at noontime,

we meet beneath the trees

and i sob over the earth's rotation.

i want it to stop trembling, i cry.

he reminds me:

want nothing.

life never works the way we want it to.

it's a need, i reply. i need to feel steady. i can't stand on unstable soil. the grit is so kneaded into my skin that i am afraid i'll never come clean.

he answers:

will the pressure underground keep you upright? will it keep you pure? a headstone is not a home. the world doesn't owe you anything

yet.

he tells me:

the sun will bow to you one day

when you deserve its light.

until then,

you are a slave to the sky.

how can i serve it?

stay humble

and beg for rain.

there's nothing a mother loves more

than the chance to feed her starving children.

and if i'm not hungry?

do you feel full?

are you satisfied?

can you look me in the eyes and tell me you don't feel counterfeit?

tell me you don't feel like you're suffocating,

tell me you don't feel like you're stuck sleeping in a coma you can't shake

while the rest of the world leaves you behind in its wake.

tell me

you don't feel like people like us were built to break, and this city was designed to tear us apart

muscle by muscle,

headline by headline in the news and every body we lose to the trenches.

do you see the effect?

this is the chaos we're creating.

if you can proclaim with a straight face that this life doesn't leave you aching,

then i'll apologize for shining light into your eyes,

but i need to know if you're listening.

do you hear me in your chest?

ears ringing, louder, louder—

are you prepared to confess?

heart beating, faster, faster, faster—

are you ready to live in the light?

yes.

The wound

Could heal,

But

The knife

In your

Mouth

Is too heavy.

You hide the blade

Behind a smile,

But you know

That

Though you

Have not slipped

The blade

Into their

Heart,

You are still

Killing them

With

Your

Every

Single

Breath.

My past enters,

My heart pounds.

Your voice whispers,

"Write this down."

Laughter trickles

Like a brook.

"Go and write this

In your book."

Dreams come quiet

And full of light.

"Wake up love,

It's time to write."

Nightmares claw and

Haunt but then

I wake, I sob,

I grab my pen.

You speak bright words,

My mind you kiss.

You, dear muse,

Created this.

this is for everyone who had the guts but not the breath to love out loud, whose lion hearts were led to hope like sheep to slaughter, who woke each morning in fear for their lives but found their pride in a safe haven in the midst of hell; this is for everyone who's out, love is love and hate is hate and whether or not the world chooses to believe it, this is what it's about; this is for everyone who simultaneously discovered too late and too soon that bullets were the salt and we are the wound; while this world is on the edge of an infection, i am ill with fright; this is for everyone who died that night:

there are those with hearts, and there are those with a pulse,

but there are not enough of those with both.