you asked

Does Lighting

hit twice?

yes but

let's be

precise:

Never in

the same place

and never the

same way

but yes why

sometimes in the head

sometimes in the jaw

sometimes in the heart

exactly

I've seen that it does

like with

spontaneous

combustion

you're the same

but

you've changed

and the burn

as oxidation

or electrification

appears from the outset

to be the same

only you

can let it

be known

strapped

in the chair

if it was a spark

from the outside

or a spark from within

and was it the second

or the third spark

that caught

and finally

did you in?

11.20.2023

Spontaneous Combustion i missed the deadline @dctezcan

The love of my life? How shall I describe an eternity of damnation?

She smells like sunshine, as juvenile as that is.

It is the scent of gardens bathing in the light, and the skins pheromone of pennies and sweat.

I know it well.

It is what my skin is saturated in with every hug that smells like childhood lake days.

And my love, she reminds me of the thrill of teenage amusement park rides.

But the sun goes down. The rides rust.

It nearly kills me.

I drink to drown her face. I burn my skin to stave off her touch. I tolerate to displace her love

I can't die from heartbreak. So I have to get used to the pain. Comprehend the hole in my chest and ignore it like a pestering roommate.

I forget she had ever seen me at my best, and resent her when I am my worst.

I do not love again. I try to replicate it. It does not work.

I eventually become a masochist for the stale pain when I need inspiration.

Do you want to know what that pain is?

It's the infernal noise that she was warm beneath my fingertips while everyone else's lips stay cool, pressed to my heated skin that cannot heal her mark.

Who can cool the pain?

She burnt me until I was nothing but freckles and sun spots. My skin is taut, red and soft to the touch. Was the burn worth the warmth that covered me? Yes. I would happily burn my burns for you

If these walls could talk, they'd crumble from the horrors they’ve seen. Blood splatters all over the floor. Body parts lie in heaps on the ground, wails fill every part of the room. Within these walls are where lives were taken with injustice. Where dreams of innocent children were crushed. Where they smiled through the pain for the last time. Within these walls are where a mother called out for her children but her calls were met with a piercing silence. Where a father held his children's remains in waste bags and cried. Where a child lost every member of his family. Where people went insane holding onto their loved ones' dead bodies. Within these walls are where parents write the names of their children on their legs and on their hands to identify them if they’re murdered. These walls have cried out for help, but the world was deaf. These walls have spoken out of their oppression time and time again, but the world was busy portraying them as the enemy. Their voices came in screams of pain and heartache, but the world was crying, praying for their killers. Everything these walls suffer, they had to suffer on their own. These walls have seen bodies flooding in by the hundreds all at once until they had no more spaces to spare. They’ve seen families being ripped apart, families being completely erased with no survivors and hoped their names won’t be forgotten. They’ve seen doctors coming across the faces of those they loved lying amongst the dead but had to keep working. They’ve heard their cries, seen their angst upon their faces. But never once had they seen them give up. Piles upon piles of a never-ending flow of victims. These walls stretched out, no longer the four walls of a morgue, but they extended to the hospitals, to schools, to anywhere else they thought would be safe, until the whole city became one big morgue. They even reached out to ice cream trucks, where instead of seeing the smiles on their kids’ faces eating an ice cream, parents kept their lifeless kids inside in bloody shrouds. These walls thought they’d seen the worst, but still, every day is a new horror, every day comes with a bigger loss, every day is the worst.

If these walls could talk, they'd cry out, is this the death of humanity? If these walls could talk, they'd ask, what did these children do to deserve this? What did they do to deserve to be stripped of their rights to dream, to grow up, to have a family? To be stripped of their simple right to be children.

For years these walls have watched the people within die defending what they believed in. For years these people have been urged to leave their homes, leave their land, leave their memories and their families and their dignity. For years these people refused to be moved, they stood tall, fearless, and smiling in the face of death. For years they lived in oppression. And now the world asks them, why don’t you live in peace with your oppressors?

All these walls ever asked for was freedom. Was that too much to ask? If these walls could talk, they'd weep.

These walls are not just random walls, and if these walls could talk, they'd be proud to say, we are Palestine.

Perhaps its pathetic that I am desperate to see you, that I need you with every fibre of my being. More than the need to be with you, its the need to quell the questions inside me that makes me desperate. Was my friendship ever worthy of you? You always reside in my thoughts, everytime I remember our conversations, I feel the need to come after you and ask for closure. We never dropped off one day, we just drifted apart slowly, rather than hold on like you promised you let me go. I just wish I could know somehow that you remember me now, that you miss me...

I know I told you that I wasn’t angry anymore.

That I’ve accepted it’s my turn now to undo the damage that was done.

And I lied to you that day -

I lied to keep the peace,

Because when it comes to you, keeping peace is much easier than any truth that I could speak.

The truth is that it grows like ivy around every rib in this cage.

The truth is that I can only tell the truth because right now you’re a hundred miles away.

In a completely different state,

Not just by distance, it’s also of the mind.

Because you’re probably back home brewing up your hops,

And I’m still swallowing down the memories while they scrape at my insides, and I’m choking on every drop.

Like how you could fight a war on foreign ground,

But you couldn’t fight the hands at home that tried to make me drown.

You didn’t stop the death of your own blood,

But you stopped that blood from standing up.

You left us with the demon that even you were running from.

I know it was your duty,

Not necessarily your choice -

But it was your choice to make me stay.

