Am I to be forever maimed
By a childhood I did not devise
Pulled down from every step I've gained
By the phantoms of my night
That twist and shift and leave me bare
In that harshest light of scorn-
That cannot be explained away
And haunt me even as I  rise
To struggle up the stairs again.
                          ljm

How many ways are there to hate
To loathe, despise, and vilify.
How many fantasies can you build
Where evil returns to those who birthed it.

How many kinds are there of hate.
Cold as an ice floe or burning hot.
Sharper than a scalpel blade, or
Duller than a breaking heart.

How do you work with so much hate.
Build a stair and climb above it
Or fabricate a prison cell
That robs you of the sun.

How do you learn to  swallow hate
And **** it out the other end
Without it tearing up your guts
And leaving you a *******.

How do you spell the names of hate
In blood or bile on ***** walls -
Or glitter on the seaside sand
While waiting for the tide to ebb.

How do you give back so much hate -
Fed Ex will not deliver it.
A carrier pigeon could not fly
With such a heavy parcel.

How do you juggle such mountains of hate
And not miss a catch and be buried.
How do you drop it at the edge of the road
And travel on unburdened.

Please, somebody, tell me.
                         ljm

I never asked you to stay.
I didn't expect concrete to form
around your feet
or give you a leash to keep close.
All I wanted for was company
at the times I wanted to
remember how a heart beats.
It isn't enough to brush your leg
or accept your embracing touch.
I liked reminding myself I'm
not the only one with
permanent damage and
tracing your skin helped
to instill in my thoughts
that maybe someone
had ruined you too.
Just maybe my outline
wasn't strong enough and
Your shell had no choice
but to crack

It's like having phantom limbs,
All protruding from random points on your body.
Sometimes it's like having limbs where there should be nothing,
And your brain is telling you that your hand must've taken a wrong turn.
I want to touch parts of me that don't exist
Outside of the empty vacuum of dreams.
I want to drag the scalpel across my own skin
And rip out the heavy weight of the tissue that drags me down.
Most of the time it's something I fixate on multiple times throughout the day.
Sometimes the worst-case scenario takes hold,
And on those days I've got a serrated knife in my hand,
I'm trying to find a reason to put it down.
I almost always put it down, if only out of vanity.
If only for the return of sanity.
So I breathe, I try to gain more air than is possible
Because the heaviest weight tends to be lying on my chest.
I breathe enough to return to passive fixation,
Where it's like an obsession and I'm stalking my own downfall.
I just want to touch the parts of me that don't exist.
I want to feel that they exist.
I need to know that I exist.