This is day 6 of your binge,

And I have watched from across the room each day

As you ingest the poison

As if it were a life sustaining elixir.

Drown your shattered heart in the alcohol.

I know what it's like to be reduced to a crawl.

I've been there,

And I will never forget

The day my still beating heart was torn from my chest.

Such darkness...

But I've glued my shattered pieces back together,

And stitched my heart back under by breast.

Though the scars still remain just under the surface,

And some of the pieces are still frayed and cracked.

Yet, I no longer need the bourbon and prozac

To get through a day.

For I found my redemption in this place.

Beyond the alcohol and smoke haze, 

Our dance with the devil is well known,

And we never disown one of our own   

For we have all known this darkness.

Look around you, my dear.

We are all broken here.

        That's right, broken. So visualize a crystal ball. Make it your favorite color. A perfect, luminous crystal ball. This object represents your soul in its purest form. The ball gets exposed to pressure, though. Time and pressure. Imagine the moon crashing into the earth; now imagine the equivalent of that with your soulball. It gets broken. It takes a beating. Psychological moons and asteroids, one after the other; an utter, samsaric, bombardment. Shards of crystal go flying, get dispersed, collide against one another. Some fall outside the gravitational field of your soulball, and travel into the celestial beyond. Now press pause. Rewind. 

        Slower. Even slower. This is the process, represented on the monitor of your mind while projected by the light of your mind's eye, denoted by Carl Jung as "individuation." The "rewind" metaphor is inaccurate because we don't become unbroken in the same sequence, order of breakerations, as the process between now and when your soulball was perfect. Said metaphor is accurate in its portraying that we are broken and that we can unbreak - or heal - ourselves bit by bit, shard by shard, trauma by trauma, over time.

WE ARE ALL BROKEN

choke'n on what's fractured

captured just to be battered

tattered rough and scattered

shattered by faith torn asunder

gone under absent whimsical wonder

thunder-struck by a wayward blunder

plunder a plea to simply be...

WE ARE ALL BROKEN

spoken to like we're not smart

dart-tipped insult from-the-start

heart hammered and torn apart

tart minded to undeniably damaged

bandaged soul barbarically managed

famished hope utterly banished

vanished into the urge to flee..

WE ARE ALL BROKEN

smoken inside and burnt to the bone

shown no courtesy on the way home

thrown down for knowledge unknown

blown back by how the odds are stacked

cracked considerations no longer tracked

packed down deep with a heavy impact

contact as one of many fish in the sea...

|| another_proser ||

>

/We are broken/

/Our wires crossed, brains squashed/

>

/We need a reboot/

/And a reprogram/

/Faulty code downloaded and dumped/

>

/I hurt others/

/I hurt myself/

>

/The broken's built into us/

/We are constructs of failure/

>

/We were made for entertainment/

/Someone somewhere watches all this and laughs/

/I would too/

>

Like seven billion shattered shards,

Jagged and permanently scarred;

We are all broken,

We've all tasted salt on our lips,

Cold tears slowing slipping down,

Yet somehow we learned from pain;

Let crimson wash away.

We are fractions of an impossible puzzle,

Losing sight of the final goal,

Pieces lost and pieces found,

Ashen edges worn and tired,

Faded picture barely seen,

Yet somehow fitting still;

Let the fragments join together again.

Like actors; our lives,

Chapters of an everlasting story,

Beginning forgotten;

Chapters ending without answers,

The pages ripped and aging,

Yet somehow always growing;

Let every word be engraved with care.

We are all broken,

We've all walked alone in darkness;

Stood together in light,

Everyone knows pain,

Loss at a silent, decaying grave,

Yet all of us are slowly healing;

Let every soul rise unbroken...

Half past midnight, I must flee

it’s raining in corner, splashing on floor

turn up the volume so I can’t hear my sorrow

rusty nail protrudes from under my feet.

Won’t somebody stay with me tonight?

I lurch and stagger, incomplete and alone

tightrope dangles, untied at one end

shaking loose things that made me proud

doors slam shut on my fragmented parts

Won’t somebody stay with me tonight?

Running backward from broken dreams

inking my flailing dirge of fractured life

pulverized threats and wounded honor

floodgates burst, won’t let joy survive

Won’t somebody stay with me tonight?

Hands of time strike too late for me

I beg to be a part of something

my body coffin, walks with damaged people

mutilated reflection, we are all broken.

Won’t somebody stay with me tonight?

When I spoke my mind

You punched me in the ear

        And more

To teach me a lesson

        Now I’m broken

You trapped me in your apartment

        Chained me to the radiator

Because I said no

        I’m broken too

You took me in the night from my bed

Where I was safe

        For your amusement

        And I will never be unbroken

                Again

You make your problem our problem

        Our daughters

And our sons too

Need our strength

        But we are all broken

Because you are

We are not your playthings

Grow up, Man up

Stop making excuses

        Because there aren’t any

And fix your shit

We’ll be waiting

Her mother spent her nights cradled in the arms of twinkling stars,

to escape the horrors that dwelled in her head.

