Shattered

How could I have let this happen one again
I think, I think through things clearly
I believe that I am taking the steps in the direction of the path I'm craving

And here I am again, 
It's that time again where I need to get through one minute at a time
I don't want to take a deep breath because I know what will happen
The sadness will move, and rise, and grow
I won't be able to stop the tears from coming
yet
again

It's hard to look into the mirror and see what I see
see all the mistakes
see all the decisions that lead me astray

But this is harder
I can't see anything
I can't even tell if you will ever be there again
And even though I know the impossibility of you understanding this
I know of how perfectly you understand me

I'm not sure yet how to get ahead of this pain
I don't know if it's possible - this is a race I have never been able to win

Missing you should have been my second nature, not missing you at all should have been easy

But it didn't work that way
There is a part of what I can only believe is my soul that needs you
A part of me that feels completely shattered
I don't even really know how this happened
Happy was not something I expect
Attachment was never going to happen
except it fucking did

And there is nothing I can see to help get me out
or to get you back

Haze

It is wet and soggy
damp and grey
This sky is docile
stagnant
frozen

Droplets cover my vision
everything is hazy
everything is stopped

I beat my fists against the air
I scream into the silence
just to hear if your heart is beating
Beating out a rhythm for me

I want to grab this peace you give me
I want to grab it and tear it apart
Tear it down to that shiny off white and bloody bone

I can't keep listening to it
I can not keep feeling it
I must let it go before 

I must let it go
even though it is precious to me
even when I know I will lose a part of myself
even when I can already feel the loss

I will throw my head back and scream until all of this horrible happiness is gone from me
I will breathe in what I do not know to save what I do

But I refuse to forget, to give in, to cower
I refuse to give away all of my happiness no matter how wrong
I will never be able to let you go even if I never again speak your name
I will feel your breath on my lips

I will find myself in the dark and I will feel you there
I will allow the idea of you to rise up in me
I will love

Supernova

There is a universe inside her

An entire universe swirling, and gliding, and growing inside her

She holds the key to everything 

I can lose myself in her

There are no sharp angles, no corners,

nothing hard just swells of soft skin that rise up to me

I could take forever and just trace all her lines with fingertips that are dying to learn her
I have hands that fit to her hips with perfection
She has lips that mold into song

Harden

People say I never get angry

I'm not all hearts and flowers

But a rose-colored view of life

That I will lay claim to. 

But don't be fooled by that attitude

Don't assume it's because I'm naive 

I have scraped my way toward rosy

By breaking myself into shards along the way

It is more my seeing again and again 

What the darkness inside me is

More than fully capable of

Where those leathery wings want me to go

What she whispers in my heart

How wonderfully she twists me

So I choose rose

I chose to give control of myself over to another

I choose to listen to a voice inside

That is tiny and scared

Tiny and hidden almost completely 

Tiny and fierce

My hearts

My flowers

My colors full of rose

These things I chose 

If I don't you would only see  what is dark

You would only hear the lies she can tell

You would only know 

Truth

One Second

This is the longest second I've ever known. 

This is bliss and hope. 

This is joy with excitement 

This will stay with me. 

This look into your eyes will go on forever. 

It will continue into the future just as far as it will emerge from the past. 

It will become the song of you my heart will sing. 

It will spill forth and cut through the darkness and bring me home. 

One glance will have the power to shape me. 

The color in your eyes, the grace of your lashes,

The smile I see in them. 

These things will go on forever.

---

Husband

Being misunderstood has become a normal
a normal that I believed was a mountain to high for anyone to climb

Everything that I have within 
the things I want and need
the things I never let see the light
These are the things I knew could never be traversed

Except that you did

Reaching in through the rock
Pushing into my very soul until I am brought to my knees
Binding yourself to me in a way that I could never shake you

I am small in this space
broken and shamed
I have kept myself captive in this space all alone
I threw away the key
I made sure there was no way for anyone to ever find me here

Except that you did

You found me and you saw what I could never see
You knelt down in the bloody mess I had created and you worshiped it
You worshiped everything I kept dark
You worshiped my truth and never questioned my devotion to it

You came down into me and pulled out the sticky black pieces one by one
You grasped at them and ripped and pulled them from my skin
one after one after one after one
Even then I was living in fear
Fear that there was no end in sight for all these dank corners of me
I knew you could never make it to the end of them

Except that you did

And even after all this, 
even after seeing all the mistakes and desires I have
you stood above me looking down at my huddled body
Shaking, crying, knowing you were going to leave me
You reached out and lifted my face to your light
You took my hand and forced me to stand
To stand with you

