Laying in my bed curled up
Acid in my throat because I didn’t eat
Clenching my fists around my blankets because I can’t sleep

Are you thinking of me?
Laying in a tent, uncomfortably,
Snuggling close to your fluffy white dog or your younger brother to stay warm.

Are you missing me?
No. Not the way I’m missing you
You’re not thinking of me the way I’m thinking of you
And though it means the world to me that a beautiful soul like yours is friends with a storm cloud like me, it shatters my heart into thousands of sharp, jagged pieces that you’re
~ just ~
my friend.

“I’m sorry but I need to know, is it mutual? It’s alright if it’s a no, I can handle it, I just want you...to be honest”
A pause...
Then the raindrop falls.
“Right now, it’s a no”

Ripples.
Right now.
Right now.
Right now.
No.
No.
No.
STOP.
I care about you so much, I know I need to let you go, so you would never read this, and I would never show anyone this.
It’s all swirling around in my chest, faster and faster until it explodes, word ***** and tears.
I love you.

I didn’t tell you I loved you, only that I had feelings for you.
Why bother? It would’ve made things more painful for me, more bitter for you.

But I can’t show you this.
I don’t want you to change.
I don’t want you to change the way you speak to me, to change your mind when you’re about to type a heart emoji,
to stop yourself after just saying “goodnight” and leave out the “baby”

This is my undoing, not yours, and I want you to keep letting me be your anchor, your shoulder, your shield, my open arms waiting to catch you when you tumble from your flight.
I can’t keep loving you, I can’t stop loving you.
I want to stop feeling at all.

This is a tale of love and a tangled lie,
An apology.
A letter to a brown eyed firefly.
Our players being a naive spark,
Lost in feelings without a map
A broken, bittersweet charmer,
A dancing, reading dreamer with his face always turned to the skies,
And of course, the rosy orange firefly with warm coffee-bean eyes.
I hope that fireflies can glow a rosy orange, but my knowledge on this matter can’t be promised.
We live in a dreary place, one without lightning bugs to keep us honest.

A charming schemer once began to toy with a young, carefree spark,
Pushed her away when she got too close.
He tried to win her back, trying for a fresh, clean start
But soon he realized her trust was something to earn.
She was frighteningly cold when she was angry,
But even frozen, sparks have a tendency to burn.

As she brooded, pain and confusion kicking up a spiteful flame,
The bitter boy found a firefly, another pretty light with whom to play his game.

The spark’s young heart began to thaw, but the charmer continued to play and tease.
Wanting to shield herself from heartbreak, the spark turned her attention to a dancing, stargazing dreamer.
He made her feel much more at ease.

Firefly whispered to the spark, in girlish gossip,
Admitting to a love affair with the charmer, whose lips she could only describe as delicious.
But to the firefly’s chagrin, the bitter boy had demanded that their romance remain surreptitious.

The reading dreamer had a beautiful mind, his intelligence capturing spark’s glow.
But his lust for her, while with respect, was not something she cared to know.
Caught in a romance with the dreamer boy, while her desire for the charmer began to grow.

And so the game of cat and mouse resumed, until the spark succumbed to a kiss, too great was the desire.
The charmer told her there was no one else...
Poor firefly. Her lover was a liar.

A bruised plum mark seared into her neck
Dimmed the spark’s glow in burning shame.
Next day when told that charmer boy had left his firefly, she cursed herself, for she was the one to blame.

Such a tangled web of lies, all from the foolish girl’s mistake.
She’d tried to force a romance with her starry-eyed dreamer boy,
In finding that his feelings were one-sided, she’d tried to feel something new
With someone who treated her as if she were a plaything, just a toy.

And out of debt and friendship,
she comforted poor firefly, with words like balm, but all in vain:
For when the leaves turned yellow, charmer and firefly were in bed together, just the same.
But this time, charmer called it a dalliance, and but a pitiful echo of romance and sweetness remained.

Confusion thickened in the mapless maze, when once the firefly let slip
Ephemeral infatuation had overcome her in the spring when looking at the spark,
And all the lanterns of the maze were dimmed,
Wavering flickers in the hazy dark.

But truth came quickly to her mind,
As spark dreamed more and more of the firefly,
Spark loved her soul, her soft full lips,
And in doing so, she condemned her own youthful heart to die.

Oh such sweet torture fate had concocted for the foolish spark.
To crave the one she had betrayed.
To carry a love unrequited, all while watching the firefly’s innocent kindness be wasted away.

