My world was destroyed.

I was lost in the blast.

I was split between my present

and my sordid past.

Skeletons were dancing

out of my closet, into view

and one of those skeletons

happened to be you.

I found myself fractured,

lost in a vortex,

scrambling to find myself

in the jumbled mess,

flailing and searching,

spinning and falling,

and I was screaming for insight,

fighting and clawing.

I just wanted to know what I am

when I’m too old to be a bachelor

and too young to be

a lonely old man.

I thought maybe you could show me

when I found myself in you

but it was all an illusion.

I didn’t fit the shoe,

so now here I am drowning

in an existential sea

where there is no existence.

There is no me.

Everywhere I turn

there’s empty space

waiting like a wall

nothingness incarnate

an abstraction

in physical form

the unexplainable

conceptualized

and manifest

and where I look

for waiting arms

a tender voice

any reassurance

I find the coldness

of emptiness

the nothingness

of space

the void

oblivion

I wish I could go somewhere

anywhere

but here.

I wish I could do something

anything

but this.

I wish I could love someone

anyone

but you.

I wish I could live a life

any life

but this one.

I wish I could be someone

anyone

but me.

I’m done asking myself

why I wasn’t good enough

for you

and I’ve moved on

to convincing myself

there was something

you just couldn’t see

or there was nothing

and I was seeing things

that weren’t there.

I’ve decided

to stop chasing

butterflies,

to stop looking

for the gold

at the end of the rainbow.

I need to face reality,

deal with the hell

I’m trapped in,

take it one day at a time

alone.

I think I’m crazy,

always misinterpreting

the silence of snow.

<>

Mine’s only ten words but it is a haiku. I’m putting this here because it’s supposed to be at least 15.

I can’t seem to get anything right.

My kids are becoming the monsters

that hide under my bed at night

but sometimes they’re plushies,

so soft I want to squeeze them tight.

My friendships are decaying

like plants dying because I’m out of water.

What happened to people staying?

I need unconditional love,

not lying and cheating and playing.

My relationships are dead.

My job is dying too.

I don’t know what else can be said.

The cancer has spread

through the demons in my head.

So I’ve overcome

saccharine loves

that dissolved

like candy in my mouth

leaving toothaches

and a nauseated stomach.

I’ve overcome addictions,

physical, mental, emotional need,

disease and suffering,

illness and deaths,

always grieving, always heartbroken,

trapped in this prison

of my short circuiting mind.

I’ve survived

sacrificing myself

for my children

like Prometheus

laid out on that rock,

an eagle always eating my liver

day after day after day.

I’ve survived

scraping by

like Sisyphus

always pushing that boulder

and thinking maybe

just maybe

this will be the time

I can roll it down the other side.

Isn’t that what he must be thinking?

It’s a strange comfort

to think even Sisyphus

must have some form of hope.

Because hope is how we survive.

But wouldn’t it be nice to thrive?

I’ve been waiting on a miracle

for so long

my whole self aches with hope.

And I know a miracle

is what it would take

to fix this broken car parts junkyard

dumpster fire nuclear explosion

bruised and bloody aftermath of a life.

So I turn to you God.

I don’t know what else to do.

And I know we say

you’ve done so much already,

given your only son, yourself

as a sacrifice for us, for me,

but I still feel like you owe me

after everything I’ve given

and everything that they’ve taken.

You owe me a miracle.

There I said it.

And I know I’m an ungrateful shit

but where’s my miracle?

I’m screaming from the top of a mountain.

Where’s my miracle?

When will I stop scrimping and scraping

and white knuckle fighting?

Bleeding heart, bleeding mind screaming,

suffering and broken,

crying and dying

this long, lonely death…

Where’s my miracle?

I’m not leaving.

I’m not falling away.

I’m not going anywhere,

losing faith, losing hope.

I’m still here

and I always will be

even when it hurts so much.

But I’m still waiting

and fighting and dying.

And I see that glimmer on the horizon,

that pinpoint ahead in the tunnel

that just might be a little less dark,

that glimmering star in the distance

in the cold, dark, vacuum of space.

So I can’t give up now

just before the miracle happens.

I can’t give up now

because of that thing called hope,

that pearl developing

in the oyster of my soul.

I can’t give up now

because that miracle just might happen

tomorrow.

Whatever I was

is being erased

and written over

with rage and anger,

bitterness and resentment,

all love has become hatred,

all hope has become vengeance,

all that I was

has become death.

I wish I could escape

this unlivable life,

just run off

to some island

surrounded by blue water

and I could take in the sun,

just relax,

do nothing for once

with no kids,

no job,

no nagging ex wife,

no boss,

just me

by myself.

And I could sit and smile

and then walk out into the sea

and let the waves take me

away.