Trying to...

I can’t escape this feeling that I’m nothing

the feeling that there is nothing left for me.

I feel like I’ve lost everything I ever had

when the reality is that I lost what was never mine.

I can’t let go of this aching, driving pain

well, the reality is, it won’t let go of me.

It haunts me when I cannot sleep, it haunts me when I dream

I’m trying to not to let it take every bit of me.

I don’t know why I miss you, why I love you

I never could have meant that much to you.

I think you thought I was someone else, I know I thought you were

and I guess I miss the girl that never was.

I feel like I’m trapped inside this shell of someone

going through the motions of a life.

Trying to make it through each day and trying to run from here

trying to find some way to start again.

I know everyone has someone leave them

and they move on and start again with someone else.

But for me this was the end of the world and I’m broken

and I don’t ever want to feel this way again.

There’s no next time, no someone new for me

no perfect person who now I’m ready for.

There’s me who’ll live a life alone, trying to understand

why any of this happened in the first place.

I cannot give my heart away again

you weren’t the first but you surely are the last.

I don’t know how to do this and I always end up here

shattered and hollow and trying to ease the pain.

Nothing makes any sense

I’m tired of waking every day

in this weakened state of mind.

I’m tired of feeling

like somehow I am wrong.

I’m tired of feeling hate and disgust

and resentment at you and your life.

But all that I can remember

is how you lied and cheated on me.

You didn’t owe me anything, right

I’m not supposed to expect.

That you would be honest and you

would treat me with dignity.

What were we doing then

committed and building a life?

Well, what were you doing

I know the answer I’ll give.

So I am feeling worse every day

because I can’t let go of this rage.

I can’t let go of what I feel

in response to what you did.

It shouldn’t matter, I know, I get it

but in the way I view the world, it does.

I believe in accountability

and owning what you do.

I believe in asking forgiveness

for whatever it is you’ve done.

You told me I didn’t do anything

that it was you, it wasn’t me.

I can’t process that, I don’t know how

to reconcile something that doesn’t exist.

If it wasn’t me

then why am I suffering all this pain?

Can’t you see it from here

from my broken point of view?

Could you try and then

tell me what I am supposed to do?

It if wasn’t me and it was you

at least you owe me that.

I just can’t make sense of

any of this anymore.

There are no fairy tales

Can you see her? I can’t see her either anymore

and I wonder where she has gone.

She was once visible and even transparent

she wore her heart on her sleeve.

She was sure, at least, of herself

she was pure in thought and deed.

She acted simply out of love

and this need she had to believe.

She believed in magic and ever after

she believed in fairy tales.

She was sure that dragons and fairies existed

but she now knows it was just pretend.

That grownups just can’t live like that

in worlds where dreams come true.

When the dream consists of others

and having to let them in.

It was so easy in my little room

where I could hide away with my heart.

But you knocked on the door and I let you in

and I’ve never dreamed out loud again.

Something changed in me that I didn’t understand

I thought that you loved me and that was enough.

But something died when I lived by your rules

and forgot to feed my heart.

Maybe you loved me once

but we were both horrible at this.

We didn’t know how to talk to each other

and we didn’t know how to hear.

I kept listening for the things that I needed to hear

instead what I heard was your need.

I let that become the only sound

that echoed through my ears.

You broke my heart early on in the game

and I should have stopped playing then.

It changed me forever, I was never the same

and looking back that was really the end.

When you can’t voice your needs because you know

that the outcome won’t be changed.

It’s time to pack your things and walk away

while you still have your pride.

 I lost mine, I left it lying there

on the floor where I knelt before you.

Where I told you I loved you and swore to you

that I would always believe.

It doesn’t matter if I believed in you

you never believed in me.

I spent years and years waiting and wishing to feel

something that was never going to come.

Selfishness and karma~a love story

What’s striking is the irrelevance

of anything that gets in your way.

I can only say this now

as I have been on both sides.

I was once the one you wanted

the one who took all your time.

The one you gave all of your energy to

the one who was your world.

I was the one who you whispered to

as you stole away time on the phone.

I was the one you had inappropriate

moments with more than once.

Now I stand on the other side

where the view has certainly changed.

And the inappropriate things are with someone else

and this has all ‘been done’ to me.

I am the one who had to watch you

fall in love with someone else.

The one who had to hear you say

it’s not about you, it’s me.

It doesn’t matter who it’s about

when you are the one feeling it's affects.

The feelings and effects are quite different

when you stand on this side of things.

