There's something...
infinitely beautiful,
dancing, delicately,
on pulled threads,
across nimble fingers:

the cat's cradle,
between emotional agony,
and mental silence.  

When every tear, is at last, exhausted...
when your lungs, wheeze, fluidly,
from helpless overexertion,
and, gasping for breath,
you turn your cheek, for air,
your pillow:
now, a man-made lake...

the numbness... suffuses,
your entire being.

Loud suffering, falls silent.
Red-rimmed eyes,
become too swollen,
to examine their own pain.

The nothingness blankets you,
in its warmest embrace.
You become swaddled; baby-soft, again,
yet plated, in auric detachment.

...Nothing, can touch me,
nothing,
can inform, my placid heart,
to beat.

in this moment,
I am free, of its emotional trappings.
its threads, can't pin me;
its pull, can't drag me down.

My lips,
shape a smile,
but it only serves, to show...
that it no longer hurts,
to stretch a wooden bridge,
across the gaping void.

...but even so... it's just a band-aid.

It won't fix, what's broken,
and the blood,
will seep through,
the gauze, again.
The pain, will return;
it'll grow knuckles,
that form fists,
which wield knives.

But, for now...
I lay myself, to rest...
blunted, mummified,
in a buzzing swathe,
of pristine, white.........





silence

A feeling of uselessness
A feeling of worthlessness
A sense of unease
A deep fear of the unknown

A deep and complicated feeling of distress
A longing for something more, something real
The need to protect that makes us truly human
Desiring a deep connection with a lover
A promise never fulfilled and a love that's over

The burning condition,
Burnout of though.
To dream to be,
Impossible for sickly roe.
The rot of being,
The not of doing.
Anxiety, tempting it covers,
A blanket of roughness.
A coffin of distress.
I will bring blackness,
Though empty it may be.
I bring the darkness,
I bring comfort.

His senses hold him prisoner,  
Overwhelmed and alone.  
The walls are his burden;  
The light, too much to bear.  

The soaked linen of yesterday’s news,  
Stained with fear from battles before—  
An old uniform hangs alone,  
Boots polished beside paper awards.  

Headlights cast broken shadows,  
Each a spectre of the past.  
Empty scotch bottles and cigarette burns  
Mark a slow crawl to solitude.  

Light burns through a slither 
His heart beats through the walls.  
Strangled by the sirens  
That triggered him before.  

He needs to be cradled,  
Yet no hand reaches for him.  
He sways back and forth,  
A pendulum of grief.  

Screams, muted by paralysis;  
Silence pervades the void.  
Fractured by a rasping breath  
And a crescendo of emotions.  

The warning bells pass—  
They did not come for him.  
His fragile breath of sorrow  
Whispers to an empty room.  

By Darren Wall ©

~
she's thunderstorms.
she's asphodel meadows.

I fall outside of her
into the suburbs of askew,
where she hides behind
happy occident, where she
lives with the afterlife of a man,
but is in love with a scientist.

a jaded thing, she likes
to drop anvils on her
husband's head and blame
her fragile scaffolding,
she wears the wreckage
on her face, it's far easier
than admit her own fallacies.

before the children came along
she was able to pour some
of her own frustrations
into these knotty tussles.

now the midwives have left.
now misadventures in her
own backyard commence.

no hiding place down
the front of her,
the remaining secrets
come from underneath.

but if you trust her
and go along, she knows exactly
where to lay her hands.
~