Some children are born
With tragedy in their blood
Their fragile bones
Pressed to hardness from the dust,
The ruins of past lives
The overlap of muscle and skin
Layers of vicissitudes
Skin, an intricate weave of cells and afflictions
Their beating hearts
Already broken.
I am in the habit
Of hanging on so tightly that I forget myself,
Dislocating limbs to stay attached to things
Loathsome and lovely in equal measures,
And better left alone.
There is a variety of sadness
That makes itself home within my guts
Clinging to my entrails and growing like mold,
Devouring new feelings of love,
And covering my insides with rot.
I stare at these crumbling castle walls
The once-mighty stronghold of my heart
Turned to ash and rubble in the wake of my own inevitability
My hatred of myself has torn the stones from their places,
Has felled each turret and hall.
I wander amongst the wreckage
The endless madness of my mind
These ancient ruins, a maze of my own invention
Designed to keep the darkness inside me from escaping
Lost inside my blackened eyes.
I find no solace within this prison
The forgotten fortress of my soul
The church bell tolls its mournful notes for the dead
The blight of my existence resides within this decaying citadel
It has become my final tomb.
It’s an odd thing –
Being so young and yet feeling like my life is already over
I haven’t had enough experience to be able to say
“I have lived”
But time has already begun to fade,
Days and weeks blur together and I cling to routine
Even as I fight against my own complacency.
Being young and lifeless makes it hard for planting dreams,
Like seeds on concrete they wither in the light of every new day.
Why continue planting when the soil is the same?
I watch those around me grow and drift away
But I feel rooted,
Unintentionally.
I’ve never wanted to stay in one place and yet I find myself unable to move.
I strain against the comfort of normalcy,
The very thought of settling down setting my skin to crawling
Because there’s so much I want to do,
And so little time in which to do it.
Am I 19 or 93?
Sometimes I forget how short my time has been,
Too focused on changing, on growing
That I send my consciousness to the stratosphere
Where it lingers for minutes
Or maybe for centuries.
You wanted me to be your world
Your starry sky and moon
You didn’t realize that it meant
I’d have to orbit you.
You wanted me to be your fire
Your only source of warmth
You didn’t realize that it meant
I’d have to burn for you.
You wanted me to be your heart
Your passion and your drive
You didn’t realize that it meant
I’d have to give up mine.
You wanted me to be your anchor
Your calm within the storm
You didn’t realize that it meant
I’d have to drown for you.
We scramble to pick up pieces in the aftermath
Fragments of love and friendship,
Shattered
Into shards of loneliness and blame
Sharp enough to cut our fingers,
Open blooming arteries,
Or saw through bone.
But we hold our own pieces,
Careful not to wound one another
Even though we gave each other the tools.
For now, that decision is enough to live with
And slowly we will rebuild
Me, my lofty castle walls
And you, your forest full of dreams.
It’s the right thing to do, I tell myself
You owe him this much
Honesty and tact are not my forte
But for him I try anyway.
It’s the right thing to do, I tell myself
You owe yourself this much
Love and courage are not my forte
But for myself I’ll try anyway.
If I am silent
It is because there is thunder growing inside me
Filling clouds with striking electricity
It is the quiet before the storm
The church’s warning bells ringing.
If I am silent
It is because the tide pulls back from the shore
Before it crashes in tsunami waves
It is the drought before the flood,
The fisherman’s knowledge of superstition.
If I am silent
There is no tranquility behind my closed mouth
My complacency is a crumbling facade
It is a dangerous thing
The calm amidst the encroaching chaos.
Love starts with drops of honey-nectar,
Spilling from heated cheeks
To feed the butterflies
Fluttering inside my chest.
Slowly, nectar turns to morning mist,
Beat into hurricanes by butterfly wings
Swirling, twirling, a nauseating dance
Settling inside my belly.
Mist begins to morph into an icy wind,
Blown into my nervous system
Fibers brittle to the point of breaking
Freezing blood and bone marrow.
Ice melts into briny rivers
Running down your cheeks and
Dripping down to drown the butterflies
That once fluttered in my chest.
All the voices in my head
The overwhelming urge
To feel blood and pain
Is like silent insanity
And I’m losing control.
It’s screaming in my ears
To drag the blade
Across scarred flesh
Opening new wounds
To put the old to shame.
Emotions swirl inside
They’ve been building for months
inside my chest to spread
To fingertips to grasp
The silver blade of life.
the Honest Poet