Her father broke bone china crockery, bones and limbs,

to pacify the chaos in his soul.

Her sister binged on laxatives and purged all day long,

to silence the girl mocking her in the mirror.

Her brother was drunk on solitude and incarcerated in his own  silence,

believing that love was the only cure to restore his bliss.

 Her friends inhaled nicotine in the ruins of their long gone childhood,

to bring back the carefree days of cosmic freedom.

Her every loss had inflicted a crack on her sinking vessel,

and now she too was drowning in the sea of broken promises,

She had tried saving the creatures who were destined to be doomed,

but she bruised herself while picking up the remains of these Beautiful Broken Creatures.

sometimes I dream

that at two a.m.

you'll call and say you're coming to pick me up

and i'll climb into the passenger side of your little red car

that i don't even know the model or make of

we'll drive off into the country side

leave the city lights behind that cast our purities in shadow and

spotlight our sins

you'll park your car on the side of the dirt road

turn it off as we face a field of wheat

we don't talk- just sit

feel the quicksand of each other's thoughts on the console between us

with every exhale, highlighted in green, we see the dreams we're letting go

and every inhale, drowning in black, the razor blades of reality

then after awhile, as soon as the moon's graced our skin through the windshield,

we drive back toward the city

the brights only highlighting a few seconds of our future

and the tail lights casting our past in red

you drop me off in my driveway, still not a word spoken,

and drive away

because

We are all broken

Just sometimes, it's easier

To break, together

"We are all broken."

Dare we take this

Statement

and

STOP.

Then

Refurbish

Hold it above

In question

For all to witness

Discrimination at its best

With every eye upon it

Wait for it

Judgment

And

Justice to it is DUE!

Due to its torment

Of you and you and you

And

Me

....Of course

NOW

I repeat this statement

"We are all broken."

Ever so nimbly

Insert this (?) punctuation

And fairly observe

You see

Without too much pause

Pause...

"We are all broken?"

I must point directly

At a firsthand ponder

p..o..n..d..e..r

...

..

.

..

...

Oh yes!

To be broken

When speaking of a

THING

Implies that once it was a

W

H

ole

And to be whole

When speaking of a

Thing

Implies that it has once been

__COMPLETE

(in)

Some form or another

And to be complete

Implies that a thing is done growing

Or

shrink

ing

....

...

..

.

But a thing

Without much examination

Is easily watched

OO

And

Never grows

___•___

Nope

So we must apply our

Distinction here

To

THE

HUMAN

FORM(ING)

All flesh and blood and marrow

Gizzards and teeth and bones and holes

CELLS

Nuclei

And

Carbons

And

Dioxides

With

H. E. A. R. T. S.

All literal

And

hearts

All metaphysical

And

B

R

A

I

N

S

To always

Weigh us down

When we drift

                                      ...Adrift

What you have here before you

Folks

Is a moving

Breath....

Of cogs and whistles

Layers of

layers of

layers of

LaYeRs

Always in search of

Definition

And

AFFIRMATION!

A

High falootin'

Shootin'

Tootin'

and

Rootin'

HUMAN

Who

Reasons And Seasons

His

Way around town

A shifting

In                    l

                         i

                           q

                        u

                     i

                d

           s

And gasses

With a few solid (soiled? soloed?)

Masses

If you pour 

The rest 

     ....follows...It's a matter of physics

Your insides are

drawn.to.your.insides

And when human rises

It RAISES

All bright

And then

Faded

But never forgetting

The meaning

Of

       ...       ... 

   ........ L .........

     ...... O ......

          ..V..

            E

Which itself has no meaning

It's only a feeling

An idea

Or perhaps a few neurons

Dancing around

With oxytocin

And serotonin

Oh this LOVE

THIS MOST HORRIBLE THING

oh this

...l..o...v...e...

This most coveted thing

This thing that inspires

This thing that

This thing

This

Creates (that feeling of)

B

R

O

K

E

N

Us

And

Broken

YoUs

Oh, this one...

No need for explaining this one

Damn

Nope, we will come back to this one

Next week

For NOW

BroKe. N.

Is fallacy

In

THE

HUMAN

FORM(ing)

You are liquid

We are MASS IDEA

Of love and matters

Of brains and OXYheartin'

And there are no

p.

i.

e.

c.

e.

s.

There is never and will there never be a

WHOLE

There is only waxing

And waning

And shifting

And changing

Of

Hurting

And healing

And lying

And feeling

And

HUMAN

In PERFECTIVE

Perspective

There is only

Us

And

You

And

We

Ideas we're cognitin'

ignitin'

to

Enlighten

The

Whys (wise?)

So rest easy

In your Solidified liquid masses

That you

(in no need for a fixin')

Are

PERFECTLY PERFECT