the death: beginning

last night
a part of me died
and i hadn't realized it was taking its last final breath
until i finally couldn't feel it anymore

no amount of music, no amount of talking would blur it out
once again, a death in silence
i couldn't even cry or remorse for what i lost

such parts have died before
but this was my last try(i said so)
and it just hurt so much

i slept with a hollow
woke up with overwhelming numbness
feeling so, so blue

like you could hit me, and i'd cry for what of me died
not because of the pain
because it didn't even hurt—just went numb
and by that—
it hurt so much i didn’t have words

i laughed, went for a walk, listened to music, tried to talk
nothing.
it wasn't going to return.
it was gone.

the urge

like when light leaves the dying’s eyes
like when you watch someone take their final breath,
realize it's never going to come back

like a candle flickering for one last time—
the spoiled wax, of no point
like a bulb going out, its ligament being torn
like a child growing up, having seen oh so much—
they just don’t have any dreams anymore

a part of me died
and today i organize its funeral
with no watchers, no stand-bys
just like always

and to think i'd gotten anywhere
with understanding and accepting—
nowhere.
not even with people,
because they're the ones who killed me

the urge to make the call, ask—beg—why’d you **** me like that?
but just—who would even understand?

i can't even see the screen, writing this with a vision so blurry
eyes so swollen—i even breathe funny
i woke up
wanted to sleep
chose to get up
wish i could’ve slept, because i’ve been crying since

it’s been hours
i was lying curled up
begging for someone to listen
to hold—to just tell me that it’s alright
that i still can be loved like i’m whole

and the funny thing—
i’ve reached the number of deaths
no one in one lifetime could have caused them all

but i let people do it—
the same way, the same streaks


the acceptance

no hopes anymore
no positivity—
it’s just difficult
how do you suppose i can just get back up?

i taste the salt in my tears
find my nose runny

i went back to where i fought so hard to get out from
i felt it—
the death

how it went from barely breathing
to not breathing at all

how it went from staying still at the edge of hope
to crashing against all borders and falling off

how it felt like i’d been drowned, thrown, teared through, broken, dissipated
i—i just can’t

i’ll stop crying in a bit
and just go back to living
except with another part of me dead

i don’t even know how i shall mourn her death
too dumb, but she just had hopes

i’ll wipe my nose, wipe away my tears
get the ice-pack to bring down the swelling
for once drained, once it’s all out

either way, i’ll be a shell of what i’ve been all this while
a bit more hollow on the inside

this time it made no noise
the fall seemed to be never-ending
usually i heard it break, scatter—
the fragments and shards—i picked them up piece by piece

but this time—
it just fell
freefall?
i’m barely alive now

as long as this body exists
with the slightest of life on it
there will be no mourners for all the parts of me that are no more


the questioning

i’m a museum of everything i’ve ever loved
and there’s graves within me
of places where i lost a part of me

and often i don’t remember them all
but sometimes, when a situation asks one kind of mine
i step by the graveyard of my own self
and often mourn them myself

i meet people
and i give them some bits of me
ones i didn’t know existed long before i’d met the person in front of me

and then that part stays with them
they decide—often unknowingly—that it’s in their pocket
on their shoulder, in their fist
somehow never close enough to reside in their mind or heart

and yet sometimes
these parts get lost in people
watching them leave

often they’re simply handed back
sometimes they’re killed

and i need no understanding of how i end up giving them out
like handing candies to children on a halloween night
uncaring who gets which one, no favoritism
blindly trusting, i just head straight right in

always unknown what and how much they hold of mine
i didn’t even plan on trusting or attaching
and yet somehow i did
and then i’m left with nothing but the mere spirit

feeling the hollow
and the lost
how do i not cave in to death
and keep going on like a fool?
how do i live on when i'm barely alive anymore?

the dreaming

grief is sickening, like long aged sour frosting
numbness woven into it, disturbing and devasting and what not
it breathes like something real, coils in the pit of my stomach leaving my body to ache in silence, to reel, feel, and fear

sometimes i feel like i'm stitched together by borrowed light
but then i ain't any moon—perhaps a starlight?