So maybe karma has done this to me

and maybe it was just you.

Doing what you do and being who you are

either way I am paying for my role.

The role I played in ending up here

when all I did was fall in love.

With the wrong girl at the wrong time

and I chose not to do the right thing.

I heard what I wanted to hear

and did what I wanted to do.

It was the first time I’d ever done that in my life

and it was a lesson I’ll never forget.

The guilt, the pain and the lack of being able

to look myself in the eye.

Changed me forever and took away from me

the way that I once stood with pride.

I had always done the right thing

even when it caused me such pain.

The one time I put myself before anyone else

and this is where I land…

What you will find~

Find some peace, find your strength

find something you can hold.

Find just one thing about yourself

that will make you smile.

Take that thing and hold it tight

and keep it safe inside.

Draw from it when things

get dark and quiet.

You are worth believing in

you are something to behold.

You are everything

and you are more than enough.

You are falling now and struggling

with all that’s come to pass.

But you can overcome this

yes, you can succeed.

It’s always dark before the dawn

and the light will surely shine.

Shine again

upon your beautiful face.

You will sing and you will dance

and you will open up your arms.

You will find some way

to find your way again.

Cold and hollow and empty

are just places for you to rest.

To fall down and rebuild

all that has crashed around you.

But hope springs up like a beacon

and lights those empty halls.

As you move forward, onward, and inward

in the journey to you.

You will be there waiting

when you find yourself again.

And you will recognize that

so very little has changed.

You will be who you always were

just stronger from the fight.

Your beauty shining

once you free it from its cage.  

A bitter and angry place

I never thought this was who I would become

filled with bitterness and a desire to make you hurt.

I feel like I was cheated out of so many things

and I guess I’m mad because in some ways it’s my own fault.

I protected your name when you were the one who lied

protected your actions when you were the one who cheated.

I gave you the space and choice to make those decisions

because I always believed that you would come back to me.

I protected a relationship that never made me feel safe

and a person who never truly made me feel loved.

What in the world am I mourning and holding on to now?

some illusion that anything we had was ever real.

I never should have started a life with you

I said it then and continue to say it now.

My belief in myself was not strong enough to claim a space in this

I was just another one of the many ‘broken birds’.

Maybe that’s why I can see them all so easily

and see so clearly what you have done once again.

You get to save us all and take us away in the beginning

but you have no idea what to do with us once we’re here.

You never supported me in anything that I loved

only criticized that something in me had changed.

You would ignore me for the length of entire days

and expect me to know how to come close to you at night.

I was never strong enough to tell you many of these things

if I had been this would have ended long ago.

I would have stood up for my needs and found that you could not meet them

and I would have been left standing silently alone.

Surprise! Isn’t that what happened anyway?

only once again it was you holding all the cards.

I guess that’s why I am left so bitter and angry

because you never hesitated when it came to what you want.

You went off more than once and did what you wanted

built your next life while sitting by my side.

Only when I just couldn’t believe the lies anymore

did I seek out the truth that I wish I didn’t have to know.

You intentionally betrayed and cheated on me

it was planned out and written in black and white.

The sickness I still feel at knowing that one truth

is the thing that is rotting me from the inside.

I hate you for keeping yourself safe inside our life

while you went out and tried someone else on for size.

Only because I caught you and you found something that fit

did you send me a text and tell me that we had to talk.

A text is what I got after the years that I gave to you

after love and commitment and struggles when things were hard.

And then a phone call that simply said you had made a choice

was she sitting next to you when you said goodbye?

Seeking resolve

I want to dig in with determination

I want to find resolve.

I want to get through the stages

and just be done with them.

I want to feel and live and move through it

as fully and completely as I can.

And then move on to the next phase

and repeat those steps again.

I don’t want to have to keep reliving this

every time I feel something new.

Every time another memory passes me by

and takes me back to the place where we lived.

I want to stop hurting, stop feeling this pain

this deep, paralyzing ache.

I want to move forward and onward and into my life

I want you to just fade away in the breeze.

Maybe I could stay with anger,

that’s the one that seems to do the most good.

It keeps me energized and in need of motion

but then the guilt always creeps back in.

Guilt for being angry at you

 even after all that you did.

It’s ridiculous to even say it now

but I loved you with all that I am.

So I don’t know how to stay mad at you

and I don’t know how to let you go.

Maybe if I had been better at that

you wouldn’t have let me go.  

You are there

It’s just a constant struggle

a series of back and forth movement.