And this, dear readers, is the last chapter of this tale.
The spark left the dreamer, realizing her heart had been hiding behind a flimsy veil,
For she found herself more drawn to nymphs than gods.
And now there are three suffering heartbreak,
The dreamer missing his bright spark, the firefly wishing for just a simple date,
The spark knowing she’ll have to let a fate with the firefly slip away.
If only I had known my actions would cause you this much pain.

And so,
I’d like to apologize.
I can’t do it in person,
Cowardice being my excuse.
I can’t even call you by your proper name, because you can’t know this letter is for you.
So in my writing, you were a firefly.
A firefly burned by a spark.
And as a spark I’ve yet to learn,
Altruistic in every other path of life,
Not to yield to Selfishness:
The vice that doomed my soul to burn.

How oddly comforting it is to live in a place where we’re never alone,
Where a friend to talk to,
Or perhaps a long-since past captured moment
All live inside the screen of a phone.

Where we seek momentarily vibrant entertainment,
A single click away from any form of instant gratification,
Thirty seconds of an advertisement are too long a wait
To listen to an empty, hollow song.
There is no more journey, only destination.

Teased for anything that makes one stand out,
Young boys and girls are taught to be vain.
Flooded with images of perfection
Who needs uniqueness when we can all be the same?

Neon signs, boastful words, glimmering lights,
“Progress”, we call it,
Conceal the smoke and grime,
The poisoned seas and wheezing forests.
Yet we never take the hint,
Even when it’s plastered around, a collection of signs
Pushing our problems on the next generation to solve,
We’ve made it this far, so we’ll never die…
Right?

Society is split,
And it was greedy hands that cut the cake,
Making it look like a chart,
Of the pie variety,
One of the ones that has one vast, delicious chunk,
And the rest is so small
That the figures are written off to the side.
Just crumbs left to eat for the frightening numbers of those
Born below that line
Such twisted irony:
For the one of the cheapest foods in the store
Is flour.

No happiness for the ones at the bottom
Except for patriotic half-truths.
“All men are created equal.”
So are bricks I suppose.
Except that in a pyramid, most are destined to lay
Close to the ground,
Worn, chipped, and dust-covered,
And but a few gleam in the golden rays of the sun,
The few on top, bathed in wealth.
But without its base, the system will crumble.
At least that’s what they say.

So we let ourselves be told how to think,
Never looking outside our bottles and bubbles for the source of reasoning.
“She’s a sinner, he’s just lazy.”
Such cruel things about unfortunate souls
The crowd can say.
But why?
“Because they chose to be that way.”
It’s simple of course, when only the individual
Can be to blame.

Society’s sentencing
Replacing the need for a God in a way,
Chains of morality, while amorphous through time
Have always been and will always stay.

And we judge without stopping to think,
Who told us that this is the way to think,
To think about why it is that we think
In this way.

Floating inside our bubbles and bottles,
Too steeped in others’ thoughts and words
To lift our chins,
Look around
And think of our own.

We’re ever marching forward,
To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
Effectively staying in place.
Though the landscape around us ebbs and flows
In our nature,
Essentially we never changed.

Laying outside on a creaky old balcony,
On our backs, tangled up together in heavy blankets,
Rubbing our hands and ears
Because they’re getting numb
Thankful for the summer’s gentle night

I drew my eyes away
From the graceful Venus in the South,
A lone golden light shining wistfully
And I finally found the shape of the Big Dipper.
I stare at its lowest corners’ bright star,
An unfathomable size, and even greater distance away
Making me feel infinitely small
Infinitely calm
I trace with my gaze its tail
As icy white sparks fly lightning fast
Through the dripping-ink sky
And burn out faster than a blink,
Barely caught by our drifting eyes

The three of us talk, I sing, maybe to stay awake or maybe to pass the time
Bohemian Rhapsody’s bittersweet melody never sounded so pleasing to me as at 2 in the morning.
Our chatter of secrets is punctuated by gasps
Of us pointing out those bright streaks

We all make wishes,
For love, for luck, for answers
As celestial raindrops keep reaching across the sky
One bright orange jewel with a lavender tail
Burns beautifully by

I wonder why people make wishes upon something that’s dying,
Though spectacular, at the end of its life
“People wish upon things of the heavens”
Is your beautiful reply.

As silence settles, and a kingdom of faint bronze on haunting ebony appears,
A scrawny lion spins a broken record in my ringing ear.

Weighted walnuts, or perhaps slow bullets, strike just below the spot where my ribs meet:
Mental hiccups.
Sentencing the calm to its defeat.

