I’m hanging on by threads

of music and poetry.

My life is such a shit stain

the only way I can survive

is through art.

I can create livable worlds.

Worlds where dreams can still exist,

where love is a real thing,

where happiness is a possibility.

Not this world of endless pain and suffering,

this nightmare reality

where the only things that survive

are rats and cockroaches

that feast on my rotting corpse.

It all goes inward to the bone. Heartaches or match made, all sinks far below the skin. Deep into our core, where the quiet things lie and the happy things play. Those fragments lining and filling our morrow. Bits‘n’bobs of hims and hers and all we are, continuously building us better for tomorrow or breaking us in two.

Regardless, a lesson, a lesson and so goes our dna

Our backbones are built upon it.

LOVE LIGHT & THE HIGHEST

ENERGY

I promised myself I’d remain whole

Although I’ve fought it

Struggling to be an individual

Amongst misanthropic narcissists

Yet I remain whole

Even as cracks appear

On the periphery of my psychē

I continue to be whole

Perhaps I’m losing my mind

While hiding in the corner

Behind the asylum wall

.….As I lay here

.. .Thinking through the pain

.. .Writing down notes

.. .Attempting to stay sane

.. .I have kept silent

.. .Not ready to complain

.. .Hoping to create

.. .The sacred and profane

.. .No longer happy

.. .With just the mundane

But I’m still barely whole

Schizophrenia chases me

And paranoia whispers in my ear

The instability grows

I’m fighting to remain whole

I remember unpleasant experiences

Listening to the lunatic ball

Linguistic madness becomes apparent

My wholeness needs to persist

… .Demons wait for me

… .Lining up the cocaine

… .Regardless of consequences

.. .Flushing life down the drain

… .Reality is clear to me

… .I have gone insane

A hollow existence must be avoided

Along with formless desires

And vacuous excesses

I force myself to stay whole

Chaos is transforming my life

Nonlinear problems take shape

Creating massive ups and downs

I feel my wholeness slipping

… .I am neither here

… .Nor am I there

… .Not totally reckless

… .Simply do not care

… .Thoughts are convoluted

… .Yet I’m completely aware

… .Life could be a dream

… .Instead of a nightmare

Memories of childhood trauma materialize

Instigating shame and self loathing

My wholeness begins fragmenting

Am I going absolutely mad

Fatally infected as Ophelia was

Lunacy creeps into my seething brain

My wholeness has completely fractured

… .Trying hard to survive

… .Suffering is everywhere

… .Tucked in an alcove

.Or on the main thoroughfare

… .Outcomes are endless

… .Stress is beyond compare

… .You may not realize it

.But it’s psychological warfare

Emotional disturbances manifest

Accusatory glances from kinfolk

Suggesting maladies imaginaires

Even though family is the root cause

Was I fractured the entire time

Illusory feelings of wholeness

Fragmentary thoughts askew

Could each fragment be a whole

My mouth is bitter. Tongue toeing with carbonation.

My mouth breaks- barely. Lips parting, a sigh like a drop of rain on my heated flesh.

I swallow, when the kid im watching barrels onto me. I wonder if you watch me too-

but I wrap the kid at my hip in a hug, blissfully unaware for a moment.

But I feel you there- on my perifpheri. I hope you like the vision;

me busying around a dozen kids- easily handling them all.

I will always have one on my hip.

I don't know if you're still watching- I hope I have enough time.

To make my case. To be too sweet. But you're gone when I glance back.

I swallow, and double my efforts on the swing, pretending it doesn't bother me.

I wish you saw, long enough to long.

I know I am good. After all, bad people do not tell people they are bad to the extremity I have unless they are not trying to convince themselves of it.

I believed it for years. I think, nearly twenty-three, that I am not so horrible.

I am older, now. Cannot hate my teenage self for suriving. Do not discount her actions, because it was all she had. A lashing tongue- barbed with harm, and lingering with longing. Some were drawn. Some were not. Some loathe me. Some accept all I had to give.

But I am not a teen anymore. I have had years to hate myself. Years to try to be anyone but myself.

Yet, I persist.

I have done bad things- but that does not make me bad.

My heart bleeds for things I've said a decade ago. I make amends when I can. Some do not want to bathe in my copper tears, others abate my crimson care for a dubious understanding.

