One step….just one foot in front of the other.

I can feel it, that flicker in my soul, the glimmer of light finally breaking through the barrier I have so desperately built in a haste to block out absolutely every emotion I possibly could.

But, my tears didn’t mean the worst to you, they showed my strength; you saw in my eyes who it had made me become.

What you didn’t know, those tears, were tears of blood that dripped from my cracked and beaten heart. So much of me was shattered, deeply cut and wounded inside; bruised, black and blue.

You are so tender, so caring; my heart, you keep safe in the palm of your hand; a place that could either be its refuge or crushed with just the grip of your fingertips.

When you see my sadness or hear my thoughts, you judge not.

You bring a trust in myself; in a past life, I would have mocked the very thought, but it’s all changed.

Blessed do I feel that a heart like mine can still feel, that its shocks of electricity are still coursing through my veins.

Sometimes the pieces, they scream; my monster, she returns from her hiding place deep in the depths of my being.

But you, you have somehow broken down that wall that covers her, you have befriended my monster inside, made her feel as special as my shell of a human I live inside.

I have bottled up everything I can, sheltered them within hundreds of walls; one day I want them to vanish.

God, I hope they do; that they are broken down for good.

 

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what’s become of it

it’s neither red, nor sweet, in fact it doesn’t even break anymore, it’s just there, feeling every bit, trapped inside its cage. but yet, it is only as caged as I let it, and sometimes the pieces fall between the rot iron and seep into my skin. it is yearning, hoping and feeling every thing it can. at this point, it isn’t tipping and spinning with joy, it’s changed, matured and this shapely, thick muscle of blood and vessels is beating more than it ever has. it is lopsided, a slightly mute, yet only speaks out when it thinks it has found something worth fighting for.

but my one problem, I have lost its key, she cannot be opened, but I want her to be. I want her to feel that deep rooted beating of herself, lined thick with crimson blood and fully charged. she can’t be on my sleeve anymore, like her life used to be. that’s where she got hurt, broken and bruised, sliced. where she had ink spilled and mixed into her valves.

I want to tell you about her, from her very depths, all the way to the top of her highest point. when she beats with such ferocity, that she might leap out of my chest on to the floor. but the fear, as she huddles back in her iron cold cage overtakes that yearning, and she threatens to stop beating if I even think of letting her free.

so what’s become of her is a tent cloaked in a recovery, stuck in the beginning of a wanderlust filled life, fearing and yearning for the unknown, hoping one day she can be set free without the threat of crumbling and ceasing to beat.

Silver Blade

Looking at him

Hurt—

The

Still silence

Was I a fool?

Or were

You a thief in the night—

The Devil beneath my skin

 

My booze-filled

Veins

     D

                  R

                I

                      P

                         P

                   I

       N

G

Red pain—

My beat-

ing—bloodless

heart

 

Your silver stings

Tantalizing

It feels like

Tiny individual

Burns—

 

Oozing crimson blood

mixes

with the ink that

is trapped under

my skin.

 

I am the utt-

terly painful destructive

work of art

 

Until

I breathe

My last breath

My skeleton

Bladeless—

The Valor of the Helmet

At dawn, I am seen, hanging on that hook—

Sweat, hair and oil line the brim

Crested with a seal, hand-tooled, hand-sewn, leather-trim.

A reminder of the fires that I never quite shook

 

Valor; classic nobility, the fireman’s guard

Emblazoned with my station number  

A representation of my brothers, a company

Forever signifying the fight against lumber

Self-sacrificial armour, tipped with beaten copper; charred

 

Headgear of the tribe, protector, heavy smoke

Pitted against the elements of fire

Saving those, protecting the helpless is dire

Til’ the hard helmet shield finally broke.

 

And I am seen no more on the hook above the shoes

My helmet hangs high above that grave

My crest is my crown, ceremoniously presented

Reminding those of who all I could save–

To begin again, this life I’d always choose

the difference

she used to wonder what made her so different, so distinct

it wasn’t because of her flowing long hair, or how her

eyes had this peculiar glint of blue tainted with the

specs of gold; that made her seem like she had the world at her

fingertips.

 

she used to wonder why her heart continued to shatter,

even when the pain had finally ceased. that after seeing

him over and over, she was finally numb; but why then are all the

pieces still threatening to shatter.

 

she used to wonder how after all these years,

she’d wish she was like she used to be:

full of wonderment and grace, pure and unscathed.

but that wasn’t why she wished to be herself.

 

she wondered because if she were who the past life

would call a child, a young one, would she still be this hurt?

would the lies she was told be true or would she have avoided

the very thing that threatened to break her apart at every turn

of a new corner.

 

she used to wonder that when she looked at herself in the mirror

if she would love what she saw. yet, she still sees the little flaws,

the extra curve in her hips or the way her mind just doesn’t quite fit

with the rest of the world, or even herself.

 

today, she wonders when it’s going to crash when all she does is

not enough. yet, she knows that even then, she can’t control what

the universe wants to break, what it wants to burn and how it wants

to end anything it can with just a single stroke.