Then they come,
Crashing over my skin in icy waves,
Like ghostly spiders, leave raised footprints in their hurried wake.

Imagined strings lifting my hand towards the pin or blade,
Weightless ropes pulling my steps closer to the precipice.
The lazy, stilling terror in my stomach providing just enough weight
To keep me frozen in place.

They wrench open the doors protecting peace,
Obliterate the floodgates of my internal screams,
Marching in with their roiling hellhounds, uninvited,
Chanting horrid songs, voicing their desires, unrequited.

Over and over, their wretched requests bring horrific imagery about,
When they finally subside, taking with them prowling demons and low growls,
They neglect to close the door on their way out.

Waking up without a telltale dryness in my eyes,
The morning grey light’s cool blue tinge caressing my cheeks
I step outside.

Gone are hollow, yellow air and hauntingly pink sun, of diluted blood
Replaced by a spongy sky.
Replaced a clatter across dry leaves, a creak of thirsty trees, like snapping and groaning bones
Coolness drips into my hair and drizzles on my arms

Wash away this acrid flavor from my lips,
Carry the dust and drying weeds from my lungs,
Bring blossoms to the thorny brambles tangling my ribs

Settle on my eyelashes,
Fresher than all this dry fear
Trickle down my throat and cool away the dancing fire demons
Tormenting my soul.

Soothe my splintered state of mind,
Turn cracked earth to loamy mud
Wash the dreading from my veins,
Bringing life to blood.

Streaming sunlight and horse tails lightly swaying in the breeze, flicked lazily at gadflies.
Hoarse dove cries echo hauntingly as I wander across lush grass, towards the murky pond.
Dry, splintery boards of the rickety grey dock creak under my feet. Stone still, opaque brown-green water lies beneath. I close my eyes, resting my hands on the railing, letting the euphonious melody of rasping doves, cheeky robins, and other chirping birds blend with the bubbling sound of running water in the distance, and wash over me. The water bubbles and froths, it has a foamy sound, not as clear and ringing as streams and fountains back home.
Carefree.
Bullfrogs splish and dart into the silty pondweed.
It’s all as if this little world requires no purpose, it’s enough that it simply... is.
If only I could find peace in simply existing. Freedom to just be.

We were stumbling back to the car, late at night on aching feet,
Our worn out voices sounding raspy and weak
Makeup smudging on our eyelids and cheeks

Arms entangled, it started with you looping your arm through mine,
Then my hand found its way to your shoulder
And somehow we were holding hands again
It was all a blur.

Your words were slow and slurring
As if you were thinking through honey
For me not so,
my mind quick as ever to put my thoughts into words

Instead my insides felt fizzy
Your blurring remarks making me giggly.
“That’s a church”
You mutter faintly,
Waving a hand towards the Cathedral
Giggles escape from my mouth,
Growing into laughter
I try to make it sound dainty.

Perhaps the passerby thought we were drunk,
But we hadn’t had a sip of alcohol
You were drunk on tiredness and music
And I was high on dying love and music.

Let me thank your fingertips,
Firm caress against my lips,
Please accept this loving gift,
Yours to do with as you wish.

Persistent touch around my neck,
It keeps me in your gentle grip.

Paint a garden on my skin,
Dewdrops on a rosy flush,
Strokes to wear the canvas thin,
Make me pure in willing blush.

Yellow, and waxy smooth in shape they spiral down
The color of banana peels and rubber ducks,
Not enough to crunch,
Just the occasional skittering sounds from an accidental nudge
Of a laced up black boot.
It’s all lit up by pouring color
Painting the world pale gold and dusty blue,
Dimpled footprints across dusty sand,
Perhaps foreshadowing of future eons of crushed cement.

Evoking an image of rusted door hinges and creaking sheds,
Orange drips from ripened fruit,
Dappled dry reds of a curling leaf or faded velvet skirt.

And down below and oil painting of bottle green glass and soft leather,
Glinting and undulating in a translucent serenity.

Paint turns to pastel further out,
Smooth hints of pink on touches of sighing blue and perfect cream with lemon zest.

Oddly blending with the metallic rumble of heavy strings,
Thin black wings
And soft fabric on palms,
Warm light and a cool breath.

Interrupted by a jolting movement of a graceful, curious silk spinner,
Who dropped, and frightened the delicate moment away.

