Hold it in like medicine.

Hold the truth in, like after ten seconds the lies will dissolve on your tongue.

Like it’ll cure realities, burdens.

Like it’ll open your eyes and turn lies to truth's.

Like it’ll purge your sicknesses exposing your sins through the very glands of your skin.

Hold it in like medicine.

Let the sweat coat your warm body as your fever shakes you to your very core.

The sickness within in you seems incurable.

You can't see straight.

Your vision is blurry.

Your truth as shaky and lose as what come's forth from your mouth.

But hold it in like medicine.

No one wants to know the truth, not really.

Keep it close to your heart.

Swallow the cherry tasting liquor until it's bitterness turns sweet.

The truth, bury it.

When the sickness is over your words will be sweet.

The sweet nothing's that I've only ever begged you to speak.

Your lies I can take.

But the truth I'm allergic to.

Your truth's spill hives on my skin.

Your reality sets my skin on fire.

Send's my heart into arrest.

Tell me your sweet lies.

Hold back your truths until your lies I believe.

Until your lies turn to realities.

Tell me lies, for your honesty threatens to be the demise of me.

Tell me your stories, I won't question it.

Tell me you love me.

Hold back your hate.

Hold back your heart.

Hold it all back.

Sip on the medicine of lies; temporary cure it is.

For your sickness will forever spread.

Your sickness will forever rot both our hearts.

Drink back your medicine and cough up stories coated with the cold of your soul.

He says tell me about your writing?

I think to myself that he's asking for a piece of my soul the key to a secret treasure box that's been hidden away. But as the laminated menus create a barrier between us, and he sips the fizzy cherry cola in the dim lights of this quiet restaurant, I think to myself that I kind of like this guy. I almost feel like he should know pieces of me that no one else does. And so as if I've grabbed the steak knife that sits between us I prepare to spill my secrets like guts.

Even before I speak his eyes seem to tell me that I could say anything to him, and it's be safe in his arms.

I take a breath and fiddle with the hand-held device in my pocket most people use it for snapping pictures of mediocre meals, catching moments in time, scrolling listlessly through photos of other people's lives, mindless conversation. But not me. What lives behind the screen in secrets notes are stories of lives unseen.

His question chants in my ear, and I wonder if when I tell him my story if he'll become my apostle, my follower, my first and only fan, a believer in the passion I call my works.

My writing.

Well I wouldn't say that I have the talent of Shakespeare or anything like that. Who would? He was a God. I bow to his accomplishments. Funny thing is I don't think I could compare myself to any writer of old. Not Brontee, or lord Byron, Robert frost, or even Edgar Allen Poe. And maybe that's because I have an odd case of imposter syndrome. I've spent years looking for a cure but there's been not breakthrough's. Or perhaps it's because I'm in a class of my own. In a wilderness all alone. Not because I'm something special, mostly because I'm a writer lost in a sea of better poets. A wildflower in a field of roses.

I think my writing belongs not to one genre.

Because who could ever describe themselves as one thing?

I think of all the melancholy madness of mess I scribble on old scraps of paper if to one category it must be owned to it might be called almost romantic. Not tragic enough to be called depressing, not funny enough to be seen as comedic, not loving enough to be called heart-warming. The poem's I write are melodies with highs and low and sympathetically written rhymes.

Describe my writing?

I'd say it was crash in a ballet.

A bouquet of dead flowers. Once beautiful, once something that was almost perfect. I think if there were two words that I'd have to describe my writing with it would be Melancholy Mess. Yes that's exactly how I'd describe it.

I look up and the cherry cola that fizzed is empty, nothing but ice left in it's place. The booth in front of me is empty. My date has disappeared. I suppose I could have said something simple instead of this rant. Then maybe he might have stayed. He could have been the one, I shrug who finds true love online dating anyway. Call me old fashion but there's something desperate about swiping right. When I'd done it myself I'd been desperate.

This was how it always went. Guys wanted normal girls. Girls who paint there nails red, and sing along to Taylor swift, calling her the greatest writer to have ever lived. Guys want girls who dream of white picket fences, and whose pin interest boards are lined with their imaginary wedding days.

I'm slowly learning that guys don't want girls fueled by their own webbed thoughts. Who thrust themselves into depressive lows, because,'that's when writing gets good.'

They don't want girls who stick their nose up to Taylor swift and only know the songs of unrated bands with deep voices and sad notes.

He could have been the one, for someone just not for me.

