Back To Life

I wonder what made me think that I could do it

to live a life successfully with you.

I had hidden for years at the bottom of a bottle

and was trying to simply make my life pass away.

I was drowning and dying and living like a shadow

 hollow and empty, an outline of a self.

I was wishing for death and far too slowly dying

numbing and hiding, trying to escape the pain.

You came along and swept me off my feet

caught me in your spell and the rest of the world disappeared.

You told me tales and stories and I believed them

I threw everything I had into the well.

I wished for you for so long and there you were

standing before me and asking me to be yours.

To come away and start a life together

where we could live out every one of our dreams.

I was scared and broken from that very first day

and I never knew how to ask you for help.

You made it so clear that you wanted someone safe and strong

and I tried so hard to be everything for you.

As the years went by I slowly disappeared again

into all the things I thought you wanted from me.

Until I forgot how to listen to the beating of my own heart

and I just shut down everything that needed you.

You had battles all your own and there was no place for me

I crept slowly back inside of myself waiting for you to find me.

You never came looking, you left me out there

wandering lost and alone.

And I soberly tried to understand where I had lost you

and what I did that was so wrong.

When did you stop loving me?

that’s the part I just don’t really know.

It was so confusing and twisted as the end came to pass

the back and forth on the chains of a swing.

You loved me and then you didn’t and then you did once again

and then three days later you were gone.

A phone call placed from another state

to tell me that it would never be the same.

That something was missing, something in you,

that thing that you just had to find.

Now you’ve found her and that what this all was about

and I still wonder what I did wrong.

So now I ache and weep and mourn

and try to find the me that I lost.

I try and stay clear and sober and strong

and I‘m trying to find my way back to life.

Enough

I want to be more than this

more than I am today.

But the life that I loved just keeps falling away

and with it all that I had.

I’ve tried to be strong and tried to be true

to who I believed that I am.

But I keep getting smaller and keep getting weaker

I’m disappearing again.

I no longer care about anything

all the plans just keep falling apart.

A way out of here to brand new place

I’ve worked so hard for, now it’s gone.

There’s nothing left in me at all

just this ever growing, ever deepening need.

It’s coming out in all the wrong places

because there is nowhere left for me.

I’ve never been so alone in my life

never had nowhere to go.

Now nothing is all that I want

and I am nowhere completely at home.

I’m really just done with all of this

really just done with me.

I’m sick of myself and sick of the sound

of these words and my crying voice.

I want to disappear, I want to fade away

from the images and memories I see.

I’ve always been found on the outside

on the edge, at the gate, on the fringe.

This was the first time I truly believed

that what I had was mine.

That I was worthy and safe forever

and that I had a place to find my way.

I was wrong again as I always seem to be

again I wasn’t enough.

To hold you, to keep you from walking away

because I am never enough.

I

I

deserve

more.

More

Today I will strive to be

more than I was  yesterday.

Today I will run faster

and farther than I did before.

Today I will be stronger

than at any time in my past.

Today I will be smarter

than to let this define who I am.

Today I will throw

 my past into the river.

Today I will keep walking

when the wounded call my name.

Today I will not let

my broken spirit win.

Today I will wear the face

of someone who has won.

Today will be a different day

from the outside looking in.

Then one day I will look out

and it will feel different in here too.

5 or 6 days

This is right about the time when things are hardest

after 5 or 6 days of walking on dry land.

The ground beneath my feet is hard and brittle

and everything is just a little too clear.

My emotions have reached a raw exposure

after days when all the numb has slipped away.

The nerves and panic take up where they left off

and snuggle up in bed right next to me.

I’ve been running, sweating, driving myself to exhaustion

for days and days just so I could sleep.

But here I am a week in and I’m struggling

to keep myself from diving in again.

Just a swim, a gentle dip below the surface

enough to soak me fully to the bone.

Enough that I can disappear from this place and all this pain

just for a moment and then off to sleep again.

It’s dusty, stale and barren in this desert

there’s nothing soft and nowhere I can dream.

I can slip into that other place unnoticed

and the scars are the only way to prove I was there.

I’m fighting for life and death as if I had an army

with the strength of numbers arming me for the war.