Should I get up?
Should I write down the things that were assigned,
Instead of spilling fragmented words and phrases
Turning round inside my mind?
I know I won’t be able to sleep either way
As I hold my breath and press my lips together
To keep the ragged gasps at bay

I’m shaking in a near imperceptible pattern
Infinitesimally small,
Only using the word because it’s yet another measure of my worth,
How much I can learn
It’s only October first
My bonds and binds are already breaking from the heat generated by my lack of sleep  
That’s right,
After one month

Can’t keep it all together,
Grasping at trickling time, desperately
Clinging to even the smallest things I like
Is it bad that I’m starting to master the abysmal art
Of crying silently?

We sway gently back and forth on a speeding charter bus,
Too exhausted to speak
As we drift in and out of something that’s not quite sleep
Resting our backs against the fuzz of plush seats

A strand of your bleached, copper hair fell on my shoulder,
Making me remember that you smell like lavender and early summer,
And now our warm hands are intertwined,
Your slender, brown fingers curling ever so slightly under mine,
We’re leaning against each other, breathing in rhythm
With the crackly and haunting piano melody that plays over a syncopated beat,
The way my heart beats at the feeling of your side
Rising and falling in tandem with mine
The crackle blends with the splatter of glistening droplets on the windshield, running down and turning light to a muted
Somewhat grayish white,
And as we listen to this music just for the two of us,
I hear it in my left ear,
You in your right,
We drift in and out of the haze,
Warm, content inside a cloud
Where you are the silver lining.

I never believed in love at first sight.

It was always something that happened slow,
With the one I least expected it to.
Falling in love always took time,
But before I knew it I was in over my head,
Drowning in it.

I always had too much,
And they never wanted any.
So I had to drink it all up,
An ocean of it,
Every last intoxicating drop,

Until my chest ached from it, about to burst,
Throwing up onto white pages that could barely soak it up
Leaving a trail of hastily combined words,
Love, pain, anguish.

So this time I decided to just let it out,
Let it run out from sound instead of tears,
Let my less-than-eloquent language blur
With colloquial words,
Let the feelings flow with my tumbling speech,
Falling upon her ears instead of a page that she would never see.

So now sometimes I look up from white paper
And see a cotton sky,
The same color.
And I realize, it wasn’t love I had drowned in.
Love fills a comforting space,
Warmth on these silver and cotton days,
It was hope,
And lack of hope leaves an empty space,
One that fills with rain.

Crunch of gravel, conveying a mixed beat
Of some brisk and some merely wandering feet,
Rushing fountain in the distance
Gliding cool water slips silently beneath.

I lounge comfortably under this tree,
Gaze wand’ring from blocky buildings to sky,
Wearing playful cologne and expensive shoes,
Completely invisible to the passerby.

A muted flush of cherry-blossom clouds,
Reminds me of a time not so long ago,
Of wishing you were here to walk with me in this lovers’ park
Yet once again finding myself here alone.

A click of a lock at curfew cut off the chaos of the day,
The last pulse in the longest piece we’d had to play,
Stillness and silence until tomorrow’s dawn.

Until a string broke in the room,
A final sigh before the creak of drying wood,
The trio rocked and murmured ‘til my tears subsided.

The Sultan would spare the enchantress,
But I still wept, because I knew
That ten doors down, in her own prison,
Scheherazade was weeping too.

I can hear the accusing tones downstairs,
Muted yelling from below,
Can’t make out his words
‘Cause the pitch is too low.

Wincing at the thud of something hitting the floor,
Stomach twisting at the sound of tearing paper,
Pulse quickens as I hear him slam a door.

I shouldn’t have directed him towards her when he came to pester me.
Now everyone in the house is on edge,
So I’ll busy my hands and mind by keeping the kitchen clean.

Sleepy seabirds rest their heads
On downy white feathers
Azure ripples glimmering
In crystalline splendor.

Dry brushed clouds lounge peacefully
In porcelain skies
Seabirds take to lazy flight,
Echo mewling cries.

Golden flecks swirl glimmering,
In indents left by feet.
Coin-sized ***** scuttle away,
No wish to become meat.

I may never know
What lies behind the veil each night.
I may never know
If pain or paradise await my mind,
If I will dream of milk and honey
Or run from hellhounds endlessly.
I may never know
What lies in store for me each night,
So I can toss and turn
As every day grows long and bleak,
But I can’t stay awake forever
For everyone must sleep.

Think, rich and heavy, like flattened layers of gouache paint slathered onto a canvas, meant to portray peeling layers of pearly alabaster, glowing white stripped away to reveal dusty blues, steely grays, and muted purples.

