Smart and inquisitive,

Stubborn and hubristic,

Beautiful and kind,

Wrathful and vindictive,

Patient and loving,

Short-tempered and spiteful.

You’re all of these and more,

But you know them better than I.

What you don’t know is what they do to me.

The way my heart soars when we lose ourselves,

debating the finer points of whatever has captured our attention.

The way every cell in my body trembles with sorrow and rage,

when you‘re hurt and crying.

The quiet peace I get hearing you’re breathing next me,

The thrill that runs through me when you put on that crooked smirk.

Every aspect of you paints a haunting mosaic that I refuse to tear my gaze from,

I love you.

There's a pain that is unique to you yet shared with many,

A wound inflicted that'll never heal, no matter what they say about time.

It can be hidden, can be forgotten, can be left to drift in nothing,

But it cannot be healed.

I ripped it open again the other day, bathed in the infected froth that burst from it.

It has helped me realize a lie I had told myself.

"I'll be alone, I don't want anyone else."

Life, that lover of irony, heard that lie for what it was and intervened,

It made a truth out of the lie and now I lament knowing that after being abandoned by those that should always be there, I'll have no one to hold this shattered soul of mine.

No one to tell me it's going to be okay.

There's a video around of a man telling his ma, whatever women want he doesn't have it. That is me, and he is I. I can't swagger and wax poetic or show the muscles under the flab. They have seen what I am and been left wanting, so have moved on.

I'm tired of hurting, but I'm more tired hoping, secretly, quietly, that someone will save this thing I have become.

It's this feeling that leads to that golden seven out of ten, but then who cares right.

In the end this all just a cry for attention from another entitled biggoted misongynist;

it's 6AM and it doesn't matter

because the smell of fresh baked goods

beckons me to the kitchen table

Sunlight peaks over the fence

catching the dew drops in the grass

and giving me a reason to go out onto the porch

a cool breeze tells me it will be a drizzly day

and for now I enjoy the hug that the hammock offers

a cat rubs against my leg and then lets me know it wants to be let inside

I open the door for the cat and listen as

Astrid hums a song by "The Red Hot Chili Peppers"

while she feeds her cats and calls them sweet German names

that I can't remember properly because the cats look exactly the same to me

Bright blocks of color on the walls surround me as I sit down at the table

spreading preserves on a piece of pretzel bread delivered to the doorstep

this morning at 4AM by the local bakery while we all slept soundly

I breathe in the smell of coffee, comfort, and home.

This house and the people who dwell in it -

I carry not just in my memory,

I carry them in my heart.

Another day in hell

There ringing the bells

Calling out for blood

Now we’re on the run

The demons are chasing

Chasing us down

There’s no way out

That silver blade

The crimson blood

It leaves their mark

The light pink scars

You lost the battle, your losing the war

But you pick up your gun, and you head out that door

And the war is raging on

With the battle in your head

The world is closing in

The blood is flowing fast now

Drowning all your sins

Suffocating in the lies

You're going to give in

Pills are on your nightstand

Letters in your hand

You said your goodbyes

The demons will win

Cause the scars never fade

They will always stay

And everyone can see

The freak inside of me....

Floating in the dark, there's a room. And in this room, something stirs. The sound of broken cogs and shattered glass clinking falls flat in this room. The thing moves in shakey but practiced moves now.

The first time happened before the image had even formed. Still bright and new to the world. Those who should've cherished and protected it, left it to fall and break. As the pieces settled, something small and smooth and gray moved in the dark. Blind, it put the pieces of metal and glass back together.

The second time it was taught of the hatred of others. Where others laughed and played and learned, it cried and hurt and broke. As before, when the pieces settled, something bigger, yet still small, blindly shuffled the pieces back together. It held bloody hands together and smiled at the semblance made.

The third was experiencing nature's cruel impartiality. After finding the hands that shaped and cradled for those formative months, it saw those hands grow thin and frail too soon. The room filled with pieces once more as the box was lowered in the dirt. The thing no longer smiled but moved with smoother motion to piece the mosaic again. There was no satisfaction in those hands.

Hardened in the heat of battle and the fractures that formed it, there was nothing that could penetrate the cage that was built. Until there was, and the light that shone from her filled the darkness. The warmth of that light warmed the frigid bars it'd set about. That's why it hurt all the worst.

The fourth was a lesson it failed to learn from the first, those closest can hurt the most. The light had turned cold and distant, leaving it alone and drifting once again. It moved sluggishly, but with practice. The image formed from the mosaic of broken odds and ends no longer resembled what it once had. The lines were twisted and sharp. It has learned, and will not soon forget this lesson.

Don't let them in.

Keep it locked away.

To survive, one must be cold and vicious while appearing to be acquiescent.

It used to think of monsters as these far away things of flame and shadows. Eyes in the dark that were born of devils and demons, but that's the lie. We make our own monsters, so don't regret creating this one.

for who i once was, this is for you:

i’m not good enough.

never will i hear that

i was born to succeed.

i’ll always prove that

i can’t be as good as others,

so don’t tell me

that my best is good.

i have learned

that hard work does not matter.

it’s a lie

that my failures create character

and you know what? i know 

that my goals are too big.

i’ll never accept that

i’ll make the world a better place.

i’m telling you

i’m a waste of time.

i won’t let anyone think 

I am enough.

(now read from bottom to top/reverse)

#pain #life #understanding #battles #enough #prose #poetry #love #life #happiness #darkness #fight #self-doubt #mentalhealth #lies #succeed #writing #creativity

I guess to everyone that reads this, I pressume you can tell this poem comes from a very personal place. It comes from a place of pain and immeasurable self-doubt. But let me tell you something, life doesn't discriminate between the good and the bad, it just hits everyone. So when life hits you with lemons, take them and throw 'em back at life.

and to all who are reading this, please remember that you are not a bystander in your own life. You are so much and inexcplicably more. There is a life you haven't lived yet and people you haven't met. Don't live your life like a prequel. Just don't. Becuase i'm not going to sit here and tell you that it'll be worth it in the end, becuase I don't know that for a fact. What I do know is that the fight itself will be worth it in the end. The way it shapes you and cuts you, leaves a mark, a story and it sure as hell makes you strong. So... final remarks? Let it hurt today as long as you get up tomorrow, and remember that the fight is, and will always be, worth it.

You wrote our names on the seashore,

And the waves washed them away

You wrote our names on the windowpane,

And the lashing rain laved them away

You wrote our names with water droplets,

And the sun dried them away

But I sealed your name in my heart,

And now, you have scrapped it away.