Bright lights. Blue, purple, white. Sweaty
people. Standing too close. Eruption. Cheers.
Happiness. I turn to look; lost.
Afraid. Anxiety. Asphyxiation.

Cold beer in the left. Camera in the right.
Grabby hands. Singing. Guitars. Drums
that bang too loud. Hurting ears.
Headache. Nausea. Tequila shot.

Smiles. Greetings. Sitting at the back
of the room, tearing up. Favorite song.
No one to dance with. Too small in
all this space. Too small for this place.

I feel absolutely,
Inconsolably
Defeated.
I wish you liked me,
I wish you didn't hate me.
I wish you'd take pictures of us
doing fun things,
and not just of the friends you
claim to hate so much

I am standing on a staircase, on the seventeenth step,
but the eighteenth onwards has no bannister,
up until now, I've had a safety net,
something to lean on when
the steps aren't lit properly.

'Now', I tell myself,
'I've seen people who have fallen
and manage to grip to the edge
and pull up...towards the next'.
'But I've seen people fall
and never get up'.

I say;
'Am I another statistic?
Am I another failure?
Am I another mangled corpse for the cleaners?
Or...
Am I going to lift my leg and take that step?
Am I to ignore the thoughts?
Am I stronger than I let myself think?'

I lift my leg.

Upwards and onwards, I guess.

You gave your baby life,
so, tell me this;
why would you want to take it away
over something as simple
as love?

Her shoes are lost,
one in the closet, one out of the door,
one step to freedom before her parents
pick them up and throws them,
oblivious to the bang when they hit the wall.

BANG;
the knocking of adolescent hands,
on the closet door.

BANG;
the knocking that fell on deaf ears,
when the tears and pleas weren't sufficient.

BANG;
the children that want a chance at living their lives
in the warm embrace of their parents
arms,

and not in the warm embrace
of the fire;

burning their coffin to the ground.

The tide and her wave of emotion.
The hands that once held me now goes for
the jugular, to cut.
The swift, rough swipe of the
razor causes an outpour of unstoppable feelings,
fleeting forth from my face,
It lands upon an infant that lay
crying in my right hand,
screaming, it yearns for the breast of
knowledge and safety,
The craving for intimacy and affection,

The Insuppressible,

Indistinguishable,

Need for Want,
And Want for Need, all the same.

What kept me sane was knowing that
you were close.
What made me break was knowing that
you never left.