settling

Your hard ways and soft sentences slither out late at night,

Hidden in the corners of my books.

Whispering creaks and groans from old bones that resound frighteningly into flat silence.

Brazen promises that melt into flesh with every incoherent illustration.

Slipped artfully betwixt a murmur and rustle, they clamor to sing us a song of strange habits with lyrical inventions.

A quaint home-sick melody to soothe our young ears and aging hearts.

churning

not fitting in burns lines deep into my face,
marking more each day why I can't.
sending signals, turning heads,
s p e l l i n g i t o u t.
i refuse to look in a mirror.
i don't want to know what creeps there on hands and knees behind my eyes.

backwards

In the silence of the world, do I really make a ripple, make a hole.
Does the earth shudder for me, turn for my walking, and exhale for my breathing.
Can a small person sing louder in the dark, swim farther through sound, and slip into a vein.
Do the skies gather and split, at the brush of a word, and at a single glance.
Will a single syllabel break walls, burn trees, crush towns.
Why won't you even spend, a day, an hour, a minute.
Waiting?

rapid hope loss.

If only,
Filthy digusting words set deep in skin,
could be sung away,
with your voice.

If only,
Gruesome sickening resentment,
wasn't such a good feeling,
mixed up with promises.

If only,
I wouldn't feel so alone.
Talking to you at two in the morning,
About nothing at all.

shrunken lungs

"what happens when I can't do this anymore?"

"don't talk like that."

"look at me! I can't talk any other way."

"it's not going to happen."

"I need you to acknowledge that there's something wrong.

for the love of god, I need you to notice something for once in your life. this is ruining me."

"what was that?"

"nothing. it was nothing."

I always end up right here

Eyes translucent under the light, soul shifting around in my chest.

Doubt and regret pushing holes, creating sags,

facade stretched too thin over this insurmountable guilt.

I suppose I am healed now.

I can't help myself anymore than anyone else.

Forever ending up right here, pinned in someone's back seat.

Choked of innocence and disgusted with myself.

As always.