My brain clouded with thoughts of you
Want to make them disappear
Beauty that used to color my world
No longer fills my drab atmosphere

Ears are haunted by words you said
Parts of conversations had
Curse my eardrums suddenly
Assaulting like pop-up ads

Pain we felt is written in
The heavy way limbs move
Lines in folds of my crossed arms
As I wait for you to change, improve

Sleeping in a steely freeze
Promise I won't stay here forever
Stars may light our fragile paths
This is the place we finally sever

Put my toughest armor on
Been crying out for help
Swirling thoughts shouting in an angry tone
Crush my existence, make this world Hell

The universe we loved is gone
Our make-believe yet beloved perfection
Walls collapsing, illusions wrecked
Destroyed over and over by deception

The pattern of desperation must cease
Pitiful unexplainable misery repeated
I offer silence as a truce of sorts
Heart beaten, weak, and mistreated

Wish I could forget your name
Memories flood my mind
All the time we spent together was in vain
Crying for what is left behind

What is wrong with my emotions?
The odd ones don't make sense
The beautiful intricacies of my soul
At times are too deep and intense

Drowning in gaping irreperable despair
I think of our unfortunate fate
Cried an ocean of wasted tears
For the person I should hate

I do not know why I'm still in love
Miss days my heart felt free
The vibrant hues giving meaning to life
Your colors have faded from all I see

My nights consist of falling apart
On a daily basis
That’s according to my thesis
On my own self evaluations
Keep getting caught in bad situations
This is an invitation
To not feel okay
Sometimes you just need to cry
Let it all out
In a form of sentences
Trying to express your emotion
What’s holding you down promoted
To this cause I am devoted
Left vulnerable and open

Bleeding and broken

©2018 Written By Benji James

Let me die
in a battle
with sharpened metal
As I put down my weapon of distance
til now a bow has always been my choice of resistance

Or
let me be an animal
tearing flesh from my enemy
with sharpened teeth
the breaking of bones
skin tightens, body crumbles underneath
I'll go back to stick and stones
Bleeding til I'm dry
finally feeling terribly alive
before I end and die

But before
let me run
with wolves across these snowy hills
let me paint in red
in the heat of the midday sun
let me be the whale close to the shore
til the hunters come to get their kills
Bleeding til I'm dry
before I end and die

But until then
let me be courageous
let me be poison and contagious
like a venomous reptile
trying to survive me will be futile
I'll take all those who lay their hands on me
with me into agony
finally understanding the beauty
of life and death
I will show my natural fury
and never again be silent nor deaf
Bleeding til I'm dry
before I end and die

Wild and burning in life's fire
insight will come as my flames grow taller
And I know only in the wilderness
I won't be doomed as a pariah
Only there I can find the truth
and there is none to confess
As I bleed and live another day
far away
from human's self-glorifying mess
Bleeding til I'm dry
before I end
and
die

i want to clean
up
     this
            mess
                      and  
            start
        a
new
         page
                   but
                           they
                   say
          art
is
         when
                    you
                             feel
                     the
           most
naked
           most
                     vulnerable
           most
broken
             but  
                     if
                            i
                   pick
           up
my
        my
                shards
                               then
                      i'll
           just
bleed
          with
                    ichor
                               and
                     red
           wine
hues
           that
                     reach
                                  up
                      down
          below
on
        the
                 doorsteps
                                     of
                      death
         just
                  dropping
                                        by
                             to
               say
hello.

Their lives bleed into mine
What am I becoming?
As long as I'm bleeding in line
I can hear war drums drumming
I feel my purity and youth leave me
As their lack of couth feeds me
And their sweet tooth bleeds me
Until eventually I too am greedy

In this ****** atmosphere
Our ***** past is clear
Inspiring future fears
And hardened tears
Drowned by beers
And empty cheers
Through the years
Until we're here
As a ****** stranger
Head banger
Teenager
In Jesus' manger

This blight
Of life
As a simulation
Of assimilation
Into a nation
Of incineration
In a ****** mire
Lit by the fire
Positioned higher
I call my sire

I fidget in the cage
Of this pivotal maze
Called the Digital Age
I'm in need of healing
From this dark feeling
That I'm an innocent child reading
A book about a grown man bleeding
Always met with a hateful greeting
While sympathy is fleeting
Being replaced by our own jadedness
After living with those who hated us
We develop defensive thorns
Resembling demonic horns
To match public scorns

My first love
Drew first blood
And I couldn't halt the blood loss
Exacerbated by the mud toss
Of the sinister town crier
Exposing my heart's desires
So I said never again
For the bleeding to stop
When dealing with men
Is like meeting the cops
Aware that I'm defenseless
They start beating me senseless
So I become a judge myself
Part of the sludge for my health
I won't budge unless it's for wealth
Accepting the cards I was dealt

They bled into me
Now red is all I see
No way to get free
So I follow their lead
And choose to bleed
As they pray and plead
It becomes my turn
To cause the burns
That I had learned
When I was spurned
And lost my purity
Now blood cures me

Oh, how our petals fall
from the depths of our eyes;
the reminiscence of our small
and warmly stricken sky.

Oh, how it crumbles mutely
striking hard upon the earth;
the ground now bleeds acutely
and still, we drown in mirth.

I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me
Cried the bleeding man in his last breath
He voided his bowels
The rigor mortis kicking in
And thus began his journey of death

The funeral was closed casket
There wasn’t much left to show
A poem recited
The priest going on
“Darkness there and nothing more”

The years went by, the man’s legacy forgotten
And so did the memories that once seemed so sweet
That’s how it goes
In this dark twisted world
Please stay tuned for some more Sesame Street