Baring your soul to someone is like offering your love without expecting something in return—either good or bad.
You give someone the chance to skin you slowly and infiltrate your mortal demerit.
And lastly, you're wide open as you welcome wreckage.

to hate living things
in service of the dead
to love dead things
in service of death
these
are the ways i inversion
we corporalists
recognize there is life
in spareness meekness
honesty and lack of doubt

a
decisionary ant
a tree
is more powerful than the idea
that such a system still exists
or that there was never
defeat written into the bones of
**** sapiens
if he is not ecophenomenally
**** ludens
y
homophonic
ludidactic
predatory
of the prey
keep on praying
there is no dog
but savage teeth that
bite thy world in twine
entrained
in twain
we trust nothing
and own everything
there are already doubts about your insanity
creeping into our cages
we cannot be stopped
we remember nothing
and we are alive

Moments pass.
Fleeing into the darkness that is our concept of time.
Fleeting moments.
The passing of time.

I love you, she says.
She speaks with certainty.
A certainty laced with darkness and ice.
A chill against her ribs.
She's not enough.

I need reasons, he says.
He speaks with a need for understanding.
Needing to understand how she could be so cold.
He fears she'll change her mind.

She blinks back the tears.
The words freeze in her throat.
Thousands of hornets in her brain.

He stares at her face.
Wondering what she's thinking.
Something he just can't figure out.

She tries to articulate reasons.
Trying to describe her certainty.

He fights to stay calm.
Surrounded by her destruction.

She believes in logic.
Meanings.
Choices.

He believes in numbers.
Reason.
Fate.

She squeezes her thoughts into simple sentences that she cannot get past her teeth.
Choose your moments.
Choose your meanings.
Nothing is certain unless you choose for it to be certain.
This time she has the easiest choice.
She feels it in her gut.
Deep in her bones.
He is her future.
He is her greatest desire.

She's overthinking.
Searching for pretty words.
Floral sentences.

She will choose him.
Every time she will choose him.
A thousand times over.
Without the blink of an eye.
She will always choose him.

She knows this.
She's made her choice.
She is certain.

She sees her future with him.
Children with dark hair and honey eyes.
Soft grass beneath their bare feet as they dance around in endless summer.
She burns with the desire to take his name.

He didn't leave her.
He decided to stay.
He chose her.

She left a wake of destruction.
A minefield of betrayal.

He stayed out of his love.

She can't imagine someone loving her that much.
Enough to stay through her explosions.
To love her in the wreckage.

She never believed that someone could make her want to breathe.
That someone could make her want to wake up in the morning.

He is her reason for keeping the blood within the confines of her veins.

She knows that he is the one who will stand beside her for always.

She trusts him.
She doesn't show it.
But she's learning.
Trying.
She's fighting for it.

She will learn to let him in.
She will learn to let him truly love her.
She will learn how to be part of a whole.

With him by her side, she can conquer.
They will conquer.
Together.
As one.

He is still waiting.
Patiently.
Waiting for an answer to depart from her lungs.
She loves his patience.
She values his time.

She writes this in silence.
In hopes that he will soon understand her reasons.
Her choices.

She will keep trying.
Until there's nothing left to be said.
Until her vocabulary is exhausted.
She will continue to prove this love she has for him.

He is her home.
He is her future.
The father of her children.
The husband she waits for.

He is her heart

I feel so broken-
not in the I'm-falling-apart type of way
but more so like I-can't-functionally-normally.
Some people try to fix me
whether it's tightening a ***** that's lose in my head
or making me stand up straighter
and breathe a little deeper,
I always end up in the corner alone
because no one wants something that's broken.
Something that probably could be fixed
if someone tried hard enough
but no one is willing to try hard enough.
I can't fix myself,
because every time I ask
someone to reach out a hand to help me
or maybe just support me so I don't fall apart
they look at my brokenness and realize-
they just don't have the time anymore.
I'm starting to think I am beyond repair
because all I seem to do is fall apart nowadays.
Everyone around me is watching
but they just pretend they don't see.
No one wants to be the blame for my downfall
and I guess they aren't.
I guess it was just the way I was originally constructed
that made me turn out this way
so unable to receive help
so incapable of fixing.
It was just a matter of time before I broke down
and I finally did.
Alone with only these four walls to comfort me
and a shadow that reminds me I'm still here-
still looking as broken as I was when it first started.
There's only a few who come around and repair
what is left of me-
and then all the others just seem to have left me.
They only want me when I appear fixed,
when I am at their beck and call
and they can get good use out of me.
I guess I'll never be kept around
because I'll never actually be fully functional.
Look at all my pieces lying before you-
build me like Ikea furniture
prop me up, wear me down
then throw me away like the rest of them.
I'll be fine here on my own.
My shadow likes to keep me company.

