A Word with a Face

You knew him

You worked with him

You trusted him

He did not care

You were just going to get dinner

You were just going to talk

He did not care

You said no

He did not care 

You already felt alone

Like no one cared 

Not your parents

Not your friends

Not your boyfriend 

No one

So when your frantic search

For just someone to trust

Brought you to him

He took it

And then took so much more

And left that awful word

The one you had constant nightmares about

Permanently burned into your memory

He took you

He left you

And

He did not care 

Crashdown

You packed up you clothes in that bag every night
I would try to grab your ankles, what a pitiful sight
But after over a year I stopped trying to stop you
From stomping out that door and coming back like you always do

-Peter Silberman in "Two"
_________________________________________________________________________________

Begin: CE 2015-09-04 20:56

T-minus 242:56 to Crashdown

10: Contemplate suggestion.

9: Accept premise. Join together!

8: Plan far future. Sabotage near future. 

7: Maintain status quo. Maintain status quo? 

6: Break down. Begin death spiral

5: Fail to defuse fight. Split apart!

4: Complete death spiral. Vent anger on displaced target. Apologize. 

3: Get fucked up. Recover things previously discarded. Restabilize.

2: Contemplate conclusion. Notify secondarily related parties. Prepare.
1: stall. Second guess. stall. Steel yourself.

0: Cut the cord. forget...

End: CE 2015-09-14 23:52
T-plus 00:00:00

Crashdown

as it seems
two years of you leaning on me
Meant nothing to you
so shall it be
two years of me leaning on you
Mean nothing to me

Your dishonesty is too much to bear
My love is too damaged to continue
Our relationship
Our commiseration
Our celebration
Our connection
Our friendship

is

over



Goodbye
I sincerely hope not forever

Sides of You

        I know that there are many sides to every person, but this is going a little too far. These stories don't add up and I showed up late enough to the party that no evidence remains. This is he-said she-said and I can't know who to believe, or if somehow I can believe you both. He says you take and abuse trust, even though you say it was you who was taken and abused.
        Yours was a matter of trust too, the people closest to you became monsters of the basest kind. They made you feel worth something and gave you your fix in more ways than one. But they took the trust they earned, murdered it, and left you bleeding in a society that did not care about Kitty on the street crying bloody murder. So why would it care about one more girl crying rape?
        So with your trust so brutally defiled, how could you even conceive of abusing the trust of another? How could you pull the knife from your back and swing it's blade so wantonly? And if you did swing so wildly around it'd be easy to pass of the inevitable cuts on yourself as the assault of another. I do not want to believe you are so vile, but maybe that's just a side of you long hidden.
        But an uncaring society might view those cuts others forced on you as your chosen scarlet letter. And they throw away damaged goods to prevent the bad apple from spoiling their bunch, and blame it for its bruises. I can't know who to believe, but either way you are different from how you previously seemed. You have hidden sides of yourself to protect you, be it from judgement or from pity. The latter I can respect, the former suggest maybe I'm just another victim that you can later paint as a perpetrator.
        So now I have to take a step back in case this side of you will harm me. And maybe in case there are still more sides of you hidden in the shadows. Waiting to push me further away than your radio silence ever could.

Shakes

I don't know if this is you
Or if that is him
Or if that is anyone 
Because if this is not you then both might as well not exist to me

He and you flash in my mind
all the time
every night
every word you say he is wonderful and he loves you just maybe like I do
Every time he and you and I am still unfazed

but one mirage and i shake

it's only maybe-he and maybe-you but it burns out of the light
it burns at me while I sit completely vulnerable in the flesh
raw beauty exposed as maybe-you radiates from the light

my head races ahead and cuts itself off at the pass sending everything into a tailspin careening over the edge of a cliff I fear I could never climb again
could it be really-you? with really-him? and really-together? and did i go wrong somewhere? or was it just always meant to be this way? could there never have been us?
my stomach turns and I shake and I shake and I shake

pleased and turned-on by my lust
jealous and turned on by my love
my stomach turns as my feelings turn over and over and over and over and over and over and over
and i shake

my head spins as i make assumptions my breathing is laborious as i am crushed to death my stomach turns as i want to vomit this venomous envy out but cannot and i shake and i shake and i shake

i lie here cold
cut open by my own sharp tonuge
chemically burned by my own vitriol
my jealousy turns me against me 
the pain is BURNing but it just leaves me COLD
and i SHAKE

