My brain has become my worst enemy, it tells me I’m worthless, and I know it’s true.
It tells me all I do is make people’s lives harder, and it’s right.
It tells me that I’m the **** of the earth and I know it’s true.
it tells me that the world would have been better without me, and it’s right.
It tells me that everything I do, I do wrong, and it’s right.
It tells me that other people don’t care, and they don’t.
It tells me not to get them involved, but I try anyway. And when it fails I’m not surprised.
It tells me what if, what if I was never born, what if I just vanished, what if, I was better.
To answer those questions, the world would be better, no one would care, and I need to be.
But my best isn’t enough. And I’m told I will never be enough, and I know it’s true.
it’s not me, except it is entirely me, it tells me I’m a failure and I know it’s true.
What if, what if, what if I could do something right, no, anything right,
then maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be true.
Because it tells me I’m worthless and I know it’s true.

Way too often I find the child within this overgrown shell. He hides in the crack in the slab.

                      Longingly he stares back at me with those deep blue eyes and smiles at me  -  as if he knows who I am inside.

                                     Who I really am.
                                             Who we really are.


                                                       I

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              It burns in my eyes.

He just stands there, looking at me. Then he reaches out his hand toward me.

                                         I awake alone.

- Shepherd, 1-12-20

Absence is a strange occurrence,
a shapeshifter manifesting
in the most trivial things.
A presence where there is none.
Something never entirely gone.

He breaks my heart
And peels my eyes
Open to the world,
No, I’m not a broken girl.

He’s the reminder
That my mask can be removed;
I don’t have to hide,
In him, I confide.

Emotional chaos
Disguised as playing victim.
He called out my delusion,
It was no intrusion.

He softens my feelings
But hardens my spine;
He nurtures me to health
And teaches me of my wealth.

Yes he breaks my heart,
He tears it wide open
So that the rivers may flow again.
He makes me feel whole again.

You never act like a boy,
or a girl,
You act neither,
let me give you some reminders:

You walk neither,
sway your hands in ambiguity,
don’t carry with you a briefcase or a feather duster –

Talk neither,
the tone of your voice must be the interim of everything,
if it would have colors it must be colorless,
not dark navy nor shallow pink.

Think neither,
meaning you think without personality.
you don’t scatter petals prior the arguments,
nor you hide stringencies behind moon blasts –

You become neither –
you call no one man, nor woman woman,
you call every one neither –

So smile neither,
meaning you don’t smirk,
or coyly carve a canopy on your face,

it’s offending.

You don’t want to offend anyone, do you?
Neither do I.

crazy as it may sound
but I can still feel you around.

pineapples still remind me of your smell
making me wonder whether you went to heaven or hell...
it must be hell.
for we've been partners in crime
and love criminals don't deserve to die prime.

oceans still mind me of your eyes
which were the same color as the morning skies,
the skies we used to stare at for hours,
the skies you live in now as one of the zillion stars,

and now there are just memories I hold on to
and a void in my life that can be filled by only you.
you left this world,
you left me behind,
and now I have one less friend
who was one of a kind.

We love each other broken,
and maybe that’s our curse.
I catch my reflection in glassy shards of you,
scattered across countless hotel room floors.

Mirrors,
relentless reminders
of the things we love
and can’t stand.

Everything and nothing.
Together and alone.
Here and there.
I can’t be in this body;

Exit stage left when bloodied soles
remind me of my inability to make you whole.
Imminent failure lingers over me;
a wet blanket putting out a fire
that was never meant for fighting.