Walking By Myself

But you’re smiling the way I’ve always seen you smile
And you laugh the way you’ve laughed since you were just a child
I can’t understand how you can say you’re hurting at this moment
Or that you feel nothing inside about the memories we’re making now

That’s just it

You don’t understand

And maybe you never will

My numbness doesn’t change

Because you don’t understand

Problems don’t unravel themselves 

Because it doesn’t make sense to you

Maybe I don’t need to understand but I want to help

It hurts to see you hurting because of the love I have for you

I want to make it better and I want to know how

Why can’t you just tell me what I need to do

That’s just it

I don’t know how

And maybe I never will

I can’t give you answers

I don’t know myself

Helping you help me isn’t something I can do

I’m sad when there isn’t something to be sad about

I’m hurting though I can’t say why out loud

I can’t know what I don’t know

I can’t fix what I can’t see is broken

But I know it’s broken all the same

You want answers

I want resolution

You the good times again

And I just want to look in the mirror

And know who is looking back at me

I keep watching the shell of me

An empty vessel of the former me

Living my life

Speaking my words

Walking the path

I suddenly was sidelined to

I walk alongside him

Hoping to join him again one day

Walking an unmarked path

An unpaved road

With no light

No guidance

Just an intuition

I no longer trust

I know I’ll be back one day

For now I cling to darkness

An absolute nothing

Outline

You said you would be here but you weren’t
I keep looking for you

Knowing you aren’t here

Sometimes I close my eyes

To try and hear your words again

Sometimes I hear them

Mostly, I hear nothing

I hear myself breathing

I get so annoyed at hearing my own breathe

Because it’s not you

You said you would still be here but you aren’t

An outline of you is here

I look at it everyday

I take it with me to work

I carry it

But it’s not you

It bears your weight

But you’re still not there

I mostly feel stupid for holding on

Clinging to something that isn’t you

But I can’t let go

I’m still waiting for you to come back

I know

I know with every fiber of my being that you’re not coming back

Every time I come to that realization again

I look down to what I am holding on to

And that outline that looks like you

Isn’t actually you at all

And I’ve lost you all over again

My heart dies all over again

I swear I can see you

I swear I can hear you

For fuck’s sake

I can almost feel you

But you’re not here

You said you would be but you aren’t

And each time I think I’ve found you

It’s not you

Why can’t I find you?

Abandon

I’ve run through grass
Met the waters edge
The flame reflects in my eyes
I can’t move
My heart is racing
My breath, steady
My charred remains float on the water
You look at me in disbelief
What we’ve built
Has been leveled
My tears have been shed
They’ve already dried
They weren’t for you
I don’t know that they were for me
I step into the water
I shiver with anticipation
My voice quivers
Laments drifting to the west
You reach out
One last time
Grasping for me
But I’ve already gone
Left wading in the waters
Forever searching
For what I’ve lost

We’re left apart

Silenced in time

Yet echoes of the night

Consumption

I've found you again

I wasn't looking for you

In fact

I believe it was me who was lost

Tell me you love me again

Tell me you'll keep me warm

Tell me all of your lies

Lies that stitch themselves to my skin

Lies that whisper from an empty closet

Self induced lonliness

Selfless silence

Silenced

Close your eyes

Close mine

Closed closeness

I shelter with this feeling

I shelter in the nothing

The consumption of nothing

A never ending stream of nothing

I've found you again

The Forgiven Enemy

What a feeling it must be

To fall in love

To kiss upon the lips

Which lights the fire

In your chest

To glide on the surface

Of his skin

Which electrifies the spine

To entangle your fingers

In his hair

To look into his eyes

Which hollows out your soul

To learn the rhythm

Of every song

His heart sings

What joy it must bring

To walk down the road

His palm against yours

Your stride matching his

The wind along his face

Carries his very breath

To the nape of your neck

The tears you must shed

When his gaze meets yours

And he pulls you in

Then you embrace

And the world falls away

And you both float off

Not knowing where you're going

Not caring what's in the way

You've forgotten what time was

In love

Darkness is a forgiven enemy

He inhales

You exhale

The sweetest memories

That reach beyond this life

And farther than forever

What a feeling love must be

Sweat & Blood

 I lie awake
Thinking of who I’m supposed to be
I play the music louder
To drown out the sounds
Of moving hands
You have provided comfort
But I need something else
Something more
You breathe me in
I bleed you out
As I lay dying
You give me a final kiss
And close the door
Quietly behind you
I close my eyes
Take my last breath
And wait for morning to come

Unseen Cell

Life lies in the dark

It makes you see things

But they’re not really there

Disembodied voices of trust

Float nearby

“It’ll be okay”

“I’m safe”

“Do what you want”

“Trust me”

“Fuck you”

“You’re nothing”

“You do nothing”

“You Are Nothing”

“I won’t hurt you

I love you”

Love lies in the dark

It fades away

Though you barely knew it was there

Bodies brush against you

Drops of sweat fall around you

They cover you

Then emptiness

Life shatters in the dark

Streams of light scattered around you

They shift

They fly

You chase

It’s gone

You’re lifted up

You’re free

The light disappears again

And you fall

You break

You cry

“Don’t cry”

“Stop crying”

“I promise”

“Follow me

Stay with me”