I wanted to fall in love tonight, and I almost did. He could have become my love-story muse. But instead he'll be my heartbreak muse. Just like all the others. The new inspiration to my arts. Another dead flower to be tucked into the bouquet of others. I lean into the corner of the booth, and wave over the waiter. I order a cherry cola for myself, something to eat and shoo her away. I lean into the booth, listening to the sound of the fizzing in my ear. I let the dim light's of the restaurant cover me. My thumbs slide against the screen of my phone, the one with notes hidden in different pathways. And I think to myself here goes another Melancholy Melody.

My favorite genre.

Self-isolation's a term that we’ve gotten used to in 2020

Stay away, stay home, stay stay, stay alone.

But the fact of the matter is that I’ve been self-isolating long before I was grown.

Tears on my pillowcase, teardrops on the bathroom floor, I’ve long known what it was like to be alone.

This doesn’t feel like anything new, somehow living through a pandemic feels like something I’ve already been through.

Lonely nights, the sound of your voice echoing through the house hasn’t been anything anew.

The next day you pretending, like I was ignorant, like the cover of the night covered your sins.

You’ve been my pandemic my whole life, you’ve cut me off from the outside world, and though I’ve tried to run with every sprint with every attempt you cut my limbs.

Self-isolate.

Stay at home.

It’s always been your way.

We could never stray.

Self-isolate

Stay at home

You’ve taken away my options.

Dear God, you are nothing but a toxin.

Pandemic's new for this century.

For me, it’s nothing but an old memory.

Phony lies telling me it’s safe outside.

But in reality, all it is is a graveside on a hillside on the eastside where in the end we all go topside.

See you think I’m weak and you can silence me with your disease.

But I will never let you preside.

You will never see my tears on the roadside, or cuts that I scrap by the bedside.

You will never know what you’ve done to me because if you know you affected me then that means I let you get to me.

You will ever only see my strong side with the phony smile and bright jides.

You will never see the way I cried or the parts of me that I’ve killed and left on the roadside, for vultures to divide and the cars to collide.

You will never know my contrite for you.

All I will ever do is be polite, never forthright with you.

See Ill I brush my teeth with the fluoride looking all bright with a cheesy chide to you.

But the truth is I’m only waiting for an off night with a landslide by the seaside with riptide to take you, in the night.

And when I'll watch you try to swim ashore with more empty promises for another chance to make things right and for another chance of a rewrite.

I will look at you and I will stamp denied.

Only then will I be able to collect the tears that I shed by daylight and grab the rawhide of my body parts and then after you are long gone ill set a fire and ignite them by the hearthside.

You my, pandemic will be gone, no part of you will be implied, then maybe I’ll take a joyride to your graveside with an invite.

Telling you to watch from below how I turned out alright.

I find my soul is a wandered beast.

Roaming the transatlantic beach.

To this world my soul is not possessed.

Of that I know I haven’t been blessed.

This life is only a contract, to which I long ago breeched.

I’ve willed my lover to come take me.

His soul, like mine a ghostly remnant of a human love, left behind.

A soliloquy of a man, who to earth was never apart.

Wandered beast I am.

He a god, like a lover from greek mythology.

Our love, nothing ever was written about it, so commonly.

These places where my spirit has gone to rest.

Have only ever been in my own self interest.

But like the great God Thetis, my soul you own; to your own control.

Your dreams, the very beatings to my heart and soul.

To earth my soul is not possessed.

I only now know that after your death.

Our love a tragedy, like the story told through Macbeth.

My soul a ghost; I have no place but in the hidden shadows of walls defaced.

My life a memory of a time displaced.

The world I see, I do not believe, that it can be.

For I am an on-looker I fail to partake.

As I lay restless in wake.

Wandered beast I’ve been.

Searching for your soul beyond the cliffs.

And the perfect taste of smoothed-lined lips.

The weightlessness of your body; something like a once in a lifetime eclipse.

I watch this world from a distance.

Refusing to love.

Refusing to hate.

Refusing to stay.

My roots are no where; in this life I call foul play.

The soul called my temple, lies inoperable on display.

A story that will never be portrayed.

Wandered child I am without a home or place.

For when the time is right and when I can no longer be an outcast.

And my life has been a dead hand to the past.

I float the transatlantic beach.

My lover will not be far out of reach.

I will call him to life.

Lose myself to the sheath knife.

And then he will deem me his wife.

Wandered beast I will be no more.

Together we will take the final flight.

For then it will only feel right.

To the earth I will say goodnight.

And to you forever I will hold tight.

What is goddess with no god.

A queen with no king.

A poet with no muse.

A soul without life.

