made me broken too
that's the last time I entrust my heart to you.
everyone makes mistakes sometimes

but I never thought you'd be mine.

you know when you wake up from a nightmare and you’re
sweating frantic terrified
you feel like you’re going to ***** your own heart
that is what is feels like living in an abusive home
always on
E D G E

who’s going to come through my door tonight?
the alcoholic? Who only came out when the drug addict was gone
the drug addict? Who only came out when the alcoholic was asleep
the infant? Who came every night for bedtime
or the depressed brother? Who only came when he was lonely

sometimes I’d look outside and see the trees fly in the wind
hoping that someday the wind would take me
but then I remember the infant
and the brother
and it brings me back to my bedroom where I am forced to stay
because me leaving for my safety
would be their safety leaving

and I can’t
so I stay
and I sweat frantically
waiting
until I see who will come through my door

This is too much.

Surely, I did something
To deserve things as such.

A lazy, glassy-eyed ****.
You haven't kissed me open-mouth
In well over 15 months.

The good guy routine
Well, it isn't a routine...
But I artfully mask my anger with
******* at night
And in the mornings caffeine.

I imagine
That when you look at me
I'm less man than machine.

But knowing me,
I'll continue to flog myself
For these crimes I haven't committed.
And maybe one day the gavel will fall
And I'll finally be ever-acquitted.

A final poem.
Of you and me,
Of what we were
And could not be,
My heart is heavy
My soul is free.

I love you,
I miss you,
The End.

Spit on my face from your poison lips.  
Yelling names I could never repeat.  
Curses and foulness fills the air.  
All I wanted was love.  
Appreciation.  
Someone to look up too.  
All I got was a drunk stuck on drugs  
Screaming and falling into my life.  
But even after all these years
And what you did to me
I still love a little part of you.  
I just wish you loved me too.  
Dad.  
Sincerely,  
The *****

blinded and uncomfortable,

once by lies and fear, now decrepit

the stem running up my back and

its wretched and cursed flower

wilt sixfold ever since the thunder,

the lightning that you unleashed on me,

stolen rouge, broken plumbing -

trying to be more than the damage you left behind.

no butterflies for this mess

conquered and destroyed by downpour, sunburst;

only a mouth full of ocean -

shuddering waves towards the blood moon -

and the remnants of your solipsism

more real to me than my own beating heart.

now, blinded by formal realism and your belligerence,

crimson clouds against inevitable death,

i know you can now see the light

no blades you need to hurt me

no delicately decaying words of devotion

for i always begin with you

and then diverge, disintegrate;

a mockery, mayhem, a survivor of bedlam

could i ever be more than the damage you left behind?