Prometheus or "My Inner Light"

        My old friend, I thank you for your letter, but  I write speeches for many to hear and take my views from, not correspondence for but one person to view me as they wish to. So I respond to you with this one and hope you will listen to what I say rather than proselytize at me about what I willfully abandoned.
        You are right about me, I do believe that words are for expressing something older than themselves, something dark and primal. My use of words to express these ancient things called emotions is art, not an expression of any personal struggle and certainly not a god damn "cry for help." And this art is not a voice "for the dark," it is my voice representing the dark. Helping others understand and deal with the darkness that is part of life now and helping them more than any prophet of things to come ever could.
        And I do believe in a "let there be light," but not the one of your precious YHWH. Those words were spoken in myth by the poster child of human ingenuity, Prometheus of Greek myth. Light was not a gift from a benevolent creator, it was stolen from a harsh and uncaring universe. We created our own light long ago when we first became bright enough to rub two sticks together. We let there be light and saw that it was good, and more importantly that it was ours.
        And so I won't join your crusade for a light I no longer believe in. I respect your beliefs, as everyone needs something to lean on, but I do not want or need your particular crutch. I did at one point but now I have a new and better thing to believe in but that is myself and my own inner light. I, like everyone else on this planet, am my own god and the master of my own fate. So I have to believe that I have the forethought and ingenuity of Prometheus to carry me through, and refuse to rely on a cosmic safety net.
        Frankly, I am angry that you act as if you know me better than I know myself, that you view my life as unsatisfactory because I am not the same as you, and that you presume I need help because my art does not reflect your ideals. Yes, life is a pile of shit. It's painful, it's dark, and it's uncaring about you or me or anyone else. But god damn it I love it anyway, and I ain't quite done with it yet.
Soli Ego Gloria,
-VNV

_________________________________________________________________________________

I suppose Jesus is a Fuckboy by my friend Will could be considered related reading to this. I'm not in the habit of promoting others but check him out, his writing's way better than mine.

L'appel du Vide

The end begins quickly
You know it will happen
But you do not prepare
So the end begins quickly

You grab a piece of paper
You smile for the camera
You walk out into the end
So the end begins quickly

so the
slow fade
begins

You sit and reflect on this whole thing
but realize that the memories begin fading
When the end begins quickly

You stand and rejoice with friends
but realize that this is all just a slow goodbye
as the slow fade begins

In the dead of night
You realize you
don't
want
this

You
can not will not must not
accept it

fuck no

In the dead of night
Take the wheel
Get on One at two AM
Stare down the straightaway
Hit the asphalt with your right foot
RUN GOD DAMN IT

You fly north
Everything is the same
The ocean to your left
The mountains to your right
One stretching ahead of you

You blink quickly
Everything is different
vast landscapes flying past faster than light cast in front of the One thing that lasts

The One thing leading you away
the One thing keeping you moving
the One thing filling your lungs
the One thing beating your heart
The One thing ending your-
slow fade

You can't fight this One
no stopping the slow fade
so simply speed it up

speed up
no stopping
speed up
speed up
RUN FASTER

Hey you
What are you running from?
run faster
Hey you
Where are you going so quickly?
speed up

Hey you
Why are you running?
run faster

Hey you
speed up
Hey-
run faster
STOP

don't

just close your eyes
turn the wheel left



fall into the void


_________________________________________________________________________________

A little bit of a footnote in case this seemed confusing because of a reference not everyone might recognize. "One" is kind of a persona or speaker in this poem, but it refers to a highway, specifically California State Route 1, pictured below.