A leaf without flower.

You are spring.

With you I can deal with a world of strife.

Your love, a great power.

The only thing worth worshiping.

My own soliloquy still hidden beneath my fingertips.

But the one we write together is already etched on very breast’s.

To you I give my soul.

And I am unafraid of my life within your hands.

For I know in the end, where, together in our love our story lands.

But for now wandered soul I stay.

Searching for my muse, my king, my soul, my flower.

In this troubled world I’ll remain.

Outcasted to a world, my heart has already defamed.

This be the soliloquy of the beast of a wandered soul.

Of a Poet without a muse.

A soul searching for a life.

To life I’ve been burdened to stay until, unburdened to this life I shall proclaim.

I walk this transatlantic beaches partaking in life at only a distance.

Ready to throw myself to your feet and worship the story that’s already been written for the love we’ve so long tried to tame.

She'll crawl in bed before the sunsets.

Alone, withdrawn from her thoughts.

Replaying her lover's promises to herself like threats.

Recalling highlights of his love in golden hour screenshots.

Her heart feels fragile.

She can see pieces of her soul scattered on her bedside table.

A mirror set just so, to watch herself unravel.

She knows the migration of their hearts was interglacial.

She mindlessly flips the channel.

She know this too shall pass.

Because the reality is that if love doesn't last forever neither will heartbreak.

Those scattered pieces of her heart she'll sweep up like shattered glass.

She'll wonder if heartbreak is as easy to cure as a belly ache.

if the memory of him is as easy to erase as those screen shots.

And if this was her entire story of merely a subplot.

The older she gets she'll see that life is a strange place.

And that nothing is black and white rather it's all a four-dimensional space.

The thing that broke her, will now shape her.

Her heart, her greatest saboteur.

This too shall pass.

Like the clear sunny days that come after the rain.

Like the clarity that comes after drowning herself in her wineglass.

nothing last forever.

not even the worst of days,

Or the greatest of pleasures.

And while she feels like hope is just a catchphrase.

Deep down she knows the truth.

So for now she'll take one ticket for depression at the ticket booth.

What's to worry if it doesn't last forever?

What's to fear if it's just a temporary relapse?

She just needs a moment to grieve her broken heart.

She won't go too far.

She's too smart, even if her thoughts are sometimes like a piece of abstract art.

She can't fully fall apart.

What's the harm in standing under cold droplets of rain.

She doesn't believe it's inhumane.

It's nothing like stepping in front of a freight train.

The rain always ends.

She's just crying alongside it.

For if she smiles she'd be deemed a hypocrite.

But when it's over, she'll smile, to life she'll recommit.

How could you be the best part of me and I be the worst of you?

Unbalanced we waiver.

Belief's that together we make the best love flavor.

When the truth is; I live off your breaths; I suck air out of you.

A parasite leeching on, struggling to survive clawing at your skin for life.

Without you I'd be forever dangling in the after-life.

How could you be the best part of me and I be the worst of you?

How do we survive this?

To let me go means I'd shrivel up and die.

And if I thought it any different I'd be remiss.

To stay though, means you wilt away, the truth you can't defy.

And I love you too much to stay and watch.

Do we toss ourselves into the deepest abyss?

Or hold onto our time like some kind of stopwatch?

Somehow i can't see the end in my minds eye.

I wish we could forever stay in this deep kiss.

Our love now tastes like doomsday.

How do we balance this unwavering balance we've become, who do we sacrifrice?

Here is our judgement day.

The selfish parts of us question our ending.

But there has been enough pretending.

I stand in defensive, by heart transcending.

All this feels repressive, oh so mind-bending.

With knife in my hand I see no longer that we are one.

No longer is our end, something we can out run.

And I'm left crying for my loved one.

On opposites sides we play

And I know our end sounds like a cliche.

But I'm reminded that I'm nothing but a parasite.

We believed we could make it work how wrong we were in hindsight.

Awakened by the only the dazzling moonlight.

Your love the only poem I know to recite.

All those times you promised to make things right if only, I just sat tight.

But, I leeched onto your soul.

And it was all beyond control.

I clung to you for life, you were my watering hole.

And now I've sucked it all out.

Your sunken in eyes, the scattered feather of hair left behind is proof of the drought.

I know I'm killing you.

I used to believe it was all in my point of view.

And now you are so used to my poison that you don't taste it.

You were always a half-wit.

you don't feel your impending doom.

I just don't know how to love.

I wore the costume.

Pretended that I could play the part of lover, the doctor of this strange love.

