Obsidian ink courses through my veins,
antiquated insults tattooing my tissue,
repressed memories parasitizing my skin;
these open wounds have festered for too long,
rotten pus oozing from within. Emotional apathy
is something I yearn for, the desire to simply forget
the love I once convinced myself I held for you.

Several attempts have been made
to erase the blemishes on my persona;
anxiety, self-consciousness, suicidal tendencies
have adorned the walls of my healing,
a journey I've embarked on with no light
to lead the way. I've tried and failed,
prided and embarrassed myself,  
built identities I wished I had,
convincing myself they were endemic to me.

I've traversed the landscapes of undulating hills
dotting the horizon of nostalgic optimism,
isolated myself away from civilization,
lost the friends who prevented my downfall,
forgotten the names of those who wished to save me
from my own destructive tendencies, eventual crumbling.

I've thrown a blanket over my tumbling life,
donned a mask of confident supremacy
as to not humiliate myself for yet another time.
I've viewed myself as a pathetic usurper
of the throne of worthiness, too weak
to wear the crown of deserved exuberance,
unaware of the weight my trauma exuded
onto the entirety of my faltering body and mind.

A ritual of morning nausea riddles my routine,
throbbing headaches stapled into my cerebrum,
****** shakes and dripping tears from the words
of others who remind me so starkly of you. I've laid
hands on others who wish to view me as you did,
flashes of vibrant red obscuring the clarity of my view,
a vacant disguise devoid of authenticity,
displaced by a sense of dysphoric delusion.

I wish to redact the love I almost died for,
a valiant knight falling in the line of battle,
unaware of the forgotten valor soon to follow.
As I awake to the next day, I hold onto a new
sense of gratitude, one that has never seemed
to arise in my lightest of days. It is difficult
for me to search in the future, uncertain whether
my two feet will be implanted into the dirt
at any given time. I have lived in a torturous
temptation of the anger I harbor deep within.

Purple inflammation underneath my eyes
has become a fundamental aspect of my
everyday appearance; exhaustion plagues
my daily experiences, and I can feel
myself slowly losing life at the hands
of you – yes, I do resent you.

I do. I do. I do.

This page, stained with the blood
of every dream you disemboweled,
crumbles underneath the weight
each word carries from the past;
my brain is home to a nest of hornets,
eager to pounce on perceived threats
often falsified in the face of distress.

I should release the restraints of the past,
drop the reins of the reign you once held
over the facets of my life, every nook
storing my deepest fears from the light
of day, the ones I hoped would never
turn true, only to find them arisen
as prophetical visions of our destiny.

This torture has endured for too long,
and the forgiveness I find myself
searching for continues to evade
my mindful cognizance. I’ve tried
to accept the faults parried onto me,
yet closure’s absence acts as an obstacle
preventing me from pardoning your sins.

This is the death of what I’ve held for too long,
a eulogy for the remnants of our shredded portrait,
its parchment slowly decomposing, pieces wafting
away in the breeze of the bay, reminiscent of memories
rusted with double-edged silence, slices of past lives
stitched together with the woven thread of trauma.
Page upon page stapled together, tangible reminders
of declassified documents detailing the secrets of us;
stylistic differences in poetical works may inhibit
the comprehension of such dense material, yet the
manuscript of my emptiness can only be conveyed
through such solidity. I approach the day when
my commentary begins to dissipate, fading into
a personification of demonstrative apathy. I wave
goodbye to the eagles, release my grip on Andrews
and our bench propped against our lake’s shoreline,
close my eyes and envision the pink skies of Manhattan
without your silhouette blocking the view, taste the ramen
spilt onto the grasses of Central Park, inhale the aroma
of midnight amateurs huddled over a pan of pasta. Yes,
this is the death of what I’ve held for too long.

She is a single mother
who falters at the rise
of the moon; insomnia
dictates her daily ritual,
a plethora of anxieties
dripping down her cheeks
as beads of worrisome tears.

She's watched her son grow
alongside her own maturation,
teenage dreams mitigated by
the emergence of a new blessing,
one she never expected would come.

She is a warrior in the face of struggle,
her determination overpowering
the very odds stacked against her;
her refusal to submit reflects the reverence
attached to her newfound responsibilities,
a simplistic acknowledgement that she is
more than she would have ever guessed.

She reigns in a world of capitalistic greed,
self-sacrificing her needs for those of the eyes
looking into hers each night; although each
abhorrent remark penetrates her skin,
her ability to withstand the torture elicits
a sense of unconditional love only reserved
for those holding a dim candle in the darkest
of nights -- she is a fighter, a dreamer, a mother.

I told your mother
that I loved her new hair,
gazed into eyes of cousins
I thought I'd long forgotten,
chuckling at their surprise
to see me once again.
I furrowed my eyebrows
when my parents welcomed
yours with open arms, an
obscure and intrusive thought
battling with long-held affirmations,
juxtaposing with the winds of solace
wafting brazenly in the fog of my mind.  

I'm left in a state of puzzlement,
localizing the loose ends
tucked inside desolate memories,
those remaining from no closure
and awaiting death from exposure
to newfound sights and scenes,
novel experiences with no pretense
or authoritative ownership from you.

I fear the power of elongated naps,
allowing myself the privilege
to memorialize the dreams
conjured from emotions repressed;
it is here where I am most vulnerable,
receptive to the blind-sided attacks
I mistakenly delegated elsewhere,
somewhere I believed would stay hidden,
away from the realities devoid of closure.

It is closure that I most wish I had;
the absence of this finality remains pervasive,
and I am unsure if complete healing
can ever be attained. Perhaps I will forever
be splintered from the wounds of my past,
calloused patches on my skin
reminiscent of names I dream of forgetting.

I love
that I don't hate myself,
but I hate
that I don't love myself.

I envy the amnesia
you weave through
the fabric of your
reflective recollections;
your tapestry is ruined
by the blatant narcissism
embedded into the linen.  

You've been eroded with lost time,
stained by spilt wine,
left behind in the cobwebbed-crevices
of our mind, a struggle to survive
the depravity of your kind.

The Fourth of May
passes with ease,
cohesive stitches
etched across my skin,
the only reminder
of your tattooed sins,
the very ones I always condemned.

I clutch a pendant of thorns,
squeezing tighter and bleeding brighter --
I adorn myself with these niceties,
selfless gifts from the generosity of my impulsivity,
timeless fragments of an era,
one that passed me by too soon.

I envisioned these days so often,
fearful of the independence soon to come.
Repression has surpassed to grant this favor
of forgetful remembrance –
or perhaps my memory you’ve stripped as well.

Loneliness stalks even the proudest of prey,
probing the crevices stashed deep away
to betray the very promises endemic to your core.


Now do I savor the silence I once abhorred.


I lie and I listen to the serenity all around,
obscurities of the day whispering from my walls
as an auburn Cardinal serenades from outside.

The moon beckons me near, apologetic murmurs
of her needless façade from the past –
a revered box fan underwhelms the silence
and disperses my diffused Siberian fir,
crips notes of pine and aromatic wintergreen
to soothe the comfort of my nightly routine.


Now do I know myself more than ever before.