An up and down cycle

a desperate need for change.

Growth comes slowly

in tiny, fragile steps.

In words repeated over and over

until they are ringing in your head.

You have to cry and ache and mourn

sing funeral songs and weep.

You have to struggle, fight, and bleed

all in the name of love.

It’s now in vain, of course,

as the love no longer exists.

But trying to heal and find you again

in the aftermath of what was.

It’s so sick and twisted and shameful

that this is what becomes.

Of a life lived together and hearts once joined

as they are cast off and left on the ground.

It’s all just temporary, passing of time

until someone else comes along.

No one ever really heals

they just transfer it on to the next.

That’s why I’ve given up on all of this ‘love’

this ‘commitment’, this ‘forever’.

I don’t need it, don’t want it, won’t go there again

there is no point when all of it just ends.

We become memories and strangers

in a simple moment’s time.

And there is always one who is treated

with so much less than care.

I’m sorry but it’s not worth

the cost of all this loss.

When we were a family, now I’m here

and you are there.

  

Gone

Caught within the whirl and twirl

of a spinning downward spiral.

Knocked off balance

swept by the current alone.

Upended, turned upside down

not knowing which way is up.

Trying desperately to place

at least one foot back on the ground.

I’ve fallen from the place where I had been clinging

and hanging on tightly with simple resolve.

Now I’m spinning and falling at a pace I can’t control

and with a swiftness I am being dragged away.

I don’t care where I land at this point

let it take me.

Let it drag me from this place

I don’t want to be here.

I don’t want to wake up or function

or move from where I am.

I want to go back to sleep and stay there

for years and years. 

I want to go back to a time

before all of this happened.

A time before

I found myself here in this place.

I’m tired of fighting,

 tired of having to dig in for all of my strength.

I’m tired of it being

this thing that won’t go away.

I don’t care anymore, I don’t care anymore

can’t I just forget it?

I don’t want to think or feel

or deal with anymore of this.

I want to walk away into

some fading sunset.

And be gone before

the light from tomorrow breaks.

There is nothing

that will signify my absence.

There is already so much missing

there is too much space to fill.

Small

I guess today had to be one of those days

those days when I just don’t feel very tall.

I feel a little bit like the absent shadow

that can’t be found on bright and sunny days.

It wasn’t even sunny, today it was dark and gray

but I started out with the highest hopes and dreams.

I ran until I couldn’t run anymore

and for five miles I walked the rest of the way home.

I was going to go and play those songs tonight

the ones that I have written since you left.

But I remember all too clearly the last time I played there

and how you disrespected me and I couldn’t face it today.

I couldn’t go and do this thing alone

and, of course, there wasn’t anyone to ask.

So I stayed here by myself and wandered off into a book

and passed the day quietly alone.

I battled hard today against the darkness

and where, on days like this, I usually go.

But today I kept my head above the waterline

still wrapped in sadness at least I know I did not fail.

I didn’t do the thing I wanted to do today

but I didn’t let the darkness take me down.

Down to the depth and bury me in the abyss of all this pain

and leave me used up and tossed no better than before.

  

Stupid

I still miss you every day and it’s stupid

stupid, really, because you are so far away.

Far away from me and the life we shared

far away from the girl that I once knew.

None of it even matters now

we’ll never speak again.

I’ll never see your face

and we’ll never be friends.

Even though I miss you with a passion

I can’t forget the things you said and did.

I can’t forgive what you’re not sorry for

you’re only sorry that you got caught and I know.

So again, it’s stupid with all that being said

that I would miss someone who treated me this way.

But I do and I’m the idiot who still dreams of you each night

and wants to be able to blame it all on her.

You are the one who did this and I know that

whether or not it was ever really about us.

I knew you would do this one day, when you did this with me

and I should have been strong enough to do what I knew was right.

I wanted to believe that you truly loved me

in that short time how could it possibly have been true.

I only knew that I had loved you for such a long time

and whatever made me believe I still can’t let go.

It’s eating away a giant piece of my soul

but at least now it will match my savagely broken heart.

A hollow place inside me that will always hold that dream

no matter how foolish, how stupid, I can’t let it go.

It’s a feeling an emotion pure and strong

something that is set deep within the center of me.

I can’t shake it, I can’t reason with it, tell it what to do

most of the time it is leading the way.

So I simply try to live with it and nurse it

feed the open wounds with tender care.

Try and heal and maybe one day it will only be a scar

instead of this thing that is bleeding my life away.