a heavy heart is one thing,

heavy eyes,

they’re something else entirely.

the heaviness of a heart

its sometimes because it’s old

but heavy eyes?

its always because the pain’s so old

and every other set you see lookINF back feel so fucking cold.

your confessions hide in the shadows with pen and papers in hand, writing in the power tripping footsteps of nightmares. Each of their words scribble and pronounce faults only a redeemer can forgive. Traces of metallic blood can be traced by hounds. I dont stop them—I let them lead the way.

It wasnt fair how way you initialed my heart.

Those two letters, they hate that you embarrassed them; even the alphabet barred them from making a home together. Those initials, they hurt. I’ll open my chest and show just what the pair can do they represent a monster’s name.

It wasnt fair the way you initialed my soul.

But, then, it wasnt smart that I handed you the pen. Or was it a marker? No, it was a knife. A pocket knife.

And carve was what you did. Like sweethearts would do to terrorize a tree in 1950’s movies because inflicting scars somehow represented pain. Like pumpkins, who are still always named jack-o-lanterns, even though they cant understand why when nobody ever makes scary any more. Like watermelon shells being stripped of their insides, ones that watered the flower of their own souls in order to thrive.

We never ask if those things hurt.

Let me tell you, it does. It really, really does.

Even the knife itself apologized for falling into a hell bent hand led by barbaric heart! I’m sure every knife that meets a pocket, is unaware of it’s possible calling. Unaware of the hearts it will carve into, around, inside, above, below, with brute strength, with cowardly shakes.

You know, I’d cross my own—I’d cross my heart and even hope to die but you did both of those things for me with your Jagged upside down hook.

It wasnt fair but I still open the wound everyday.

Its not smart the way I wont let it heal.

poetry is my religion and

prose, my god.

or is it Prose the God

or, rather, Prose, my God!

poetry’s still my religion,

words: the altar.

I‘ve never known a church more beautiful

or a life more meaningless.

I make sure to capitalize the G in God so that I build up my way to Heaven. Even the trivial things matter! They are all trivial. The things. These things. My things. Your things. God’s things are us and we are his but I won’t capitalize the H in his because that’s just cultish. My side hurts and my bruises do too. Incisions. Excisions. Draining. Drying. Breaking. Bursting. Crying. Dying.

Hope means well. Honest, to whatever God everyone believes in. Honest, to whatever God anyone else doesn’t. Hope is no God. But the power it holds? It’s something belief can never take credit for. Hope isn’t a religion or a concept. Hope is the natural instinct of a human’s inability to accept the reality of what may be and what may not.

Hope means well but, my God, it does a damn shitty job of showing it.

I hold onto it anyway. We all do.

I’d forgotten you existed!

The very one that shattered me at one time.

I think back, or forward really just with memories, and I remember how incredibly cruel you were… how violently you broke me.

I would wait, wait. On edge. On edges of beds that you would drunkenly push me onto. On edges of passenger seats because you locked the car doors so I couldn’t get out. Edges of cliffs you made me want to jump off of. I would wait. Wait for any moment that you might look me in the eye with ones that weren’t evil. I waited for your mouth to say something that didn’t indicate my death was encouraged. I waited for the man I thought you were to show up.

I remember how incredibly cruel you were. I wondered if you even wondered what it would be like to be kind. I remember I prayed at night that you would say to me “I don’t want you to die”. But you left me to it! You did.

I didn’t die though.

Almost.

But not fully.

It’s a big thing—almost dying and actually dying.

It’s not close like light blue and sky blue.

It’s different hues on the scale.

There's the almost dying and coming back to life, me.

There's the almost dying and stay dead inside, you.

I smile at what I know I'd hear about you, if I ever remembered to waste my time asking about scum. I know nothing will have changed. Kind under pressure. Evil under cover. Having mommy save your ass. Having daddy save your cash.

But your brother. He's real. He's different than you - he said, and i quote, "He never deserved you."

I’d forgotten you’d even existed! Ever!

Dear John,

Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to see how much better my very own existence is ever since you blessed me with your absence.

I always thought hating anything was an energy not worth wasting. It was harmful – for the hater and the hated. But, you. You happened. And to me. And now? Oh, hate is welcomed. Revenge brews. I hope you rot in hell, let me walk you to the door.

Know that it will hurt when I'm done with you -

it's supposed to.

I’m tired of the complexity of thought. The depth of emotion. The brain that harbors the soul I possess. I'm tired. Aren’t we all? Sure. Yes. Why am I selfish? Stubborn with only myself. Self sabotage at its simplest and self sabotage at its most complex.

Writing is my passion. Writing is my calling. With that I have found that while passions never die they still sometimes fail to show up the way they want to . Passions are fearful of their potential. Callings are harder to pick up and say hello to though. Passions are not always welcomed but are always needed.

Just because something is needed does not make it welcome. Just because passions deserve a place in life does not mean they are given room to ground themselves. Just because will is strong, avoidance never fails to push the envelope with greater force.

I shake my head and wipe my brow. I sigh and even type the complaints – the why can’t I make myself write what I want? I know it is not because I cannot find the words, for they run rampant inside me. I know it is not because I fear the response of my words, for I know they pertain the truth in my feelings. I know it is not because I question their validity, for I know they portray my heart.

What I think I know, too, is how much easier it is to sleep unconsciously than to sit down and say that this is what I mean and it is set in stone. I cannot allow the end of anything. Not on my own watch. Cause I know, time and time again, perhaps I shall only allow things to end by their own hand – that way I will have no choice but to write about them then – they are over. There is not more to the story. But then – that’s just the nightmare I cannot fathom. Loss. Loss. Loss.

So I go to sleep again, avoiding the pain. But where’s the passion go from there? Locked in a room it was told it would be let out from once the story had its closing. But the curtains are cast and the cast has bowed and left the stage. The auditorium files out. It’s dark in the room – hiding all of its chairs and its stage and its meaning. It is nothing more than a regular bare room – who knows what it holds – well, only I. Because I won't let the reality that came from the show come to light. I wont debut the story because tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow I won’t be so tired.

The tomorrow is gone and pain is rampant and ravaging and proud and unafraid. And I, the keeper of the keys, am asleep with them chained to my knees – too foolish to speak what I mean.

Life is so fragile and its all I wish to write about and, in knowing that, I still worry I may not actually do so before it’s too late.