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Didn’t I give you everything?
Laid my soul bare, stripped myself to nothing,
Held out my heart in trembling hands,
But would it ever have been enough?

Did I fail in ways I never saw?
Or did you simply stop wanting me,
A shadow you forgot to miss,
A whisper swallowed by the wind?

Still, how can you turn so easily,
Step past my shattered pleas,
Leave me staring down an empty road,
That once held both our footprints?

Take it all – every moment, every breath,
Carry my love like dust on your skin,
Don’t turn to see me break.

I could leave too, if it made you see,
That nothing out there will ever be us,
That what we had was everything,
Is this really the end?

I thought love fought harder than this.

Take it all – every hug, every kiss,
Let me rot in the silence you left behind,
Take it all.

I will bend, I will break,
I will twist myself into something new,
If it means you’ll turn around,
If it means you’ll come home.

But you never asked me to.
You never even looked back.
You left it all, every promise, every dream,
Let me crumble unseen, unheard,

So, go,
Take it all – take the pieces of me,
Take this pain I feel,
Turn away from the wreckage of us
And walk into a life where I do not exist.

Take it all.
We never seem to line things up.
Why is it such a fight?
We circle round and round again
but nothing turns out right.
We spread our wings into the wind
both self-emerged in flight,
but all we end up being is…
birds passing in the night.
When we were new
we had no peeling paper.
Every chromatic awed
and our frames were flawless.

We had all the potential
to be masterpieces
matching the images
we painted for ourselves.

Then someone came
and stole our corners
made off with our edges
peeled away the lamination

They folded our wishes,
dropped some in their coffee
used them to level their tables.
In droves they would visit

The boxes showed no wear
until the lids came off
and the count would be deemed
inadequate for an optimal build.

Puzzlers would come to sit
with hopes of a calming chat
but once the stickers told the price
they left and didn’t come back
You’ll ask how I am
And I’ll say that I’m fine
Then you’ll give that look
Like I’m being snide

If you knew how my anger
was the last to survive
how affection eludes me
as I’m boiling inside

If you peeked at the shadow
snaring my thoughts
and the vortex of voices
pushing sinister plots

If you felt how my stomach
refuses to eat
or heard my mind screaming
to race into the street

If you held my confusion
in the palm of your hand
you’d crumble to pieces
and ask how I stand

If you learned of the stats
in regard to my mind
you’d see that my ******
will likely be mine

So when you ask how I’m doing
And I say that I’m fine,
know I’m over the bar
simply being alive
I should eat
a cake to celebrate my victories
over inherited Goliaths.
Instead my face is gaunt,
stoneless and lacking heroism,
while my mind starves for nutrients

I should eat.
Because this was my dream,
a house no one can enter
filled with unshared favorites.
I stare into the stove
yearning to climb in and sleep

I should eat.
To stop the searing in my chest
the quaking of my hands
the static in my ears
as I stare into the stove
yearning to climb in and sleep.

I should eat.
How long have I been here?
Shoulder bruised on linoleum,
cooling as I lie here
staring into the stove
yearning to climb in and sleep
You’re going to eat me someday, aren’t you?
You’re hovering when I wash my face
lingering behind the fridge door
crouching when my back is turned,
feeding my clothes to the dryer
You clash my thoughts against each other
until I barely know I’m awake

You’ll sink your teeth into my hip
while I sprint up the stairs.
You’ll snap my arm off
as I fumble with my keys
snap my ankle
as I leap for a drain pipe,
shatter my skull
while I’m clawing a riverbank

Everywhere I go
you’ll be there.
Every time I rest
you will take a bite.

You’re going to eat me someday, aren’t you?
and no one will be surprised
Tell me how we are to defeat
a ravenous constant maelstrom
when our only weapons
are prescribed
by a fighter who sees battle
but 45 minutes at at time

What good is armor
with no memory of war?
What can I do with a sword
sharpened only once a month?
Why do I take orders from you,
the most incompetent leader?

My fists are clenched but will not fly
because of the power you have over me
You could mislead me and I would die
but somehow I’m the liability
You’re in the deepening blackness
that chases the sunset to my window
and the dread creeping beneath my skin.
The Old Fear fizzes in my ears
with hypnotic need to leap from up high

The quiet is steeped in evil
that plays the creaking doorway
and the footsteps to my bed
on loop in this sleepless unease
through a megaphone long broken

The bright icy claw of something
invisible catches up to me,
freezing my eyes and halting my chest.
I’m a prison – a waking corpse
and you don’t even know you’re here
I want to drift lightly above the earth
carrying sunshine on my wings
Horizon eyes, ablaze with good
showering laughter that sings

Seeking purposeful destination
always wilting when encaged
Never a mind more colorful
always brilliant, never strange

Mysteriously I’ll fly untethered
at times entirely against the wind
Your heart would flutter if ever you saw me
and not beat until you glimpsed me again
I’m maddened at how
one night of lost sleep
launches you
into every shelf
of glass achievements
until there’s nothing
of your lifetime work.

But the way
you kaleidoscope
stained glass cathedrals,
bright chapels and shrines
from the crystal heap
will always
weaken my knees and
be magic to me.
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