But I still bleed like they never anointed me. My blood spurts, uneven from a faucet unforgiven and unnoticed especially, until I am weak and laying in a lukewarm puddle of my own pain.

I hope the blood will soak to my skin. So all will know my guilty, and apology. But that is the same seeking as bleeding it raw, is it not?

I've done enough damage. So I do not harm myself. I better myself in the name of those I harmed.

And yet, I drink, and drink, until those who hurt me numb.

I'd find you interesting as you tear a wrapper,

my eyes drawn to taut knuckles and red skin as you rip at the packaging.

I draw my eyes, hopefully disinterestedly, yearning anyway, to the ground.

I try to ignore your eyes boring into my face as I toss my head back in a cold-ridden laugh. I feel them. Omnipresent. I don't realize until far too late.

I beg to all that exists I can remedy my mistake. Beg to instead cast my gaze to blown blue, and a freckled laugh instead of tiled ceiling.

Beg instead, to speak to you sat legs dangling off a gym stage instead of someone that is nothing more than a a blip. She had blue eyes. I never realized you did, too, until I met your gaze soaked in dewy-morning glory.

You quit this job in two weeks. I have you for ten more days. And through that, I have ten more hours. I wish I saw you more. But I cherish the bare seconds, and your full grin, and dimpled questioning.

I beg you to see my interest, dripping off the ends of my words. Wonder if you see my faltering disposition as you use a rain-soaked bush as a door hold so I can walk on the sidewalk without ducking.

I swallow heavily, your grin too much to digest on an empty stomach.. Or full.

Too soon, I think, to want you. Too young- too full of offers, to even try.

It's three years, my mind unhelpfully supplies. But I looked you up- and now I know you have too much in front of you for me to offer. I know I'll try anyway.

Meager scraps, yeah. If it is all I have left, how meagre could it truly be?

She grins over her shoulder at me,

and I run my fingertips over the abrade skin of my knuckles.

I listen as she talks, noticing how she speeds up to accommodate the bush spilling onto the sidewalk for me to pass, just to slow for me to catch up to her.

She smiles again- blinding and unassuming. Sweet. Youthful. Rain beads on blonde curls, long eyelashes and roll across freckles into the collar of a sweater.

I wonder if she smells like pumpkin spice, or vanilla, or something equally as comforting on a dreary morning.

I blink, running my finger to one of the rings I wear.

I feel wholly uneven on the ground I walk on, her gaze always on me, her feet sure on the terrain. I wonder why she stares. Why she grins as she probes into my life, asking about dates and if im searching.

My nail digs into the open wound on my hand when she suggests she's looking. too

I look to my left and see a thief crucified like me

The pain was sharp unbearable at first when they drove the nails in

To my feet and hands

And now it's just a dull throb as I feel the blood

From the crown of thorns on my head flow down my forehead

And the bridge of my nose

They laugh at me

They mock me

A King a God but just a man who will die like any other

I will die for you so that you will be entered into Heaven

This is my gift this is my love manifest

For you

For your sins

My pain my suffering

For you

So love me and you will have life everlasting

A spear has pierced my side and I am a vessel of only flesh

Though my heart is so loving so loving for the world for you

For he whosoever believe in me shall have life everlasting Amen.

Amen Amen Amen

I’m getting so tired

of having to convince myself

it’s worth it to stay alive.

Always an uphill battle.

No love, no life, no future.

Just fighting and fighting

and for what?

As I watch everything fall apart

anyway.

I’m punching brick walls,

breaking my bones,

knuckles all bloody.

I could stand still

and let the flies eat away

at this decaying corpse of a body.

I want to shield my kids

from this shitstorm.

Keep their eyes closed

to the horrors and monsters.

But I’m afraid

I’m going to be called the monster.

I’m going to be blamed

for this asteroid that fell on my head.

And here I am,

no love, no life, no future.

A marionette being pulled

by some hellish puppet master

who apparently loves nothing more

than tearing lives to pieces.

I’m getting so tired

of having to convince myself

it’s worth it to stay alive.

But I have to find a way

for the sake of my kids.

They’re all I’ve got

until they’re gone too

just like everyone else.