But the reality is that I am the only one here

unarmed, alone and falling victim to the night.

OpenLinkNight ~ Week 47

* deversepoets.com *

Letters Never Sent

Why are there so many words that remain unspoken

why are there so many letters never sent?

So many thoughts, too many feelings scattered loosely

in the ever crowded spaces in my head.

You wouldn’t want to hear them if I said them

wouldn’t want to read the words I wrote.

You didn’t for years and years before now

I don’t expect that anything has changed.

I don’t know why my broken heart still bleeds for you

or why I wake up every night in tears.

Tears for the missing what I once had

tears that you now lay down each night with her.

It wouldn’t matter if I told you how my heart felt

or that I can’t comprehend what you have done.

Why I loved you so much when you so clearly didn’t

and were obviously just waiting to get away from me.

These words and thoughts keep filling up my conscious

ever awake, ever distracted mind.

Every now and then I have to come here and leave them on this page

so I can simply make it through the day.

Your life went on without a hesitation

yet I am still just stuck here in this place.

Trying to understand how not to love you anymore

trying not to let this define who I am.

I am pure and I am broken and I’m bleeding

day after day and night after night.

Trying to stay present in this process

as the scars tattoo themselves across my skin.    

Too Much To Know

It’s time to quiet the poet’s dying heart again

time to kill her quietly weeping soul.

There’s no room for her in this time

no room for her in this place.

She wants to mourn, she wants someone to love

she wants to lie awake at night and dream.

But there is no one here but me to listen to her

and I have taken all that I can hear.

She only makes me sad and I can’t bear it

another day, another sleepless night.

Another day where tears won’t stop rolling down my face

I have to tell the poet’s soul goodbye.

She’s too much for me, too needy and fragile

she’s more than anyone has time to hear.

She sings her songs deep into the night

and weaves herself into the fabric’s thread.

I know she hurts, I know she cries

trust me, she is all that I can feel.

But I’ve given all of me that I can give her

and I see how everyone else feels the same.

She is lonely and broken and sad and she quietly sits alone

soon I will pass her by as well.

Like the many passing faces who can’t understand her need

who don’t even look at her anymore as they walk by.

I don’t want to be her but she was supposedly the best part

of me and I had to let her go.

She paints beautiful pictures of words on pages

but she lives them as well and that is too much to know.

Trying to find an end

The place I knew I’d end up

inevitable result.

I’ve fallen deep into the well

and I can’t find my way out.

I’m buried under wishes,

the weight of hopes and dreams.

The ones that fell here when they died

nowhere else to go it seems.

I didn’t mean to stay here

just a stop along the way.

As I moved through this to somewhere else

but I can’t get there today.

I’m stuck here rhyming words

they run rampant through my mind.

I can’t quiet them or ease their wailing ache

I can’t leave them silently behind.

I’m trying to feed the poet’s soul

yet move ahead with grace.

Those things don’t seem to coincide

and leave me bleeding in this place.

I’ve lost my way here many times

I’ve fallen on this road.

Fell victim to the weight of this pain

and the burden of this load.

I can’t carry it any further

I don’t want to hurt anymore.

But the cuts and bruises and this burning ache

have left me empty and sore.

The worth in me has gone

the belief that I can survive.

The fact that I somehow deserve this

has me fighting just to stay alive.

You’re supposed to get what you give

and I gave everything I had.

And now I am here with nothing left

but myself, tired, weary and sad. 

There is nothing to give, nothing to get

I don’t want anything anymore.

Just to get to the place where this story will end

and I can forever close this door.

No Trace Of What I've Lost

It’s all about me isn’t it

and the nothing that I’ve become.

Disappeared and faded away

in the shadow of who I’ve loved.

There is nothing left of me here

just memories of you.

Tears and loneliness and a broken heart

and a terror I can’t explain.

I’m lost, I’m broken, I’m beaten down

I’m in pieces on the floor.

I just want to fall in and fade away

I want nothing anymore.

I always loved with a pure heart

with all that I had to give.

I’ve loved at the expense of myself

and they always walk away.

What have I done again this time

to drive you away from me?

To send you running into someone else’s arms

to make you lie to me.

