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

Looking Back at the Future

I'm sorry is not enough
It never is but this time especially

I ruined things for you
If only a little bit
But that merits I'm sorry
It merits not enough

In other words
It doesn't merit enough
In other words

I'm sorry is too much
It always is but this time especially

I didn't know how upset you were then so I couldn't say I'm sorry
I shouldn't know how upset you were now so I can't say I'm sorry
You probably don't want an apology so I shouldn't say I'm sorry
You definitely don't want to hear from me so I can't say I'm sorry

In other words
I won't say I'm sorry
In other words

I won't say goodbye
Even though it is
Because I won't say anything
And you won't say anything

And we'll keep not saying anything
And then we won't think anything
And then we won't be anything
To each other

I guess that's okay
I guess that's goodbye
I guess that's too much
I guess that's not enough
I guess that's I'm sorry
I guess I said it

New

My heart is a flier flapping its wings
And I teach it how to flit and flutter
At some fleeting new flight or fling
To flee an old flame still flickering

Finally free from frivolous feelings
Finally fond falsehoods fade
Finally forgetting fights
Finally forgone
Forever

New
New name
New nervousness
New novocaine
New noose
New nothing

This is exactly the same
The same nervous flutter of my heart
The same feelings killing my pain
The same fights bringing it back
The same nothing

Find as many people as I want
With new names
Love as many ways as I want
With new names
Write as many poems as I want
With new names

In a moment I knew
This cannot be new
Always I knew
Nothing can be new

Life (This I Believe)

       This. This is worthless. This is pointless. This is useless. This is terrifying. This is terrible. This is complete and utter bullshit. This is never ever ever ever going to change. This I believe.

      There's more truisms about it than you can say in it. Life's not fair, shit happens, life's what you make it, everything happens for a reason, c'est la vie, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We have so many sayings about how life is so difficult to deal with but as soon as someone decides they're done with it we tell them the exact opposite just so they won't quit. Why the hell do we believe it matters to us?     Why the hell do we believe we have any say whatsoever in anyone's lives but our own. This I believe, everyone's right to live entails a right to die.

      That's what makes it so terrible. But it's a choice, like anything else. It's all about choices, every moment of every day of every life is a choice. The choice to keep living, or die trying. The choice to say something or stay silent. The choice to care about others or to selfishly look out only for yourself. The choice to stand up take ownership and live the life no one else can or to be passive and let your life just waste itself. This I believe, life is a series of choices and every single one is important. And because of that people overthink everything, so intent on making the "right choice." But here's the thing, no one makes the right choices; because this I believe, there are no right choices.

      That's what makes it so terrifying. No do overs, no mulligans, no repeats, no retries. One and done. Everything you do changes your life permanently. Even if people don't remember what you did, what you said, who you stood by. They'll remember how it made them feel. Loved, appreciated, accepted. Or despised, disdained, discarded. They'll remember, but life will not. This I believe, nothing lasts forever. In fact, nothing lasts at all.

      That's what makes it so useless, pointless, worthless. Everything-less. Meaningless. Or is it? So what if nothing lasts? So what if there are no right choices? So what if people can just quit? So what if life exists? It does, people don't, choices are made anyway, and memories last, at least to us. People may not matter to life, but life matters to people. Because if it doesn't what does? This I believe. This is all we've got. This is something that matters.

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?

Hate/Love

I love how you hate me
I hate how you don't love me

I hate how we argue
How you throw away my love
Then I hate you
But I still love you
I hate that

I love how we just talk
But I also love how we don't
I also hate that
Because that's when you say hate
But your tone says not-love

I hate how you don't love me

I hate putting love into poems
It reminds me of love I hate
Reminds me of loving the hate
I love how I hate these poems

Like I love how you hate me

I knew when I read it
Read another hateful love poem
And in it I heard your lovely voice
But it wasn't talking to me

I hate how you love him not me

So I make you hate me
I tear at the insecurities you trusted me with
Because I thought that trust was something like love
But it wasn't so I used it like hate
I used it to tear you apart

I love how you hate me
Because in the end I want you to care
Even if it's not in the way I want

Way With Words

You always said that words were beautiful that mine were that I had a way with words but you never wanted the meanings I wrote how I feel so I threw it away because you took away my words I have no meaning no more words to speak to you about anything beautiful is wasted on you could not care is wasted on the same old meanings in new ways new words to put away the way I feel about you isn't anything beautiful isn't because there's no way for words to speak words wasted away my way with words has gone away