Life is Hard, Weird and Beautiful
Smile Or Cry About It
But Whatever You Choose
*******, You Gotta Feel

last. words.

You want to give me the speech
you want to act like I haven't heard it before
assume you've existed purely for this moment

that death
dying
don't
refer to me
first

my own worst enemy
these words trail
down the stairs
morph a train
behind ankles
as the morning coffee begins to percolate
they don't just sing me to sleep
they roll over just as Im starting to slip into a dreamless night
and bite the end of my ear
nibble away
licking my neck until
I pulse only for them
how each moment
each passing breath
I cannot forget
when the time ran out
for each fragile discipline of atoms, molecules
I loved so tenderly

as they slowly exited my life
as I severed them from my cerebral cortex to protect myself
as they jumped from the tallest bridge in Portland
shoved the needle deeper into their skin

left me to remember them
left me to forget them
left me to watch as each leaf falls to the ground
wave crashes around my knees

grief
will sing me to sleep
I'm
my
own
worst
enemy.

Have you ever felt it all just building up inside of you
For so many years
That you just know you’ll have to break down eventually
And you don’t know when
But eventually you’ll break.
But you’re trying really really hard not to,
So hard you kind of convince yourself
That maybe you can hold it together just a bit longer,
Long enough.
And then all of a sudden something happens,
Something so small it probably went unnoticed,
But something so big it was enough to break you
The hell straw that broke the broken horse’s back
And all of a sudden everything comes flooding back
And you’re in the middle of a breakdown,
Praying that maybe this time someone will care,
Maybe the right person will see,
Maybe someone will at least try to understand,
But no.
Because you’re only broken on the inside
And there’s really nothing wrong.

Like silent rafts in trodden streams
The candle's fire fights through the wind
Unconquerable by gusts of melancholy
It never extinguishes and the water gleams.

The soul of a young girl captains the vessel
Her fear diminished, though grave it is
And the home nearby makes a dreadful noise
With her nightmarish life, she continues to wrestle

And the flame of the candle must breathe as well
The air of the heart of the fire is of inky smoke
That girl's life was a living Hell
And from her nightmare she never awoke

But she still lives on in the dim, red flame
The burst of light in the wick is just the same
And the silent, paper rafts with the candles in the stream
To this day navigate, to the hopeful, still they gleam

Does the breeze raise your skin?
Does the sun catch your hair?
Do you feel the soft grass,
By the stream when you're there?