I don’t understand what happened

and why it always does.

Why I am so completely alone

with no trace left of what I’ve lost.

Thinking more of the same

Each day the pieces become smaller

and blow away in the breeze.

They flutter and float

and glide slowly onto the ground.

Each day there is less and less

of me that I recognize.

I’m tired and weary

and I really just want to go.

Go anywhere, anyplace,

as long as it’s not here.

Just go and keep on moving

without ever looking back.

I want to run but I can’t run fast enough

want to scream but my voice won’t come.

I want to do anything

 to stop feeling this pain.

I don’t want to miss you or mourn you or need you

I want to make it go away.

I want to just turn it off and leave it

the way you did.

To be so easily replaced, so easily forgotten

is something no one should ever have to feel.

To be left alone without a word or a thought

as to whether or not you’re alive.

It’s so sad that you reinforced everything

I knew before I met you.

The things you swore that you would change

and that you would make me believe.

Damaged

I am becoming hard and jagged

rough with edges ripped and torn.

I am becoming bitter and cold as steel

hollow, barren, worn.

There is nothing close to light within me

nothing warm and comforting to say.

There is nothing sacred, nothing pure

I’m damaged and I feel it all today.

Everything is gone and everything in me shaken

off balance, dizzy, unable just to stand.

Everything is broken and the pieces keep disappearing

they are sharp and I can’t hold them in my hands.

So I kick them along the dirty ground as I walk by

hoping they will end up where I go.

I’m bound to end up losing some of me along the way

who I am becoming, I don’t know.

It’s quiet here, it’s lonely, it’s not healthy

for anyone to spend this much time alone. 

But I have nothing to give, it’s all been taken from me

I don’t even have a place I can call home.

If you see me passing by, don’t be frightened

you probably wouldn’t recognize me anyway.

I barely know my own face when I look in the mirror

I’m scared I’ll never find myself again.

I don't need "help"

I’m sick of the ‘self-helpy” jargon

that flows like water from your lips.

The sunshiney slogans and bumper sticker lines

that now define who you are.

Not everything wraps up in neat little packages

of ‘no matter what I’m ok!’

Sometimes it’s ugly and bloody and dirty

and we barely make it out alive.

An end is most certainly always an end

when the choices made weren’t yours.

The only beginning is that you are forced

to accept what you didn’t ask for.

This rhetoric sets off a firestorm

of unbridled anger in me.

Could someone simply validate the fact

that I am sitting here writhing in pain.

I don’t want to hear that tomorrow

will surely be a brighter day.

Or that someone better is waiting out there

and I will find my way.

I want to know  that you hear me

that my words mean something to you.

That you care that I am dying of a broken heart

and that right now that is all there is.

You can’t save me or fix it, I’m not asking you to

you can’t take away my pain.

But could you tell me you love me and sit with me awhile?

I feel the tears coming again.

This is the cycle, the circle of days

this is what does not end.

This wishing, the praying, the wanting, the ache

the simple need for a friend.

You don’t have to tell me anything

you don’t have to say a word.

Just stop telling me how this has all happened for a reason

and how one day it will all be clear.

I don’t care about one day, or someday, or whatever

I am bleeding now.

I am broken and blistered and falling away

can anyone hear me cry?

Lost

Something in me is forever changed

and it’s not who I want to be.

An innocence has been lost

it will never again live here.

The things I believed in were taken

the things I loved all gone.

Replaced with rage and anger and fear

and decisions of who was wrong.

I am different now, I rarely smile

at least not from the inside.

I move through the day just trying to breathe

it’s not even possible to hide.

The loss, the change, the missing pieces

the things that are now just gone.

The anger, the vicious hate that I feel

I just want to leave and move on.

I hate you, I do, what you did to me

I hate how much I believed.

I am sick and disgusted at the thought

 of you and where you now live.

Does it ever even cross your mind

the things that you took from me?

Do you understand the depth, the breadth, the consequence

I doubt it, just so long as you are now free.

 I hope freedom is all it’s cracked up to be

that the payoff was worth the cost.

I’m sure it is for you but don’t forget me

I am broken and beaten and lost.