When your world crumbles
And your feet stumble
With my words and ways
I will help to piece it all together

too easily this letter became a note
the lighter didn't so much as flicker
just a hiss of air
on my desk there's mix-matched earrings and a few bobby pins
thrown there
halfheartedly half asleep half a set of jewels
two hands two eyes two ears two mouths
one bitten and bleeding
the other carved into a sharp crescent

And then I found myself thinking
Why does your name
still mean something to me?

Maybe that is how things are
When something became yours once
It will be part of you no matter what

Voices in my head
Gain life on the page
Showing their all
Upon a new stage

Bits of me are in there
Some in more than most
You just have to find them
the paper is the host

I may be the blues man
I may be the painter too
But, just what parts are me
Well, that is up to you

Each character, each story
Is a part of me
But each part is well hidden
You have to dig to see

I'm in every story
Somewhere in the words
I may be just a shadow
I may be singing birds

Look and you will find me
And learn just who I am
In the river of the story
Or hiding near the dam

Each page contains a segment
Of me there in the rhyme
Look hard, I'm really hidden
Don't worry, it takes time

I'm in every story
Every character is me
Just know that I am with you
Look hard, I'm tough to see

Part 1
Pressed from all sides
'neath a mountain of gifts,
each blessing designed
to create yet more rifts.

Weighed from above
and compressed from all sides;
useless and helpless
and angry besides.

Defending forever;
with no give to take.
Now tired and broken,
just one decision to make.

Keep defending or not;
be compressed or fight.
claw my nose above water
or slip out of sight.

Still searching for reasons
to seek each new day
and continuing on is just
the most familiar way.

It's ever more appealing
to cease and be gone.
So tired of fighting,
of playing the pawn.

I ache for the stillness
I hope could be mine.
Yes, this lone hope is morbid
but it's serving just fine.

If hope springs eternal
there should be more around.
Perhaps they are waiting
within frozen ground.

Part 2
I've realized, I don't really want to die
I just want my world to die around me
the hypocrites circling to seek a cause
to be rid of unsuitable me
the family burdened by growing cost
clutching insurance in case I never succeed
the home I may lose- any time, many ways-
due to spite, envy and greed
the smile that I share, every day everywhere
despite what remains unseen
the pain ever there, never slack, always bare
finding new cause, in everything new, everywhere...
I don't really want to die
I just want my world to die around me
but in the absence of that, there is me
which could leave me similarly free
and that is well worth considering.

Part 3
Though I've realized this
no decision is yet made
I remain adrift

Part 4
Wrung out and still dripping,
these tears still slipping away,
under my skin;
Sallow thin skin.
A weekend lost to agonizing over
what is beyond my control
and always was
because I am still swayed by
those I care for and those I don't.
Shaken by each puff of breath
and screaming gale.
The thought of a mere ten minutes
has me terrified
and just for tonight
I would trade for almost any fight
that would allow me to run away.

i don't blow kisses,
nor do i send hearts
made of broken paper construction
and lots of missing parts