And then I felt my soul crumble,

The pain was worse than the shatter

of my heart,

But no one told me

that a war within yourself

breaks your bruises from within,

so I'm learning to stretch

before I look in the mirror

because it takes preparation

to avoid cutting the sinew

that holds me together.

it's in my nature to resist.

and my will breaks as an act

of defiance.

if I could turn inside out,

you'd see evidence of the thrashing,

the maze of corrections and edits

I've drawn upon my soul.

we both know, my final draft

will be framed with a casket

and a crowd.

and I'll be perfect on that day,

when the mirror doesn't

see me look back,

when my wounds are covered

with flowers

and all my scars fade to bone,

and eulogies become,

an introduction,

to what I tried to be.

My heart is stripped naked

etched with acid

like a balloon in flight

floating away

from sliced anguish.

In the black sky, I find

shattered pieces

of my heart

burrowing into

crumpled clouds,

leaking from

tunneled pain.

Burnt tulip words,

walking on broken

sidewalks, forever scar

my soul, as I

tuck your absence

inside my sleeve,

choked by memories.

Lacerated pain

in my crumbled pith

causes an aching silence

worse than the

shatter of my heart.

I sorrowfully

pick up the pieces

of my heart,

poke them back

into my throbbing chest

and begin rebuilding

my battered soul.

When my soul

began to crumble,

the pain outweighed

the shatter of my heart

There could no more be

a Mender for my heart

if my soul's integrity

began to fall apart

For the soul's

the only merger

of eternal

with the mortal...

So who will heal

my broken heart

if my shattered soul

is not the entry portal...

For those things immortal?

And then I felt my soul crumble,

The pain was worse than the shatter of my heart.

And so again, I crawl into myself,

Blocking off the entrance and exits

With a fake smile and a forced laugh

Silently shouting at myself for thinking

That even for a moment I was worth

A second of their time.

I comfort myself with the knowledge

That my screw up is forgotten in an instant

And I, yet again, fade into the background,

As someone to laugh at their jokes,

Smile at their stories,

And listen to their tales of woe.

So many thoughts racing through my mind as the car rolled back into the driveway. Only gone an hour, and the phone call brought me home. She's gone. Legs shaking, no need to hurry to the door. Not knowing what was inside.

Entering the house, like so many times before, I was unable to see the faces of my family, blurred by fear. And if they were crying, and they were, my ears were deaf to the sound. As if drawn into a vacuum, floating to her bedside, I was there in an instant, staring in disbelief. What was this now, my mother?

It took two years to lose her. It took two more weeks to say goodbye. Now, in this instance all I wanted was more time. Heart beating hard and fast, so alone and panicked.

Gasping like a fish exposed to all things painful. Clutching at her porcelain feet while kneeling at her side, I howled my primal protest as if I would forever. A finality, a truth like no other crushed me, as I realized what was lost. And then I felt my soul crumble. The pain was worse than the shatter of my heart.

Never to feel her comfort again.

And then I felt my soul crumble

The pain worse than the shatter of my heart

Everything that held me together

Had snapped apart.

My dreams lay broken

My love forbidden

My family long lost.

Ambition? It wasn't my passion

And passion? The chance to it crushed.

Just like everything else

Now even my soul lay in shards before me.

And then I felt my soul crumble...

the pain worse than the shatter of my heart

age takes us all

the once smooth skin

replaced with wrinkled lines

like the creases of an old shirt

thrown in the corner

the places that once stood, sag

the bones start to ache

present turns to past

and memories fade like old photographs

worn like the wick of a burning candle

such an obsession we all have

to be forever young

and this idea

to bottle such a thing

should never have been done

but delusion possessed us

but this gift, as they called it

came with a hefty price...

to polish out those lines

put the lift back in to our skin

mend these aged bones

you must rip apart

the thing that should never be ripped

and swallow it whole

and as I watched them lapping like pups

at the red puddles of the girl before me

I closed my eyes and waited

for a fate worse than death to take me

they took it greedily, snapping, pulling, devouring

there was nothing left of me...but look at you

At your beautiful, young shell

rotting from the inside out.

I felt that I was soaring high above the world, I was within the grasp of the moon. A surge of emotion lifting me up, up and away, starting in my stomach and making its way to my throat. My feet never wanted to feel the ground beneath them again, because that would mean that I’m back in reality.

I took another lick of my mint chocolate chip ice cream cone, and I closed my eyes, the pleasure from the coolness of the ice cream on a hot summer day tingling all over my body. Suddenly, I felt something bump my hand, my eyes snapped open, and I saw the evil seagull fly away, my lovely cone in hand. My mouth dropped open and all I could do was stare longingly after the seagull who stole my small dose of happiness. And then I felt my soul crumble…The pain was worse than the shatter of my heart.

And then I felt my soul crumble… The pain was worse than the shatter of my heart. As I watched the bus pull away from the curb, I felt like the sidewalk had been pulled out from under me. Once again, he was choosing to live his life away from the hustle and bustle of the world he’d grown up in. He was choosing to become his own person. No matter how many times he said “Mom, it’s just something I have to do to find out what I can and can’t do” it still felt like he was running away from who he was. Perhaps so. He wasn’t happy living in this burg, and we both knew it. He wanted to be a free spirit. He made a few attempts at it when he was younger, and yet each time, he’d come home. It wasn’t as if he failed completely, because at least he’d done what I had not, and he tried. Failure should be a stepping stone to something greater, not a road block. In this, it seemed that my nineteen-year old son was far ahead of where I was at his age. So with that, I let him run away from the life he’d been living, and the person he’d become. All the while, I knew that somewhere out there he would find the person within that he was always intended to be, and so did he. I know one day he’ll come back and he’ll thank me for not stopping him, for not hindering what he had to do. One day he’ll apologize for breaking his mama’s heart, and I will be forever grateful. It matters not that my soul crumbles now, for he is off on his own adventure and my mama’s heart is proud of him. The hurt will pass.

And then I felt my soul crumble...

The pain was worse than the shatter of my heart. 

The despair

Hiroshima destroyed in my intestines

Heart racing 

Jaw clenched and stuck

A hinge in need of oil.

Disbelief mounts in a pile that rivals K2

I gather myself

Get up and start pacing about the room

In a cold sweat

Second-guessing my vision

Attempting to regain

Self-control

I return to the screen.

Eyes hop-scotch over the pixels

My heart breaks again within seconds

Love is yesterday's waste

Hope is in the toilet

The unrivaled ignorance, unquestioned conviction, and unbridled hate spewing forth brings salt water to the eyes. 

To hell with

Click-bait hate

On social media.