Au Contraire

It's been longer, I said, than I ever thought it would be.

Until time would bring me back to seeing you.

Clearly, I left wanting. I left needing something

You would not condescend to give to me.

So only now, when I am full

When I remember how it feels to not hunger

And peace is painted lightly on my brow

I need to find her. And tell her.

I thought my world would end when you left me waiting

I thought I'd never be the same.
Swore since I was 16, I'd never ever be happy

Until you gave up and ran to me

But somewhere, behind me.

Blindsided, blindly

Stumbling into love.

In no way I ever thought

I would recover, no

She's not you but

I'm happier anyway now.

Return From the Unfathomable Voyage Into One's Self, Deciding to Forget it All.

I am vincible: I have to remind myself

That I could die like anybody else

I'm a narcissist underneath all the layers of it

The bastion I built up to keep the panic down.

I can't see any longer into me

Plumbed the depths, came up for air

And nobody should ever go down there

Hidden mines to keep me safe up here.

I am mortal: a coil unwinding

Losing tension ever on the spring

I'm an addict, to say the best of it

But the habit keeps me sane when I am weak.

I can't see any longer into me

Plumbed the depths, came up for air

And nobody should ever go down there

Laid traps to keep me safe and way up here.

Resolute to Leave it Be.

I do not want to

Face up to this

The blank-eyed yawning

That stares at me

From every angle

I know how this will seem

I can sleep anywhere,

Love anyone

Be anything

I can become

A monster if I haven't already.

Something in these red pills

Holds my eyes from turning in

I can't touch the holes

Oh no, they will not let me.

Honesty for everyone

But lie myself, to me

Call foul when I

Can't see but feel

What's been coming

Hold it in, and

Bottle it down

Tomorrow I will heal

If tomorrow I

Wake up and I'm not me

The trouble of it all

is that trouble creates-

Makes great things

Bends limber minds

To new depth or

Height of ecstasy.

My worry is that

The cost of peace

is art.

Can happiness

Coexist

with creation.

Here, the jury is hung.

Swinging between

This and that one-

whether withering

is worth the

product of its

pain.

This lacks a rhyme,

A reason, a scheme,

or something to say.

It's simply breathing.

Knowing no amount

of letting out

light breaths

paints dark words

onto the page.

But must an art

lack light-

am I capable of

pushing past the

lucidity, clearly

seeing, deeply

living like

one who is actually alive.

The side effect,

not warned of on the bottle,

is that my conscience

has come back to roost.

Ought to, and ought not

are oddly stuck back

into a vocabulary

void of them before

a pretty pink pill

pulled the plug

on the drain of the tub.

Draining me of...what?

Of whatever it was that

I thought was me.

It's not a quarter-life crisis,

It's the existential price

of peace: not knowing who is me.

Id, ego, superego

there we go again around

the same sad bush

hacked bloodily down

to afford my brain a

better view of the world.

Sunk in colors,

confused, unused to

knowing how to be alright.

I have lived long in tunnel,

and I am blinking at the light

on the other side.

More of me each day

desires nothing more than

to return again to the

cool, shadowy confines

of that arching, cobbled roof

that, like a cell held my

soul so well.

I have stepped beyond myself-

Into something deep,

and yet so shallow.

So devoid of depth un-literal,

so absorbed in what is real,

that I have forgotten

how to find the door to

un-reality again.

Bisected, pressed,

Powder-pink

cylindrical chemical

blues-eraser,

with a water chaser.

I swallow twice a day,

and watch me slip away.

Carbon Copies

Three mistakes I made while knowing you
That I could survive the yawning blue
That I was irreplaceable and you
Would love me, long as I kept loving you

Line after line, I'd sit and write
Pining away with a pen to the page
Verse after verse Until I
Start to curse your name.
Sonnets and songs, laments and lullabies
All my words blurred when I learned
That God would take all my letters
But he'd never have you return.

Three mistakes I made while knowing you
That I would survive the yawning blue
That I was irreplaceable and you
Would love me, long as I kept loving you

New Love

What's the word?
Tell me quick-can't you see that I'm cold
Been out in the storm, waiting my turn
Wet up to my neck, waiting for her

So something's changed
Just months ago, I'd have let this all be
Happy for the smell of just the icing
But now I want the bitter along with the sweet

I'd freeze this moment if I could
Flawed though this and we both are
I feel something stir
Something in your eyes won't let me go
And I don't care how long it takes
I'll wait until I can't wait anymore

Can you stand
The way you're such a terrible pair
It makes me weary, even from here
I can see that you're worth ten of him

In such a slim chance
I could set you free and we'd be happy
That's of all that I've been dreaming
Since I first saw you holding out your hand

I'd freeze this moment if I could
Flawed though this and we both are
I feel something stir
Something in your eyes won't let me go
And I don't care how long it takes
I'll wait until I can't wait anymore

I'm done giving up
I'll wait until I win
and I don't care the cost for him
I want to give her more.

Katie Shakes, Nicole.

Somewhere mid-step
My throat caught my breath
And the earth caught me.
I'm fighting the feel but
The tremors take me
while I plead.

So I dance in the leaves
Wishing they would swallow me
Writhe on my back
And the panic runs free
Yeah I scream at the trees
But they never fall on me
The sickness has come
Please hold my life for me

I've heard demons expelled
From the church; on a couch.
My God is watching me.
But no matter the whispers
My captor laughs in me.

People say I need faith
Or they'll have to medicate
But they have no faith in me.
They're scared of the way
I'm not scared to
Sit and shake.

Look straight ahead at the sky
So dry, my eyes, see blue and white
Dappling me in shadows deep
And cold, my eyes
Look straight ahead at the sky
I spit and shake and scream for life
Why this sad traveller
What could I have done alright

Do you think that it's fun
That all I'm hiding from
Trickles from my brain
Tell me how to escape
Something from which I can't
Run away

So I dance in the leaves
One day they might swallow me
And I'd end this hell that
Wells from inside me. But,
For now I scream at the trees
God, how I hate the ever-feeling
That this all runs in my veins
That this all has become today