The lights inside your mind
Flashing from the inside
The mirror smiles back
So sad the lengths you have to go to
To escape you to find you

The night does not exist
Heart beats to the melody
Seeking something it can’t accept
Nothingness is the greatest escape

She has plenty of room
But he chooses his own
He comes over
And she lets him,
Taking more than what is offered
(What noble love)

Cry in the dark
(What sweet love)
She lights the spark
Cigarette burns
He talks about his day
But not all of it
Catches a flight
She’s full of him

And I see us, two wrongs together
Gave up 6 months ago
And walking in different directions
Continuing on a burned bridge
Looking at smiling pictures

If only you loved like I love
If only you let everything go and held me
I would be yours
I would be alive

She held me in those tired, capable hands and from them I am yet to sprout
Doomed to be a seedling, an apple of the tree
Never ripe enough, never my own branches or my land
Must forever hover around you
Feeding that need of purpose  

Every button you did, every hole you sowed,
Every essay you thought you wrote
The friends you called foes
The lovers you chased away with scornful words
The meals you forced and the blood vessels that burst when you yelled
And smacked the solution to that math problem across my head
And I mimicked the blows with mirrors and ceramic objects so my skull knew what it deserved

I learned to recognise the dark
At first unfriendly and strange
Then it was the only colour I knew by heart

The kind of hurt that only more pain numbs
Bony, thin-skinned wrists
All fingers and thumbs,
Make it smile
A welcome friend: it’s me! It knows!
The fire in my head dies and turns to water,
It fills a basin it fills a sea
Then a clarity forms
A small but singular necessary piece
It is love
Within me this warmth toward my child self

You can do this
You did it when you were 12

It was a cool night in her cool eyes the sun was up high and we were yearning
There was a blue sky and we drank white wine but there were clouds inside her
I sang a song the words slipped softly off my tongue and poured right in
Into her cool heart where things grow slowly
Slow enough to see the process - in some moments - life seems dying
I see her face wrinkle like asphalt in Africa, Soft with weakness, open with warmth
Her eyes are small boats bobbing above her private history
Her hands are silky and small, bumpy with blood pressure
She is a victim of this blood,
However thin, a sure horizon will come, overbearing with menacing red lines
Is the sun sinking or does it set
It’s all in your head
Her military love shaped me with blades
Too many questions, she tied the knots
Unlearned lessons await you in your last eternal moment
I shan’t attend this last pity party
I shall no longer dance and hit and bend my bones to fit your pretend.

Thousands of miles away but the sunset reminds you of me
Smoking in silence and suddenly you hear my laugh and you let me know
I no longer swallow my pride for your needs
Though your body was very nice when it was happy

I look to my left: the sky is dark;
I look to my right: sunset is nigh;
I look ahead, envision my home:
The gravel path, the creaky door,
The chirp I will hear as I say 'Hello!'
(With that loud, childish joy, concealing the weight of the day)
My bird in the cage, the symbol I swore I would shake;
Yet here I am:
Moving toward the same metal gate.

I’m hypersensitive - this is my low and it dips lower
She uttered tiny daggers aiming surely nowhere but landing in my mind where they would stab for days on end
I tried to fog them out with smoke and spirit but my spirits got the best of me
I attempted a similar approach to life, to do just as she,
Debauchery and all
But it was no good
I needed revenge to truly heal by way of equal hurt returned twice more
Unforgiving and bitter I dwell and I swell until the pressure of my feeling turns to water
Drink it and leave me alone forever.