"It is fine"
I'll just keep on telling you
That I am
Even if I'm slowly fading away
From reality

I can feel how
Everything is slowly
Eating me up
Alive

I keep on begging you
To please take my hand
Help me up again
But you
Push it
Away

I'm not even sure anymore
If I'm alive
Or dead
Because I'm too numb
To feel
The
Pain

call me hopeless, but i'd rather sit here in silence,
letting the whirlpool of all the makeshift fears
bleed itself dry into non-existence
before i step out and show my face,
wondering if water damage might ruin the appeal,
diminishing the market value of this small business
selling dull knives and doors with no handles.
waiting for another chemical miracle to come through;
every failure should come with a free sample.
call me hopeless, but i'd rather sit this one out,
slipping away as lights approach from the distance,
holding my spot in line for another imminent breakthrough.

Your tongue makes a precise incision,
Words like a scalpel, cutting with precision,
Bypassing my systems like a jewel thief,
Grasping hold of my heart.

Are you a bard or a thief?
It’s hard to tell the difference—
When you play my strings like a guitar,
Out of mind, yet in tune with the violence.
Your eyes direct like storm clouds,
Twisting my image until it suits your need.

Just make a decision—
I’m exhausted with pretense,
Starving for substance,
Why is it that no one replaces what they take?

And if I were a bodega,
I’d stock only the finest farewells,
So you couldn’t buy happiness,
While pawning my world to the highest bidder.
You thought me caramel, but I tasted bitter,
Spoiled long before you spun a web.
I’m not dancing to your tune; the music is dead.

I hurt you
You tell me that I'm forgiven
I hurt you
How are you so kind?
I hurt you
I can't live with this
I hurt you
How do you even trust me?
I hurt you
It cannot be, I can't believe it
I hurt you
I will never forgive myself.

I should be better.  

I should be the man who reaches for your hand without hesitation,  
who speaks in soft tones and knows the right words,  
who doesn’t flinch when love is placed before him  
like a gift he has never deserved.  

But I am not.  

I am sharp edges and broken glass,  
a locked door with no key,  
a storm that does not know how to do anything  
but destroy what it touches.  

I love you more than life,  
but my love comes out wrong.  
It comes out in silence when you need words,  
in words when you need silence,  
in distance when you need closeness,  
in fire when you need warmth.  

I don’t know how to be gentle.  
I don’t know how to hold something precious  
without cracking it in my hands.  

You tell me I am cruel.  
That I make you feel small.  
That loving me is a wound that never quite heals.  

I want to say I don’t mean it,  
but what does that matter?  
A blade doesn’t have to mean to cut  
to make you bleed.  

And you are bleeding.  

Because of me.  

Because I don’t know how to let myself be loved  
without turning it into something ugly.  
Because I don’t know how to take your kindness  
without twisting it into something sharp  
and throwing it back at you.  

Because I am trying to ruin this before you realize  
I am already ruined.  

And yet—  
I want you to stay.  

I want you to choose me  
even as I make you hate me.  
I want you to love me  
even as I give you nothing to hold onto.  

I want you to see through the wreckage  
and find something worth saving.  

But I know better.  

I know you will leave.  
I know I will let you.  
I know I will watch you walk away  
and say nothing,  
do nothing,  
pretend it does not split me open from the inside.  

And when they ask me what happened,  
I will say—  

"I loved her."

And they will not understand  
why that was never enough.

From ecstasy to anguish—
Now I fizzle out.
I have failed my task within,
That which I begun again with labouring chagrin;
And now it seems, evidently, I appear as apparition,
Walking the gentle tides of doubt.