For 18 months at first, and then another 6 delayed.

I remember crying to you through the screen,

Begging for reprieve.

“Just send me back to my dysfunctional mother, at least she doesn’t strangle me.”

And you looked away, your thoughts looming heavy.

You took a deep breath, and peered through the camera at me,

Your eyes were hollow, but I could tell you felt free -

Because you didn’t have to watch her that night,

You didn’t feel the hot spit of her scream.

That was one of the days you talked about accountability.

And holding one’s self to such -

In that fatal moment I knew we’d lost touch.

I knew we’d probably never get it back -

I was just a bad kid, and you were just an army dad.

I know if you were here, you’d probably feel this in your chest.

But you’re miles away and that’s how I like you best.

Because you and I both know, you’d just say I’m being dramatic.

That I “just have to get over that shit.”

Concealing nail marks on my cheeks just isn’t comparable when it comes to dodging IEDs.

The irony is that now you and I are both diagnosed with the very same thing.

It’s that complex version of PTSD.

And so that’s why I lie,

and I keep the peace -

Because while you think that your war is over,

Our fires never really ceased.

I stood there by your side as I watched you wither. Your rosy cheeks turned to hollow and your warm hug turned to a weak cold clasp.

You looked me in the eye and said you are living, but I looked back and there was no life left. The deceit of your lies has made me reach out into that deep abyss to save you from falling to the bottom. But you put on armor so impenetrable my hand had slipped and I lost you to the fiend of your mind.

I tried to dive deep, swim through the broken shards, open the gates of loneliness and yet you locked the door and built a new wall between us. Then my breath finished.

Many years have passed and my heart got fixed and I started to live. And now when I look at you, I must look away as there is still that abyss in your eyes inviting me fall into that old cold cell.

I stood there by your side, but now my heart is away.

For so many years

I wasn’t there for you

And I thought I was right

There were so many times

I thought I might be wrong

And those were the only times I was right

After all these years

I’m ready to admit

I should have always been there for you

I’m here now

And I’m not going anywhere

But you’re not sure where you want to be

It might be too late

Can you trust me?

Do you love me?

Will you be here for me too?

I don’t know where you are

And you’re not sure either

I can’t say I blame you

But after all these years

I’m going to keep being right here

Waiting for you

It's the one thing I know is right

I saw your mom today, it was normal because I see her all the time. She waved at my car and I waved back, and pretended it didn’t hurt.

It made me think of you,

of nights spent on the living room floor on a blow up mattress;

of midnight drives to get ice cream because the movie made us cry.

I still think about the nights I slept on your bedroom floor because my mom and I were fighting. You were my safe space. I don’t want to admit it because it makes me feel weak, but: I miss you, I guess.

It doesn’t seem fair, that you cut me out without an explanation. Why was I the piece of your life that got tossed aside? It was hard to hear that you felt that we couldn’t be friends anymore. I suppose eighteen years doesn’t much these days.

I’m not angry anymore, but I still feel like I am missing a piece of myself. I miss you, I guess.

Remember when you came to my wedding, but instead of standing next to me where you belonged, you were in the back row in a black dress.

I hugged you, but I was angry.

Remember when you came to my graduation, not for me but you were there.

I hugged you, I cried into your hair.

Remember your grandfather’s funeral, when we drank tequila and talked about the past. It felt like old times, that was weird.

I hugged you, and that time the tears weren’t over you.

Remember the family reunion, we played soccer with Danny and Sam. We talked about tattoos and jobs. I laughed, but I was hurting.

Its hard to say goodbye to people you still see but know they aren’t thinking about you anymore. You could call me tonight and I’d drive to Ohio, but I know I’m still blocked on your phone.

I miss you, I guess.

shivering light of the red giant

the weymouth’s pine stoops dimly,

casting pale shadows from the west.

through crumbled strains,

a calcified pile reaches ground cover.

colorless heaps catch a breeze,

turning to the wood,

your presence sensed,

fueling gentle wisps,

igniting a resentful gust of wind.

over what’s left, I sit.

loose grains remained,

coming up, I feel you

calling my name.

a voice much older,

whispering,

ascending a request.

“time ground me

against these wooden grains

as I lay here in this pine drape.

remanence of blood

plunged through my flesh,

escaping my mourning veins

every time I tried to come to you;

seeping and seeking refuge,

leaving me desolate

with only fear to cling onto.”

“I tried one summer

in the searing heat,

to taste the sweat the wood sap bled.

out from the deep,

in these expanding staves;

to be born again

of the white pine’s sugar.”

“but God stopped the sun

and Satan turned it red.

laying my tree low, to litter the soil.

with a broken soul’s purpose,

my spirit roared! rising

to clang on heaven’s gates. yet,

your heart had passed on me.”

“I tried to come to you

through thin cracks~

where the wind tapped.

within drops of rain,

feeding the garden beds

of potato and bean,

so that you could forage in spring.

yet all the glamor of it’s fruits

washed away~ clawing

outside the plots,

every day you came.”

“come. please.

turn this soil- take this seed.

let the last bit of me touch your skin.

with a voice fueled only by the

thick high-flown sky,

I ask for forgiveness.

let my plea nest in your mind,

to set you free; in your ears -

to chime and wake your heart.”

“you see, I’m in the space between~

waiting to come to rest in your peace.

to dwell forever, together.

and as you live on,

I can give beat to your heart

once more .... like when

I first became your mother.”