There are places traveled,
dark places,
that stain your heart
forever.
Yet those who've never been
pass judgement
on how
you should be
afterwards
and forever.
Somethings you
just
have
to see
for yourself,
explanations fail
with
the spoken
word
no matter
the effort
made.
You can't
hear
colors
or smell them.
It's the same
with places
far away,
in the dark,
long ago.
There are
no words
adequate,
or perhaps
horrific
is better,
more accurate,
in its inadequacies.
I gave that up
long ago
in the dark
by myself

I have never been without it
The scent of regret surrounds me
Every mistake I ever made
Is the stench that so confounds me

Soaring heights of anxiety
I have never been without it
Not your garden variety
Plaguing much of society

How I long to be free of it
Unrelenting regret believed
I have never been without it
Dry heaving nightmares unrelieved

Trichinosis, lockjaw strangles
My regret knows all about it
Like Joe Btfsplk’s* cloud dangles
I have never been without it

everyone

villainized
victimized
ostracized
and

crucified

Some poems I write on paper
Paper I'll burn later that day
So that all that'll remain
Are the beats in my chest
And the aches in my head

Some poems i hold on to
So that after years from writing
When memory fails
And hearts beat to different tunes
All that'll remain
Are words inked on paper.