Salt and Iron

I opened the door.
I should have known you would be there. It was a Monday morning in January. The day after your birthday. I didn't want to bother you but I had to eventually.
I sat down next to you.
I looked at you while you just lay there. But I couldn't see you for long. Your image became blurry. I shut my eyes as drop by drop salt met iron.
I breathed a heavy sigh.
I remembered how you talked almost every day about being there. I only ever half believed you. You scared me sometimes. I didn't think I really had to be afraid.
I brushed your hair out of your eyes.
I used to call you kiddo all the time. It was our cute little term of endearment for each other. You really were just a kid. Of all people a kid belongs there the least.
I bent over and gently kissed your forehead.
I had to convince you of a lot of things. That you were beautiful, that I loved you. You never really believed me. You believed you didn't deserve any of this.
I embrace you for the la-



Wait.



In your hand.
I know immediately what it is. The pen with which you wrote your final message to me. I tear it from your fingers and throw it as far from us as I possibly can. I burn with rage. Rage at you for doing this. Rage at me for letting it happen. Rage at love for not being enough. Rage at the world for hurting you this way. Rage at that pen for making this even a possibility. I rage rage rage rage rage against the dying of the light.

The dying of your light. Your already dead light. Your light that had been dead for so long but I didn't notice until now. Or I did and couldn't admit it. 

I have beaten the room until I am senseless. My fists cannot unclench, iron drips from my knuckles. My eyes cannot open, salt burns down my face. There is no more rage, only your dead light and mine.
I go and pick up your pen from the corner of the room
I want to go with you, to chase after you. I want to lie beside you and draw the same lines on my skin you did. I settle for a little less. Perpendicular lines that last forever, to remind me of what I could never forget anyway. 


My life joins with yours one final time, then I open the drain, and watch the last of you flow away from me.

Broken Body

Not while my heart still beats
Not while my lungs still draw breath
Not while my bones still hold me upright
Not while my muscles still bear my weight
Not while my skin still keeps me from coming apart at the seams
Not while my mind still thinks but
One
Sane
Thought

I will not love you
I will not let you into my heart
I will not let you break apart its ventricles
I will not let you cave in its atria
I will not let you tear open its veins
I will not let you rend its arteries
From end
To end

I will not
A thousand times I say I will not
But I do
A thousand times I know I do

I love you
I love you while you poison my mind
I love you while you weaken my body
I love you while you pull the breath from my lungs
I love you while you aim the rifle
I love you while you break my heart

Break my heart
Hasten its pace until it breaks apart
Heavy its load until it caves in
Heal it then rend and tear it anew

Open my heart open my veins open my every compartment until love spills out inexorably like blood finally finding its escape through a gunshot to the chest straight through the heart

I am a soldier
Shot in this war my heart wages
I am a casualty
Fallen on this battlefield called love

You are the bullet wounds
Bleeding me out as I lie alone
You are the bandages
Keeping me alive against all odds

We are this war
And I am a soldier
But I don't die here
Don't die in the battle
Don't die on the hospital bed
Don't die by the hand of my enemy

I am weakened poisoned breathless and broken
But I don't die here

And I will not love you
Even though I do
And I will fight for you
Even though I fight against you
Because I don't die here
Because you deserve more than that
Even though you break my heart
Even though it was you

You pulled the trigger

An Open Letter to my Fears

Why?

Why did you make me do it

Waste my years

Push them away

...why?

I stood back

Because of you

Never took a risk

Never took a chance

Never to care and love

But I cared too much

Because of you

Held too close

Held too tight

Held to suffocate and smother

You are a part of me

What the hell is your problem with me

What the hell did you intend to do to me

What the hell

I am consumed by you

How could you hurt what you are

How could you hurt the one who listens

How could you

...why?