Life lies in the dark

You dangle the light above me

Life lies in the dark

You lie in the dark

You lie

For A Moment

The water pulsates over my body

As I stare at the white wall

My heart sleeping soundly in my chest

I snap out of my enchantment 

And continue gliding my hands over my body

To wash away my words for the day

My left hand wanders behind me

And there

I wash twice

For his words sometimes linger

I dip my head under the glistening stream

I let the heat race from my nose

Down to my navel

And then I think of you

The moments you stole from me

Right before

The moments I willingly gave to you

Remembering your head on my chest

Your breath on my nipples

Not in love

But neither without it

The echo of your lips

Still tingles the back of my neck

Suddenly your gone

I open my eyes

Still facing the white wall

The words circling the drain

And life pauses

Only for a moment

Until the sun rises again

Little

It’s like I wasn’t even there

When you tore me apart

I drifted so far away

I became so lost

The more you broke my heart

The smaller I became

The words you threw at me

The self worth you stripped away

Who would have even known

Bruises shouldn’t com from love

You wore me down until

I was just so little

I got older

But never really grew

Your presence slowly became

An echo of a memory

Abandoned

Disowned

You left me all alone

How much love

Do you really need

When you’re just so little

The darkness of the corner

Never felt so warm

Who needs a crying shoulder

When have got my own

Why even bother walking

When I can crawl just fine

No need to hold me in your arms

I’ve got two of mine

Could you even find me

Who could ever find me

In this world when I’m this little

Another day goes by

I’ve learned to love myself

Like the love you gave

It’s easy to get through this life

And never feel too big

When you’re just do little

I’ll always be so little

You’ll always be so fucking little

Another Home

The light hits the window but does not enter

As though to say, “You are not welcome.”

The room not quite dark

Not quite cold

There is no home here

The walls hold no memories

The table bears no love

The hard encasing provides cover

But this is no shelter

Life once lived here

But the echoes of what once was

Reverberate no longer

Still it stands

To touch the walls beckons no ghosts

Yet you look around still

What was lost here

Never existed here

What was housed here

Never lived here

This place was never a home

But an empty shell

It was never meant for you

For the life you lived

The love you felt

The comfort you had

Resided in a place you never thought to look

You never lived here

You never grew here

You never learned here

You did not find strength here

You did not know love here

But yet you had all of these things

Your life was in abundance

Of the good heartache

Of the rightful challenges

Of the happy tears

And the overwhelming love

You found life

And life found you

It’s been there all along

In another home

No

Not another

Your forever home

It’ll be there

Waiting

And one day

You’ll be ready

You will

Be ready

Haunted

You didn’t notice me die

You held me up

You patted your back

You drowned in sorrow

And let the snow fall

But you didn’t notice me lifeless

You didn’t notice I was broken

I spiraled

Into a demented reality

I slept away my desire

I hid my pain in laughter

I let the night embrace me as her own

I reached out

But never found you

Ghostly words

Invisible promises

They took your place

How do you repair that?

How do you move forward

When all you see is dirt

From the pit you’ve been tossed into?

How do you climb to the top

With no tools to build it

How do you find the light

When you don’t even realize you can’t see

How do I piece together

What you ripped apart

Before I knew what I looked like

Before I knew who I was

When all I’ve known

Is what I see

In the shards of mirror on the floor

Your words still haunt me

Your promises still linger

I’m ready to leave

The empty house

You never built 

Honesty Honestly

Looking for him

Not looking for you

Thanks for the reply

Thanks for your honesty

Was I being honest to you?

Was I being honest to me?

If I wasn’t being honest

Would you actually know?

If I wasn’t sure of myself

If I wanted to try something out for myself

Would I then be dishonest?

Would I then be a game player?

If I don’t know

How do I grow to know?

You tell me

I’m not your type

But then you tell me

You are looking for more

How can you look for more

When your one layer in?

When your expectations are sheet thin?

It’s like you look for me

But only when I am not in front of you

You only see me

When I am turning the other way

You only hear me

When I exhale

In the ear of another

Who are you looking for?

How would you know when you find him?

Thanks for being honest

While you’re looking for him

I won’t be looking for you

Line of Sight

It matters

When I was already in battle with who I was

When I already doubted who I was supposed to me

When I fell and was told I would never get up

When I was talked over

Looked passed

Slapped

Kicked

Worthless

Disgusting

When I was fat

When I was lazy

When I was shameful

When I saw what they saw

It should’ve mattered

When I walked alone

No hand holding

No good morning smile

No good night kisses

No one to tuck me in

No one hold me

No one to love me

No one to tell me it would all be okay

It should have mattered

In the days when I couldn’t walk

When I couldn’t open my eyes

When I didn’t want to

When I would make myself sleep

When I kept myself in darkness

When there was nothing but darkness

In the days when I fought my own self

To save my own life

It should

Have

Mattered

It did matter

It still matters

I see you

Do you see me?

It still matters

I still matter

Reverberate

The taste of you

Still lingers on my tongue

The wind from your lips

Still echoes in my ear

Your fingertips

Imprinted on my collar bone

Your heartbeat

Still fluttering on my thigh

The thought comes back to me

A raw emotion

A shameless presence

Tangled fingers

Hair tussled

A clawed arm

My breath at a standstill

My body motionless

I shiver

And breathe again

As the water begins

To stream across my skin

And your memory begins to fade

I inhale you into my lungs

A final embrace

Lie Still

The ground feels colder today

The ice around my eyes

Built a little higher

I can still wiggle my fingers

I can still see the faint fog of breath

That escapes my lips periodically

The bruise is starting to show

From my most recent fall

The blood from the last one

Has not yet even hardened

I didn’t reach out this time

Didn’t call out

I just gave in

I embraced the cement below me

For it knows me well

But it does not greet me as it did before

It lies still

Anticipating my arrival

Predicting it

I do not try to get up today

I don’t even look around

I settle in to my family shape

I prepare quiet emptiness

That had already began to creep in

No light

No warmth

Just me

And my cold concrete pit