But some things can't be hidden.

the forbidden things always, in plain sight.

Our love is war-ridden.

No one will ever comprehend our plight.

So now I'll confess that we were on opposite sides.

And it's hurts the most because I only ever wanted to stand by your side and call myself your bride.

We're at war.

You just don't know it yet.

And now it's your turn to take the floor.

You are just blind to the threat.

Deaf to the explosions.

How we've both toyed with each other's emotions.

Were enemies.

The fault is both our own no one could count the penalties.

This symbiotic love.

We've both been neglectful of.

We both love too much to confess who goes.

But in the end perhaps we will meet under the willows.

So in defense I stand with my switch-blade.

My actions I've betrayed.

Should I run you through?

How that would change your empathic world view.

Should I hold onto your soul through the decay?

Or should I slit my own wrists and deem you free as you watch me fade away?

You said life without me would equal death but how do I stay with your withered soul?

I admit that I have no self-control.

I now see the end, I watch as my own crimson soul pools at me feet.

In that instance I know I've set you free hasn't it all been bittersweet?

How could you be the best part of me and I be the worst of you?

Unbalanced we waiver.

Belief's that together we make the best love flavor.

When the truth is; I live off your breaths; I suck air out of you.

A parasite leeching on, struggling to survive clawing at your skin for life.

Without you I'd be forever dangling in the after-life.

How could you be the best part of me and I be the worst of you?

How do we survive this?

To let me go means I'd shrivel up and die.

And if I thought it any different I'd be remiss.

To stay though, means you wilt away, the truth you can't defy.

And I love you too much to stay and watch.

Do we toss ourselves into the deepest abyss?

Or hold onto our time like some kind of stopwatch?

Somehow i can't see the end in my minds eye.

I wish we could forever stay in this deep kiss.

Our love now tastes like doomsday.

How do we balance this unwavering balance we've become, who do we sacrifrice?

Here is our judgement day.

The selfish parts of us question our ending.

But there has been enough pretending.

I stand in defensive, by heart transcending.

All this feels repressive, oh so mind-bending.

With knife in my hand I see no longer that we are one.

No longer is our end, something we can out run.

And I'm left crying for my loved one.

On opposites sides we play

And I know our end sounds like a cliche.

But I'm reminded that I'm nothing but a parasite.

We believed we could make it work how wrong we were in hindsight.

Awakened by the only the dazzling moonlight.

Your love the only poem I know to recite.

All those times you promised to make things right if only, I just sat tight.

But, I leeched onto your soul.

And it was all beyond control.

I clung to you for life, you were my watering hole.

And now I've sucked it all out.

Your sunken in eyes, the scattered feather of hair left behind is proof of the drought.

I know I'm killing you.

I used to believe it was all in my point of view.

And now you are so used to my poison that you don't taste it.

You were always a half-wit.

you don't feel your impending doom.

I just don't know how to love.

I wore the costume.

Pretended that I could play the part of lover, the doctor of this strange love.

But some things can't be hidden.

the forbidden things always, in plain sight.

Our love is war-ridden.

No one will ever comprehend our plight.

So now I'll confess that we were on opposite sides.

And it's hurts the most because I only ever wanted to stand by your side and call myself your bride.

We're at war.

You just don't know it yet.

And now it's your turn to take the floor.

You are just blind to the threat.

Deaf to the explosions.

How we've both toyed with each other's emotions.

Were enemies.

The fault is both our own no one could count the penalties.

This symbiotic love.

We've both been neglectful of.

We both love too much to confess who goes.

But in the end perhaps we will meet under the willows.

So in defense I stand with my switch-blade.

My actions I've betrayed.

Should I run you through?

How that would change your empathic world view.

Should I hold onto your soul through the decay?

Or should I slit my own wrists and deem you free as you watch me fade away?

You said life without me would equal death but how do I stay with your withered soul?

I admit that I have no self-control.

I now see the end, I watch as my own crimson soul pools at me feet.

In that instance I know I've set you free hasn't it all been bittersweet?

How could you be the best part of me and I be the worst of you?

Unbalanced we waiver.

Belief's that together we make the best love flavor.

When the truth is; I live off your breaths; I suck air out of you.

A parasite leeching on, struggling to survive clawing at your skin for life.

Without you I'd be forever dangling in the after-life.

How could you be the best part of me and I be the worst of you?

How do we survive this?

To let me go means I'd shrivel up and die.

And if I thought it any different I'd be remiss.

To stay though, means you wilt away, the truth you can't defy.

And I love you too much to stay and watch.