 

she used to wonder, but what good does it do to live with that

insatiable uncertainty..to live with something uncontrollable; she used to wonder,

but now, it subsides.

On the Porch, watching water fall

Front Porch Thunderstorms

Pleasant Plain, Ohio

where the wood meets the house, that only from a few short steps the ground seems to be eons away. the chair, a sad, pale blue, memory of times sat within its fabric, its existence has thus ceased, where two persons, waiting for the storm to begin, to see the dark clouds blow into the once clear sky, then only the pattering gently beginning to smack the roof can be heard, the world seems only a trickle to this great storm.  before the sky fully loosed, laced the air with its cold, damp liquid, there was a calm. so calm, that the destruction to follow was almost desired. from that chair patiently waiting to run and be engulfed by the now frigid droplets, clinging to the only warmth that could be found, you synchronized your pattering with the slow beat of my heart, gazing up at the gray, swollen clouds, this enchanting time brings sweet ecstasy, contradicting every part of what is good and what is bad, too much time, the mud begins to run, slipping, shaking, shivering, running back under cover of the tiny wood that meets the house, (where now I sit, watching with mama), wrapping me, squeezing my  soaked skin, water seeps through, then a sudden halt, you feel yourself losing your own grip, childhood stops, waiting for those slow drops becomes but a distant memory, like the drops slipping through your fingertips, the start of rebirth when you cease to fall from the opening sky, the sun begins licking the tattered flowers, dries the muddied driveway, the dripping and shaking of the trees are your final cry, then your destruction, exists only when beckoned from the world below.

Haunted

skepticism, it haunts me always, in fact, it makes me cringe at its very word.

my heart is a skeptic.

I was always told to watch out for the storms that could threaten me, those pattering, unending, chilly nights when I would be sitting alone. That’s what they warned me about.

Everything felt so right and then it wasn’t, like a switch had been flipped, so suddenly and all at once. Now I am left with a switch that does work, and I pray it never does again.

I let that storm hold my hand and keep my heart, you know, you almost had me fooled. In fact, I believed every word that dripped from your lips.

You’re my ghost..and it’s sad to say I’d wish you’d leave, that you’d stop being my monster, even just for a day.

Your old shirt haunts me, it lingers on my bed,

cloaking me at night and threatening to strangle me

while I lay in my ‘peaceful’ trance of slumber.

You slipped it to me one night when we were together,

But now it’s just me.

You know, it finally lost your scent.

But each time I open my drawer, slip on this shirt

and climb under the covers, I feel how you used to hold me.

Call it my own type of haunting, but I just can’t bring myself to not wear it.

Every part of me that hurt just wants you to fix my wounds,

that’s what you were supposed to do, pick me up, support me.

But you chose to support yourself instead, make it more about you,

and chose to make my world stop in just a few short words.

You’ll never really know the haunting you have caused. The ghost of you

is all I have left. At least the shirt decided to stay.

You have rekindled a coldness I even fear, but at least in the betrayal, only the inanimate part of you stayed, for that is all I have left..

But even that is betraying me.

 

 

I can feel its weight, like this crushing pressure, and no matter how much I wish it would stop, I have to just let it happen, hoping I can keep myself going throughout the day.

I am closing my eyes tightly, and I Just wish the very thought would leave, that I would not be plagued by such a strong emotion, that I have so desperately tried to hide. I want this to leave, that the gusts to go away and stop threatening to knock me down on my ass. The energy to get back up might cease, for once. I feel like I am dreaming a bit like this storm is brewing and I can do nothing to stop it.

When I see them, it hurts. Selfishly, I want to be rid of it, but passionately, my compassion takes over and I let it be. He was trouble, I know it, but now, now I am stuck still picking up those pieces, making myself bitter towards it so as not to fall back into the pressure filled capsule I was once a part of.

My veins run a different kind of liquid, and I’m not sure how much longer I can take its lofty presence.

 

Perfectly imperfect

One of the most important people in my life said, “build your walls out, not up, ” one weakness could take down one wall,  but having a hundred small walls means someone has to find a hundred weaknesses instead.

He said, ” stop searching”

So I did.

Beautiful Destruction

And I feel your endless pattering dripping down my skin, but it isn’t the coldness that I fear, but the unending cycle of drops, that no matter how much I move, only more will hit me.

No matter how much I move, only more will hit me. Why is it that so many things crave your embrace, while I stand hoping that it will subside?

You cling to my warmth, the beating of my heart, and never once asked if you are even welcome, you just showed up.

You just showed up as if you were given the open door all along and I wonder why you even exist, even when you are needed beyond all other facets of this tedious, wonderful life.

You contradict every part of what is good and what is bad.You bring joy to the young ones that run around and jump in the wetness you call puddles. Yet, you bring such turmoil when you let too much drop from above.

Why are you so peacefully destructive, such a contradiction that you may as well exist and cease to exist, all in the same breath?

Maybe, it isn’t because you are wanted and rejected simultaneously, that gets you to the point of returning constantly,

But that you feel yourself losing your grip, that it all is slipping through your fingertips,

that you, you of all, decide to return and remind me of the happiness and pain you always cause.