Stop touching my sides
Just because I let you touch me like that once before
Doesn’t mean I’m yours

Face will glisten and fingers bleed,
For this love too out of reach

Notes pour off the page too quick,
Wrist trembles,
Shoulders click

Crystal tears dull thoughts of blood,
It’s a passion, hurts too much

He told me all the wonders of the world,
All the smoke-filled ponderings and philosophies,
Yet he himself was but a wretched worm.

Young but wary,
I’d walk past the mushroom without a bite,
And walk into the flower garden level headed.
Drawn as I was to the roses,
Lovely hues,
Too classic for so whimsical a place.

But oh what a pleasant surprise to be serenaded by a pretty stargazer.
Who trilled in lilting soprano,
Blossoms rounded in the curve of treble clef,
Shrill and wonderful
Such that even my skin listened

And what would I give to linger in the garden,
But the journey and path continue on.
After all, the smirking cat said nothing about staying,
Perhaps the smile will carry on.

I wish for misty drizzle days
Instead this dusty smoke,
A cheap replacement for petrichor.

Longing for the cozy hug of a droopy sweater or flannel shirt around my shoulders
I find comfort in soft cloth.

Waiting for late mornings,
Cups of steamy tea,
Or frothy cider with warming spices,
Faded book covers and stretching knitted blankets,
Gray dawns and wordless smiles.

Because I am a mouse,
Who munches on crunchy orange and yellow leaves for inspiration.

Who admires the fluttering and faintly glimmering spiderwebs,
Adorned by tiny drops of diamond dew.

Who loves dripping,
Just barely ripe apples
Ones with pieces that tear away with a juicy crunch.

Who hides her soul in towering, curly fern leaves,
Surrounded by ghostly green tree moss,
Wispy strands hanging down like ancient whiskers.

I lay on my back,
Crystal water
Washing around me
Ringing in clarity.

Waving gold forests
Caress my fingertips.
Their shimmering spots of sun
Soothing to me.

Clouds, cotton candy at first,
Fill space and time
With sureness and sense
With fragile glass eyes
I watch them go by.

They float farther and farther
Sun brighter and brighter.
I’m still,
Brittle,
Clear water washing over me,
As I drown in the vast, empty sky.

Swirling silt rises as the my thoughts pollute the water,
Blackened, poisoned by my mind.

I lay in darkness, frozen in murky-still slush.
A thickening swamp to rot in,
What does it take to stop clinging to the bottom and rise,
Rise above the murk to clarity,
Away from the sediment,
Up towards serenity?

A last strand of sunlight reaches down,
I shut it out,
Searching for a light within
Searching for something to brighten my own darkness after the sun will set

One ray.
One sliver of clarity will be enough.
When will it come?
How was my world so light before, so clear?
Waves lap over my face, over my head, over my chest,
Revealing a faint glow.
A new angle, new feeling, for once a breath of air.

Just enough.
Enough to part the swirling silt,
To catch a glimpse of an inky sky.

Though it may have seemed otherwise before,
She is not empty,
But filled with stars.
Small, far away,
But breathing light,
Glowing and just bright enough to soften the vast emptiness before me.

All with their own lives,
clear streams or silty quagmires,
All so far and alone but still shining, beaming with hope.

Just enough
Just enough to relight a spark, to bring a silvery luminescence to the waving, silent forest.
Still swirling with silt, but growing clearer each day.

Enough to see the thick, rich clouds,
Collage on canvas,
Layers stripped away to reveal
Stern colors beneath.

The clouds changed,
No longer fillers and pillows,
Now new and untamed.
A complement to the sky, not her replacement.

And in my corner of this sky,
I learned I was the moon.
Though I would darken,
Draped by shadow,
I would always find a spark to light my own way in the vast emptiness of a tortured mind.
And perhaps even enough for a lost star to claim its light.

Maybe I can cut my hair,
Fresh start,
Bring me closer to a feeling that’s not quite there.

Want to be loved,
Just not by you.
I wish I could feel for you the same way you do...
But there’s a sunflower seed still growing wild somewhere inside me,
Even though there’s no hope for it to be
It’s still there

I cannot write!
For my mind is plagued
With thoughts of a beautiful girl.

