Sad is when a loved one passes,
Unbearably depressing is to watch a loved one deteriorate.

When their mind twists,
The concience unraveling.

Addicted to control,
Addicted to unrealistic expectations.

A complete change from withing themselves.

It is harder to watch a loved one die on the inside and become a stranger, than it is to watch them pass.

-Kathia Mariana Landeros

That smell
of burning skin
like the way I felt when lying
on the bathroom floor

is not the same
as the hollow places
when I take up only a fraction
of the vastness in these bedsheets

but the worst part
is that metallic taste
of bitter end
with every single breath I take

when I can't shake off
the sheets of blood
or knowledge
of what I've become.

Last ditch attempts and descents without grace.
Darkness was diffusing into ambers. He’d been deteriorating for a while now, slowly, abruptly, and then with the fall of the summer months completely off the other end of the scale. He’d felt it in adrenaline coursing through his veins, known it when spilled liquids seeped into carpets that weren’t his own. But this was it. He faced the final breech of his own standards, or what was left, with bare feet, exposed eyes, all the while knowing he was corrupted.
He had brought himself inches away from a descent, drawn himself through the chaos, grasped his gnarled hand around what had held him back, and pulled, pulled his own cold body from the lifeless thud on the floor, pulled himself here, and now his toes curled over the edges of what had been his life.
Gathering the last vestiges of his age and time, Bram stepped forwards into unfilled air. Foot first, the ground drawing closer; he watched the atmosphere fly past in kaleidoscope. Like all inevitabilities, the moon extinguished the sunlight, both knowing their places elsewhere.

I laze the dawn with morning breath inhabiting my mouth
Shifting my body maybe once or twice on an unkempt mattress
I would've killed for a good king-size bed, a comforter draped over me
But even I was too lazy to get up and turn the nearby radio off

I've lost myself in the smoke I've shrouded my apartment in
Seeping elegantly from the cigarette locked between my fingers
I shake my head fervently as 'elegant' isn't the correct word for it
As I've once lived a life of luxury -- bordering around dark secrets

Dark secrets that tore up the tether binding our family together
I know what it's like to be stinking rich and reeking of it all over
But I needed to jump on my motorbike and drive far, far away
While the cold air whipped at me and stung the moisture in my eyes

I traded the pinstriped suits for cheap muscle tees and leather jackets
And my high-maintenance loafers for darker-colored boots
I needed to be as far, far away from my past as possible as it hurt
It hurt to finally know the truth -- those horrid secrets I'd discovered

I was no one and I was undeserving of a disgustingly beautiful life
I was no heir presumptive to a company raking in mountains of cash
I was no blood brother to three boys I unconditionally adored
And most of all, I was no real son to the man I excessively revered

I changed my hair and name along the way too, because I didn't belong
I was reduced to this angsty and hurt rebel far, far away from home
I got myself an apartment and drank and smoked and wasted away
No one's come to save me from my rampant inner demons anyway

Where the whole that was
has finally
fragmented,
descending in an open, unremarkable blaze.  

And so pieces of me shall collide
with the ground,
implanting fractures
few shall discern.  

And the winds of days
and nights will continue to
persuade the dirt unto me
so my morose roots will not grow,
infesting a world undeserving
of my inadvertent pollution.