You are complicated…
but you’re also simple…

which makes you complicated.

— a.r. Camm

Ice burns my chest
As I scramble to find a heartbeat
Frozen bones against cold skin
I feel my pulse echo into me
I know I'm still alive
But inside it's only emptiness
Fires raged within me once
Leaving behind nothing but ash
My heart, my soul
Blown away in the wind
I am lost and alone
Free, but still the same
My body aches at the memory
Of shackles holding me down
I never knew my escape
Could cause this much pain
Simply trapped in new binds
I don't know what freedom is
Life is a sick and twisted game
Where I get to choose my path
But what good is a decision
When it all leads to death
I cannot picture my future
But my past is loud and clear
How can I keep moving forward
When I'm barely a part of the present
I know I have to build my own life
But all of the tools are breaking
What a privilege it is
To pick my own poison

If only a few poems could make you fall in love,
I would make them for you
all the feelings I put together;
just to tell you.
If only words were easier for us
to understand the feelings we experience,
If only love made everything less complicated,
And I don't have to reveal it.

Dear Dad,
I no longer
Have to sit
Silently as
The words
You say spit
at me like fire.

- It still burns