Doors

It is in so many ways like a flower that is afraid of the sun. What do the innards look like? Are the colors ugly? The risk is too great! I must hide myself, lest the world see the garish truth and the clashing petals. It is in this way that I become a frigid thing, locked away inside many rooms. I pace the floors and I know these tiles so well that my mind begins to believe that I have imagined the ones before them. I can still recall the scent of her perfume. I close that door.
Running, I find that I am lost among many memories, and that another has been stripped from me; no matter how many frames I beat upon, it is gone, gone, gone.

Tree

A single tree's pale fingers
stretch towards the light
I am with them
Leaves pierce and flourish
I grow for a time
But when buds begin to pinprick
my arms turn inward
The flowers spring forth and bear fruit
I shrivel and my eyes flash
My mouth begins to speak
and blackness pours out
My inner tree lies dormant
until the cycle begins again

Blood

Tonight I will trace the lines upon the ceiling. Perhaps they will lead me somewhere.
Answers could be hidden anywhere. Absolution is another thing entirely. It is a completely different animal, one that I don't want to dwell on for too long, for fear that my own sobs and sighs will
awaken things that are best left forgotten. Instead I consider adding another line to those I already possess: ones that remind me, day after day, that there is nothing in life that comes without a price. I wonder how hefty a bounty this mistake of mine will fetch. In my mind's eye, I can see bruises blooming, and my tongue remembers the taste of blood.
It does not seem like enough.

Yearning

I will call for you, but you will not hear me.
You will see my smile, but you will believe it to be a frown.
I have reached for you at night, but shadows have this
nagging way of warping things, don't you think?
And our shadows have grown so long over the years that they
are almost all that there is to what we see of each other
most days -- half-formed apologies
and already-forgotten pleas.
Have you ever wished that things were different?
Prayed to every god you could think of?
I've wished that I were a different person, one that you
could look at and believe to be beautiful.
Because I'd rather you be blinded by beauty
than be turned away by my ugliness.
But this is not a dream, and my life is
not another one of my fantasies.
Reality is crushing.
The things we hope for may never come to pass.
Are you content with our current standing?
Will you stand there, passive, as the years turn our desires
to dust and our wants become the air that we breathe,
until all that we are is simply
old yearnings, slowly dying needs?

Love

Love transforms us all.
From a slimy thing to something winged,
or perhaps something that flies
to something that is tethered.
It all depends on perspective.
Are you someone positive?
Or are you self-destructive?
All fair questions when you feel torn
between two selves.
When you can envision so many heavens
but you are caught within so many hells.
Pick a side:
is it easy? Is it fair?
What philosophy do you adhere to?
Do you love smashing the pretty things,
or would you prefer to plant seeds in tiny rows,
so far from yourself that you can believe
they might actually grow?

Voices

Laugh all you want; you won't find the cracks in my interior.
Watching from the black: you only see what you want to see.
I've got you wrapped in chains. You can't escape.
I know what you are, and you don't fool me.
Naked in the dark, we know each other intimately.
We are but two halves of the same coin. Yin and yang.
You push and I pull; we will tear the world apart.
Shattered glass and indecisive waters hide nothing.
You'd like to see it all in flames, but I am liquid nitrogen in your veins.
Reach for it now: the words you won't voice.
You can't live without me. I am the skin you wear.
Formless in the sun, I am the only eye that sees your outline.

The Hole

I keep digging deeper, feel the grit under my nails, the flecks of earth on my face. How wide must I make it, how many feet down? There's just so much that needs to be buried here, trapped beneath the surface of the world. Maybe the damp and the darkness will smother all these things that live inside me. I can't give them room to crawl back out, mustn't let the weight be too light, or they will find me again. Sneak under the covers and pool beneath the sheets, where the whispers become roars and silence is no longer alive but in the furthest corners of my mind. I feel mad, out here in the dark, a mock villain. There is no explanation that could be given but that there were too many secrets piling up. Far too many to simply dust beneath the carpet or hide under the bed. They had become like people, like false-friends, voices so loud they'd reverberate within the walls of this room over and over again, warping until they became new thoughts, new secrets.
"Dig deeper," I say to myself, "keep digging."

Burn It Down

The days blend into one another, dissolving like paper on the concrete after so much rain.
The burning echos of your words fade, and the dull bruises in all those dark places barely ache anymore. Who were we back then, that we fought so viciously? We sought purchase on one another's weaknesses like desperate people going to war, trying to gain ground when there was nothing of value to win. Did you see how cramped I felt, inside of my own skin? I was clawing, scratching my way out -- you were only in my way. It wasn't you I wanted to hurt; it was myself and my own foolishness that I was trying to destroy. I wanted to smash the mirror that reflected the sorry soul that avoided my eyes, day after day, but you stood in the way of my fist! You loved the crumpled being that I was, and I perversely, unconsciously, needed to prove to you that I was as despicable and undesirable as I knew myself to be. So I lit a match and I threw it upon us, deliberately destroyed something I knew could save me because I needed to burn a part of myself to the ground before I could begin again.

Her

Fingertips numb
wish that I could see you
pretend that I am
with you
Just kidding I am with
my friends
I'm having fun, this night
is great
This beer tastes great
I am forgetting all the
bad things
But I lose sight of you
I think for
a second...
this cigarette's width
might've taken up --
but wait!
What am I forgetting?
Myself?
Nah
Things are technicolored
I can't be
worth that much
I've lost
much more than
myself.
There's nothing left to lose.
I say,
fuck it all.
They say,
the world is my oyster.
But I have clammed up
I will not pose
for the camera
won't be their picture.
I feel too lit up
like a ghost
so let me
fade
fade
fade