You took your shirt and used it to wipe away every tear I had ever cried
You took off all the clothes I had because they were wrought with shame and sadness
and you burned them
Standing before you bare 
I was finally
not
afraid
or
ashamed

I stand with you now
I am wholly yours now
I never believed there would be safety in honesty
I never believed there would be someone who could see how precious the darkness is to me

Except that you did

Reflection

Being my own worst enemy is probably my greatest strength
I suppose it could be that I just want so much so deeply
So deeply that I lose all sense of right and wrong
So deeply that I lose all sense of what I should do
What should be done

My confusion abounds, and my desperation 
My self-imposed desperation
Since I can never leave things as they are
As they are is never good enough
Is that because I'm never good
Enough

I'm scared you will let me go on
And on
And on
You will support all of my weakness and encourage it to grow
You will let me continue on this edge
You will help me find my way
You won't give up
You really do understand my unabashed awkwardness
You really do love it

If I had more control
If I had more sense
If I just had
                       more

More

I want you to accept this layer of dust I carry
I want you to accept it and lead me to where I can change it
Lead me to where it is I believe you see me
Away from this mirror crusted over and tarnished
I know it is a difficult task
I know because I have never mastered it
I know because I keep questioning everything I'm doing
Everything I'm saying
I keep.....

In the end I just want to look up
Look up and see you still there
There looking down on me
Looking down on all that I wish I never had said
Never had done
I want to look up and still see you there
Still see what I know I remember as peace

Sarasvati

peaceful quiet is not at all peaceful or quiet for me now
my heart is aching in ways that make me
desperate
                  dark
                              lonely
                                                                  alone

my head weighs so much more than I ever knew it could
and my heart weighs even more than that

i feel as if i've lost my soul

i
am
breaking

there is nothing left of me
there is no life within me

at least, none that i can feel now

This Is Where I Want You

you hold the key to my smile, you hold the hope from my heart
you protect it in an iron fist that no one can open, no one can break it
you keep me
                               safe

I let you keep me safe

I need you to keep that tiny last fading ember of me

safe

i will lose myself if you don't
i will separate from every place that makes me....me

i need you to take this from me because i can no longer keep it safe
i want to slice it into so many bloody withered pieces
that there is no pain left to feel

so take This,
protect This
       take me
                     protect me
because if you do not
i will choose to disappear

i have lain so much at your control and you don't even know what you have been asked to hold and protect.

but i have the truth in the darkness
I am safe in you

Covered

Core

Photo credit Exit34 Photography 

 If fear were tangible,
tactile,
something far more formidable than thick clouds,
if it didn't seem to flee from every breeze,
would I listen?

Would I find that fighting against what I want,
what I know will make me miserably happy,
would become a fight I don't want to win?
Except that I do.
I want to fight, I want to dig in my heels and bang my fists against the wall.

I want to forget about everything I've worked for before this.
I want to find myself tied and tangled and strapped down
so that I have no other choice,
no options to turn back toward clarity. 

It makes no sense, not even to me,
but I want to take everything I have shining and new,
and I want to cover it with the mud, muck, and mire.
I want that.

Memory

Closing my eyes makes me uneasy
I know what lies there

I know what will come to me then
the world will evaporate
my reality shifts
my heart stalls and stutters
while I'm waiting for you to meet me

There is no logic or reason in the dark
this is my rabbit hole
this is my dark place
this is my desire swelling upward to pull me down
this is where I allow myself to die

I feel you there in this incredible surrender
this is all barbs and thorny scratches
that must be fought through to reach you
The pain of finding my way tries to stop me
to right me
to change my mind

And right when I'm about to raise my eyes to the light
right when I know it is my last chance to grab onto
the ladder that will lead me to safety
you come to me

I can feel you
I can almost reach out and touch the skin of my desire
I can nearly graze my fingertips along your face
You are that breath on the back of my neck
You push my hair behind my ear and whisper
Your voice drugs every sense I have and I want to give all I am to you
I want to give all I am to you
I want to give all I am to you

I try to pull you into me with each breath in
I try to feel your skin on mine
I try to make this cloudy, half-awake version of you solid and strong
Stone and marble so I know I can never fall

And right when I can feel everything about to align
Right when I know I will finally breach the bramble and touch you
When my fingertips can already feel the heat of you and my eyes are beginning to adjust to the darkness
I feel the sharp pull of a string

It goes through me splitting apart everything I believe you were just about to put together
It saws into my gut and comes out the other side of me
wrapping all around and I can't untangle myself

Forcefully ripping me away from you
forcing me to collapse like so many paper dolls
forcing me back into the light where I cannot see