Do we toss ourselves into the deepest abyss?

Or hold onto our time like some kind of stopwatch?

Somehow i can't see the end in my minds eye.

I wish we could forever stay in this deep kiss.

Our love now tastes like doomsday.

How do we balance this unwavering balance we've become, who do we sacrifrice?

Here is our judgement day.

The selfish parts of us question our ending.

But there has been enough pretending.

I stand in defensive, by heart transcending.

All this feels repressive, oh so mind-bending.

With knife in my hand I see no longer that we are one.

No longer is our end, something we can out run.

And I'm left crying for my loved one.

On opposites sides we play

And I know our end sounds like a cliche.

But I'm reminded that I'm nothing but a parasite.

We believed we could make it work how wrong we were in hindsight.

Awakened by the only the dazzling moonlight.

Your love the only poem I know to recite.

All those times you promised to make things right if only, I just sat tight.

But, I leeched onto your soul.

And it was all beyond control.

I clung to you for life, you were my watering hole.

And now I've sucked it all out.

Your sunken in eyes, the scattered feather of hair left behind is proof of the drought.

I know I'm killing you.

I used to believe it was all in my point of view.

And now you are so used to my poison that you don't taste it.

You were always a half-wit.

you don't feel your impending doom.

I just don't know how to love.

I wore the costume.

Pretended that I could play the part of lover, the doctor of this strange love.

But some things can't be hidden.

the forbidden things always, in plain sight.

Our love is war-ridden.

No one will ever comprehend our plight.

So now I'll confess that we were on opposite sides.

And it's hurts the most because I only ever wanted to stand by your side and call myself your bride.

We're at war.

You just don't know it yet.

And now it's your turn to take the floor.

You are just blind to the threat.

Deaf to the explosions.

How we've both toyed with each other's emotions.

Were enemies.

The fault is both our own no one could count the penalties.

This symbiotic love.

We've both been neglectful of.

We both love too much to confess who goes.

But in the end perhaps we will meet under the willows.

So in defense I stand with my switch-blade.

My actions I've betrayed.

Should I run you through?

How that would change your empathic world view.

Should I hold onto your soul through the decay?

Or should I slit my own wrists and deem you free as you watch me fade away?

You said life without me would equal death but how do I stay with your withered soul?

I admit that I have no self-control.

I now see the end, I watch as my own crimson soul pools at me feet.

In that instance I know I've set you free hasn't it all been bittersweet?

If I have to tell you that I am happy and that I am not hurting is it true?

I tell you that my heart is hard and stable, something like bamboo.

But my words, they, seem to tell a different story.

And as I compile the truth in the form of a inventory, it seems like all my strength is apart of pre-history.

Maybe my heart is something like bamboo.

It grows and rejuvenates almost as fast as fields of willowy grass.

My roots are hard though unmovable, such a contrast.

If I have to tell that I am good; is it true?

All my truth's, to speak of, feel so taboo.

My words I pray are a place of shelter through and through.

That's what I try to construe.

On the outside looking in I know my roots look dead, rotten.

Dead and living though we have something in common.

In life the rotten roots breathed purity.

It all was a show of prosperity.

Together we all stood in solidarity.

In death, though the roots may not breath purity, they give evidence of truth, of a life well lived.

In death it's roots are refined.

They are revised.

And people look on with pride.

Decomposition brings people together, in stride.

Isn't that all any poet desires?

That our words flow into something higher lost in mystic satire?

Misunderstand my words, glean from them what you must.

Words that I scribbled that late august.

If I have to tell the truth of my words then you've already missed the point.

If they are not air to your soul, truth to your mind, and a high romance to your heart my purpose has failed.

The more I attempt at poetry I flex my universal joints.

From the tree tops I've surveilled

I know that the essence will not forever be clear.

That's okay because I know that I am no Shakespeare.

If I have to tell you that I am okay is it true?

Am I really as strong as the tall bamboo?

Are my words that different of a story?

Am I really a contrast?

Who am I through and through?

I don't really know what I am trying to construe.

In purity do I really bring prosperity?

Or have I lost myself in the solidarity?

Is everyone losing interest in my attempts at mystic satire?

Is my poetry just words to be worked out before the year brings the haze of another late august.

Have my unexercised universal joints atrophied?

Has the comprehension of my words gotten lost in black sulphide?

I am no Shakespeare.

I'm almost afraid that my words will be lost in this mundane sphere.

That my words aren't at all like the strong arms of bamboo.

They are nothing brand new.

Isn't that every poets fear? That we just wrote words that you thought you once knew?