there's parts of me made of people and moments that weren't even meant to stay
and in return all the pieces i gave of myself
so it would be right to say i'm a mismatched puzzle, always missing, never complete

this light burns, seethes, flickers, garbles, echoes
this grief doesn't scream, it lingers
like the perfume that i once used to wear
and that old teddy bear to hug
on nights when i used to feel hollowed

it wraps around my bones
around my muscles and my organs
especially my heart and my lungs

and it squeezes in tight, like a rope that's being pulled from both sides
the knot just seems to grow in size, blindness coming around my eyes

only i know it exists, this grief—
as it breathes under my laughter, only i can feel it

it splinters every single breath i try to take
ghosts all my memories, makes me want to forget
like a constant static—this pain is immense

i've got invisible bruises, oh so many—
you'd see them clearer if you were to see the way my eyes lie in their residues

the death: end

i carry my dead
like folded crushed paper notes that i don't wanna let go of
from the maybe's to the it's never happening
it seemed to be something, now it's a sad little nothing

oh so broken, everywhere i go
i offer parts of me like i'm a free use and throw tissue
but what can i do?
when they never ask for how i am—
only ask of me, how can i help?

went down the lane of thoughts—one that busied my mind and made the voices stop
they blurred, i held the blade in my hand, even my mind stuttered
you've been away and strong for so long, not again
but the pain was immense

yesterday a piece of me had died
and today i was told to

how could i possibly accept all this sorrow
and feel my heart do the free falls again and again?

i have three cuts
not proper—the blade was too weak
i tried to write 'loser'
got stuck at the e
lost myself
returned to and wondered:
perhaps i've got a thick skin

disgusts me—my own head
i still keep on wondering
why can’t i just be dead





this could go on and on
i live in a paradox
despise, wanting to still be alive
deny, wanting to die, despite my tries
a misfit in the world of those who seem to be natural
at finding their own places
i have no one to call my own
why would anyone even want me as their own?

I have often found irony in it
When such silly people come to me
And ask me of love
They seek for the knowledge that I have not earned
Nor gotten through experience
And yet I can still provide
They call me a master of that trade
A trade that I have never traveled on
And that I never thought I would travel on

I have often found the irony of it
When I have all of the light in the world
Yet the moment I long to read it is gone
That as soon as I need something
It fleas and runs and hides from me

I have often found the irony of it
That when I am in the presence of someone
and name on there lips is never retired
And when they cannot bear to be away from them
And they know every
And every
And every
Little thing of them
They cannot tell this person how they feel
They cannot express to this name
All of the things that they wish to become
They cannot even speak to them

I have often found the irony of it
But now does it hit me with force
Where I used to be so knowledgeable
All of the information has left me
When I thought I could relay of just that
It is gone in my time of need
And now I can understand the people I once called
Silly and Ironic

For I am in love

Utterly and hopelessly in love
And I am utterly and hopelessly lost
And everything I once knew
Has disappeared

I cannot even fathom the thought of them
So much as go up and talk
Yet everyday I yearn
For some way to explain to them
For some way to make them understand
That every time they smile
I can feel my heart throbbing

But there is no way for me to explain
All of my excellence has faded
All of my brilliance has left
I am stuck with a heart throbbing
And a soul hurting

All I have is a face of irony
And a mind that has betrayed itself

Just one breath,
of unpublished air.
One organic despair.
One step to repair
my damaged window.
My misled gaze.
My programmed eating,
ate my days.

One word to pull me
from my habit
While I claw at the walls
like a mindless rabbit.
Trapped in my whole
endless war, an
obligation
to my spirit
drowning in
the need within it.
I'm drowning in
the human image,
the crafted icons
and social spillage.

I search for rescue
in nail-scratched writings
in the wall of the cell
I've spent my life in.

And at last he prayed,
Prayed since all hope had perished,
All virtues faded and all sentiments gone.
Down the river he now floats, cursed with angst and pain.
He mourns his loss but his grief won't go away, for this is the consequence —
The consequence of action he so inadvertently did without a second of thought.
Oh, the lives he ruined, the chaos he brought.
Denial is the river, and denial is what he sought.

In denial he drowned,
And in denial he remained.

-Asher Graves

It's a feeling that I can never
put my finger on,
to seize its power with a name.
It's that slight rhythmic delay
in conversations on the phone,
the footfall of our voices
constantly just out of step.
Moments that are almost inconsequential,
but I keep picking at them
in my mind
like the loose skin of a hangnail.
Thumbing at the thoughts
in a way you tell yourself is harmless.
Just a bit more...
Only in an instant, it's all irrevocably undone.
It's that bitter stone of doubt in your chest
when there's a full stop instead of an "x".
You can't help circling back
to that seed planted in your mind
earlier than you can ever remember,
that it's you - fundamentally,
objectively, intrinsically.
Against your own better judgement,
it's so easy to sink into the ruminations
of inadequacy and psychological self-flagellation.
How many more times must you feel this way?
It's so familiar that you can almost detach.
That every time you feel that sparkle of
human connection, of being wanted for a moment,
it's already waiting for you.
You already know it's inevitable.