As time bends in deference
As light is pulled back into the abyss
I will endeavor to keep your hearts and dreams
A singularity of love lost and nightmares realized
A torch doused
A final embrace
Press thy lips together and silence your scream
Tighten your countenance
My words are harsh and permanent
But not going gently into this good night
Writes a statement that none will ever read
Welcome the disruption of destiny
Reject the expanse
The twirling and tumbling festivals of fire and flowers
Birth and vibrancy are couched in death and violence
Where suns burn bright and water becomes life
Pain is born in equal measure to joy
This gamble is forced upon you
But I am a certainty
There is peace in obliteration
A promise devoid of malice
A stillness
A kindness
An end
I am never quiet
Even when I am silent
I am never alone
Even when I am by myself
I am interlocked with the loudest part of me
A twisted echo in this hollow skull
So incessant that I tried to exorcize it
With 115 grains of holy full metal silence
And even though I “succeeded” in failure
This gaping wound not made yet still remains
When I look in the mirror
I see a Cheshire grinned copy
The hole through his…our head sutured but seeping
And stretching, the fibers are tearing
Where I have languished in grief and heartbreak
This grotesque simulacrum flourishes in that rot
I ruefully make eye contact with this doppelganger
And watch as he peels apart my skin
But to turn away would invite him into reality
So my subconscious insists upon our connection
As if to say drink in all that is you
A mountain of ether
A crown of air
A body of black matter
As the space between us closes in
And becomes too much to bear
He begins to sing a siren call
So loud that I cannot keep myself intact
I am degloving to the sound of cracking glass
But if I were to just give in and collapse
I would shed this self directed agnosia
Our voices would finally resonate as one and maybe then I will finally be quiet
To all the stars that we each will see
I hope you keep this as a memory
Not just of me
But also as a reminder to have hope in the face of entropy
I want to abandon all my rage
That hugs me tightly and lashes out
I will not stop beating upon my chest and gut
Till this anger is fettered by reason
And the seeds are buried in the rotted soil of my belly
Pray that it takes root and grows
Into a tree that sprouts and rips my skull open
And from this gaping wound some flowers might blossom
So that in my last moment I might finally bear fruit for my loved ones to eat
I’m behind the parapet looking over into the endless.
I bet she’s sleeping soundly at this very moment; wrapped or held and beyond the stars.
I feel the chasm call to me. It whispers sweet nothings and promises salvation.
I bet she is or will be loved.
So I leap.
I am pressing on into something better I hope
Life is short and I'll be unable to witness any fruits
But maybe for a brief moment there will be no labor
And I can breathe in deeply a calming stillness
I never notice when the weight is lifted
But I do know when it drops
A crushing force to my porous corpse
All my insides are flattened and I can see myself from the sky
I keep expecting my whole life to be laid out
So I can catalogue the backlog of reasons to not exist
I will make assertions about my character that I struggle to shake
Like black cats in ant hills
My ears ringing deaf to self validation and grace
My body torn asunder under the pressure of empty standards
There is a cold embrace
That I must face
A desire to live and be well
That I must now quell
I simply can not escape this forest
For this dolt is just a tourist
A disruptive visitor
Looking for something simpler
Good riddance to dreams
They only ever tore at my seams
Pulling me away my stability
And reminding me of all the fear still in me
Dense
Stuttering validation
Shortness of breath
I am
Pressing our souls
Together like hands held
In content and contempt
Tenderly laying me to rest
Your smile is betrayed
By the pity in your countenance
My heart and eyes are heavy
I would rather leave
But I keep pushing
eulogy
Goodbye to the man that could have been
I wish I had died in your place
Your heart was so much fuller than mine
Your smile came freely
And your arms were strengthened by the conviction
That your love was pure
But you are gone
And I am all that is left
Not enough for myself
Or anyone else
So, goodbye to the man should have been
I am forgetting how you smell
I have been refusing to remind myself
Of the sound of your laugh
So it can fade into the past
But I still feel where your thighs would hold my knee
Like someone carved the meat & bone out of me
And as your beauty fades
My rot remains
You are far from perfect
But I am clearly a derelict
All this dedication to my contrition
All the good intentions but I forgot the mission
I was not supposed to sleep
Till the whisper of a foxglove did not make me weep
Joy and pain come to me quickly
They rip and tear into me cruelly
Was once told that maybe no one could feel like me
Lately I have thought that I do not feel like me
The deep ridges of my fingertips
That I carved so recklessly
Have filled in
Every thing I touched knew
That my id was suffering
Now I am nothing
My tornadoes are ending
And the hurricanes recede
Wondered if the Sun would show
But these pregnant clouds will not leave
I can feel the pores of my skin pool
With their stagnant warm water
But is it not in stale ponds
Where the most harmful bacteria grow
I visited my friend recently
I could feel myself personifying it
Thinking life into every branch and leaf
It told me I looked well watered
I could not tell it that I had been crying
But I think it knew
I sat in it’s shade
Pressed the bark against my skull
Let it tell me about all it had seen
There is rebar sticking through the tree
I dare not ask
But I wonder if it had been stabbed
Or if it grew around it
Undeterred by obstacles
ngtbaf
I was really looking forward to showing you how to write your name. How to turn ink into an inferno, a proud declaration of existence emblazoned on to a flag that you would stab into the mountain of life. I was excited to see you have all the confidence I could never muster in myself. I had hoped to nourish you enough that you would never fall apart at the thought of yourself. That I would be there after your first goodbye kiss to tell you from experience that it would be all right. But I am realizing now for the thousandth time that I am not the man I hoped I would be.
I do not sleep much. I have been laying in bed thinking about how we will never meet. I used to be crippled by emotions but now I am running on empty. Every three steps forward is followed by thirty leaps back. That even if I could pull you into existence I do not think I would ever do right by you. I always end up not doing right by people. Because I have never done right by myself.
Unless it was right to not subject you to all this by realizing I am never going to be a father.
Inevitability
I am not sure if I can do this any more
And at my lowest a memory reminds me
Of a time from long before
Cruelly corrupted by my coddled entropy
My wicked hands drum up a devil
Whose eyes are purple and green
Gifts outstretched and ready to revel
Upon this gruesome scene
Whether it be poisoned water
Or a piece of cold rounded lead
In an old colt revolver
I come back to rather being dead
Because I am
Way more comfortable in pain
And all this “growth” is a scam
Synthetic hope to shoot in my veins
I keep tricking people into a belief
That my tomorrow is guaranteed
But I am a liar and a thief
Robbing their trust for my needs
Whether it be injection or a gun
In the end my body will burn
I am ready for this to be done
I am ready to rest in my urn
How Hope Was Lost 