I don't know if I ever had hope at all.

I don't think I could handle it:
That crushing feeling of never being good enough.
Hoping has let me down so many times before, I'm tired of coping through misery.

And if I'm afraid to love then it was learned through disaster.
Too many sudden stops of the heart after it kept beating faster and faster.
It's scarred so much more than before.

I don't think I can handle it.

Oh love, that crippling defeat.

I write in fragments,
Becoming more stagnant
'Til I write nothing at all.

And so I falter:
Stammer, stutter, stumble.
Mumble. As my words crumble.

These notebooks I've filled?
Toss them. Tear pages out.
Destroy it; fury unbound.

Let's dissect the hate.
I'd hate to disappoint.
Disappointment? I digress.

So tell me what you think of when your whole world collapses, leaves you brokenhearted and it leaves you worthless, breathless.

So tell me how you're coping. Keeping copacetic. When at first you walked on water, and now you're just submerged.

And if you fear your self destruction. Can I tell you I fear mine?

Gray streets where cracks marble the asphalt.
Long walks and each foot step echoes.
Dim lights casting shadow on shadow.
Headed northbound - southbound - every which way the road goes.

The chill wind questions in whispered timbre.
The leaves answer in their choir of rustled refrain.
The trees moan with a creak and whistling sway.
The body feels tired and if the heart feels nothing, it feels everything in spades.

Searching dark streets for the answer for everything.
And cracking knees and the clatter of rubber soles.
Hands in pocket to protect from the autumn cold.
And winter's coming, and I can feel it's death in the depths of my very soul.

Bitter biting of nose and with gnashing teeth.
I travel further in search of finding everything.
The wind breaks and leaves whistle and the cold sings.
To harken the demons of malcontent and of apathy.

So at crossroads, I scream and I beg and I plead.
I wrestle with these demons and with the cross I bear.
And if I can't find an answer, I do not think I can care.
So I'll trade these arms for wings to take me away from there.

I painted all the walls in my room a mix of black and blue. Except for a small part above the window, I painted red. And that was you.

So when you came in with a fury, the anger of a hurricane would look at the piece I called love and be subdued.

Instead of trading in our last dance for broken granite for the heart wrenching eternity of a tomb, I beseech thee to cast out your doubt, your insecurities, shed the armor that protects you.

And open up, and let me in, betray all of the worst you hide inside you. Fear not my love, nor my ambitions, for I have nestled my heart within you.

You stopped cutting your skin so you're cutting your ties now, to help you feel strong but you're just feeling alone and the things that you feel just make your heart sink like a stone.

If it's hard to relate it's because you don't have enough time. So you sit there in school and get drunk off of cheap wine. And you're not feeling loved so you wonder who will sleep with you tonight.

And since the last time, I don't think I can stand you. You play my guitar and sing hallelujah. You won't look at me twice and I think it's alright if you just say good bye for now.

You went off to college and followed in her foot steps. Blank stare and things best left unsaid. You never said "so long." You just left it all instead.

It's funny how time has a way of changing things but it never changed the way I felt about you.

And oh, how everything about our relationship seemed to be hopelessly lost. And how the ending had to be, inevitably, tragic.

It was obvious that no amount of ink, nor paper, would suffice in any effort to hold us together. No notebook of words to define or describe ( or attempt to) the feelings both mutual and unshared would have ever been enough.

And so now letters sit, piling up, in notebooks and on countertops. Inside desk drawers and in trunks of cars and trash cans. The poetry trickles slowly on to paper or phone messages.

And if it's true that I wasn't enough or that you weren't the right one anyway, then I guess there's nothing to be sore at; neither of us can shoulder the blame.

I suppose, in the end, everything falls apart.

I did.

If there is one thing of which I am sure, of which I know,
Is that if love suffers at all then it suffers alone.

Standing on bridges,
Feeling something I don't know how to explain.
Seeing headlights,
And taillights disappearing around curves.

Hearing how the overpass sings to me
Of hope and forgiveness, quiet contemplation.

These conversations aren't working.

It's distressing to find out all my friends are strangers.