Late mornings of waking up to lazy sunlight
Stretching its rays across a pastel sky like I stretch my legs deeper under the crackling blankets
In search of pockets of warmth to keep out the chill

Where in the day the cool clarity makes everything a bit too real,
The ringing boldness of every line,
The inexplicable scent of chocolate and cinnamon and hints of fir
The sharpness of the Frost’s playful bite

Night falls early upon young lovers,
And watercolor lights glow as soft and colorful
As the secretly enamored gleam of overflowing joy in their eyes,
As they wander hand in hand, sharing music from decades before their time

When a muffled quiet settles in the suburbs,
All edges coated softly in glinting silvery-white,
An amber glow of street lights  keeping the night at bay,
With rosy cheeks and dry eyelashes
Peppermint kisses are exchanged

I can’t stand the sickly sweet, falsetto love songs on the radio anymore.
Because ghost of your lips on mine lingers,
Because I’ve kissed you a thousand times in my dreams
And I’ve woken up alone, longing for you to be by my side, a thousand times more.
I reach for you, my light at the end of the dock.
Like the flash of a Polaroid camera when dusk is falling
Recounting and decoding moments that we’ve lived, a mindless brush of your hand against mine that meant nothing to you searing itself into my skin and memory.
Perhaps it would’ve been easier if I’d known from the start that you’d never be mine.

In a weeping valley ringed by slumbering mountains
The most beautiful things
Are slivers of December sky
In between layers and layers of  clouds of darkened silver,
Reflected by the sea-bottle blue of sea glass panes.

The tops of spires nestle in fine mist,
And lifegiving raindrops splatter across crumbling walls,
They stain everything green,
Giving this haven of patchwork concrete and metal it’s name.

Let my sorrows depart swiftly with these silent currents,
Let my wishes be fulfilled by this emerald city.

On the longest, darkest night,
To pass the aching countdown until dawn,
We lit a candle to give us light,
A gentle flame to burn until our agonies were gone.

With wordless prayer upon my lips,
Of moonlight skin on flowing sheets,
In all the life that it has given,
Never did scarlet taste so sweet.

A path of blossoms in the dark,
Bloomed from worship of mouth on skin,
To beckon Death with gentle fingers,
Tell me, how could this be sin?

Let me soak up your burning blush against my skin as you lie with me,
Let me tell you
It is with you, my love, that I am clean;
It is like this when we are free.

Rigid gurney, frigid stare
I’ll lay still to prove my love
Scalpel to skin, the only way
No choice left, snap your glove

Cut through fabric, flesh exposed
Your lash mark burning, buried
**** and press on pressure points
Check for broken capillaries

Saw through ribs to bare my heart,
There’s a faster path to follow,
Cut your way up through my stomach,
Check for what I didn’t swallow

Blade to throat I’m forced to speak
Tears trickling, blood gushing
Grimy finger prints all over
You see them in the chambers you’re crushing

Carved up carcass inside out
Too impure for your desire
Toss me aside in your disgust
All I that I did wrong was lie

You watched in sickness and relief
As you pulled me apart and scoffed at how used up I’d already been
And I gripped your wrist and pushed myself into your knife
To be sure it was enough for you
Can’t you see I was letting you win?

Just leave me here to die
This is why I lied

After you’re through with me can I do it all again?
After you’re through with me can I do it all myself?
After you’re through with me can I do it all again?
After you’re through with me can I do it all myself?

Gifts in utero, or perhaps vice?
Primordial blessings formed with a price

Watch the hourglass turn, never to come around
Star children all burn up before they touch the ground

It’s time to take your formless shape
Opalescence often fades
The rest of us they all call names
But I have far to go, so far to fall

How do I heal when the pain and shame you caused was not an accident?
When we four convened around the kitchen table to tell the same stories, the same details.
We'll never truly know what goes on in your head.
How do we heal?

I drove home at 4 am last night, scared, alone.
Outside reality, outside of time on stretches and stretches of empty, barren roads.
Silhouettes flickered peripherally as I held some feral, desperate creature chained tight in my chest.
Shifting, aching at the weight of anguish yet unfelt.
I wished for the urge to scream, but my face remained calm. Numb.
I wished for tears, but they wouldn’t, couldn’t come.
Matter of fact memories of hands and teeth on my body won’t spare my mind's pleading eyes.
No soap could ever cut through the grime.

I came home to my lover’s arms.
They kneaded flesh that would not feel
They wove time back into this madness, where nothing is real.
They left at dawn, and half-awake I let them go.
At midday I sit, exhausted. Alone.
How can I heal? How can I feel?
Why does it hurt more now that I know?
When before it was brushed off, excused, let go?
It was uncomfortable, bothersome as an accident.
But you knew better. That knowledge chills, it builds walls in my head.
How do I heal?
How can I pause when the world never stops, and who can I tell?
What do I say?
So many told me not to; I did it anyway.