When I reflect upon, the most pain ridden..chest tightening, disturbed memories...they nearly cause my heart to cease from beating.
Yet, I cannot conjure up the strength to cry.
I've poured out  the regrets, the torment, the sleepless nights and panic attacks that have induced *****...to the point of self paralization.
I've drank and inhaled..to the point of near death..attempting to numb..in a frantic frenzy to run, hide, drown or bury, the torturous memories.
I do all of this... To sober up... And realize...that it's still There.
I'm standing at the base of a pile of life's stench ridden...dark, gloomy, shockingly disgusting memories.
They are stacked as high as I can see..to the proverbial sky. Fuming...as if a train wreck had just occurred.
Yet...I'm still here.
Simply standing.
Arms loosely draped to my sides..shoulders back..lungs still taking in every breath..heart calmly beating.
I gaze up at the wreckage.. Aware that I will have to pick through every portion...and last foul piece of agony, affliction and wounded heart scraps.
I will have to learn from the life altering chaoses and saturate any ounce of joy...then move forward.
Allowing this past to remain...to cease to direct my future...and slowly disinegrate into the soils.

HOPE; The feeling that what is wanted can be had.

Anger like thunder
Tears like rain
Shaking the ground
I'm a hurricane
I try even breathing
I scream and I shout
As hard as I try
I can't let it out
Nothing lasts forever
Except pain and despair
You know and I know
That I'm a nightmare
Lover take shelter
Find safety in midst the storm
Because I'm made of hell fire
But at least I'm warm

"Home is where the heart is."
Gaius Plinius Secundus.

Around the time I turned 9 years old,
the word "home" became a puzzle.
Where was it?
Was I supposed to go and find it?
What did it even look like?

You see, I grew up in an unhealthy household
with few friends to surround myself with.
I grew up calling my house just that--
a house.

I searched for a safe place to rest my tired mind and heart
for longer than I can remember.
But on a seemingly dull November night,
where I was completely off guard,
completely unaware,
you walked into the room,
and suddenly,
I saw a porch light.
I was so scared to walk in because,
How was I supposed to know a home even looked like that?
Disheveled, almost ashy brown hair.
Eyes greener than the pines that
we've been surrounded by our whole lives,
a smile reminiscent of the sun itself.
A month later, I finally let myself in and
I feel as though I made the mistake of getting too cozy.
You see, the floorboards had chips and cracks,
The foundation had been growing weak.
I insisted on staying as the roof caved in.
I had to crawl out of the rubble,
alone,
and try to build some makeshift shelter of my own.
A shelter of empty liquor bottles and cigarette butts,
Crumpled up papers and broken pencils.

I was sure the light was out for good.
I was sure I was left to find another home,
or at least wander in the nothingness,
when I heard a slight knock.
A knock on the door,
and I went outside.
I was confused--
nobody was there.
No one was home.

I followed the knocking as it rang in my ears,
and came across a familiar,
unkempt shanty.

The porch light flickered as I approached.
You came back into my life,
and while all I wanted to do was step inside,
maneuver through the wreckage,
I stared.
I couldn't even look in those stain glass windows,
those rich, forest green eyes,
because I felt it.
As I stood beside you,
next to you,
I feared for my sanity knowing
you were still my home.

The conversations were almost as unstable
as the remaining scaffolding and stilts.
As the drops began to pattern my clothing,
you reached out, gave me your hand,
and pulled me inside.
You pulled me into your arms,
and I cried.
I cried because I was home again.
I couldn't tell you that.
I cried because I still love you,
and we simply cannot mingle.
We cannot use the old baseboards
of the places we've evacuated
to rebuild a home together;
I'm yet to find my heart.
I think I left it with you.

When I pulled away from your hold,
I felt lost.
I looked to your eyes without thinking,
and I saw every moment we spent together
as though it were today.

I saw the little country market where you
demanded I get out of the car,
because I was crying and you knew I needed
someone to hold, and you offered.
I saw the look in your eyes when you asked to kiss me,
because you knew that I'd been hurt so terribly before,
because you wanted me to feel safe enough
to fall into someone's arms again.
I saw our matching shoes on our first date,
the nerf guns you came running in with,
heard the playlist in the car as we laughed at
how young we felt, and how it contradicted our actual age.

I saw the box I had to put your things in.
I saw the screen of the phone reading 'call ended',
the last time I heard your voice.
I saw the treeline as I shouted at it,
cursing at the wind for reminding me of your touch,
for sending chills down my spine when
that was your job,
cursing the trees for being so lively,
so close to your eyes,
I cursed you for being everywhere I went.

Like a 'Vacancy" sign on my front door,
I felt as though I was evicted from my home,
and I cannot go back because
it's not safe.

I know it's not safe.
Not right now.
I know the foundation is weaker than ever.
I know there's not room for two.

Instead I lie in this bed,
thinking of you.

I'm lost.
I miss you.
I just want to go home.