For so long I learned how
to unlearn living
taking from myself the stuffing of hope
letting it sink into water
to become sea dragon.
For so long I learned how
to unravel my sense of self
until she splayed like un-knotted parts
lost to sense, blown away
by wind and rain.
It is hard for me you see,
to understand the codes others live by
grasp a secret language of self-worth
belief in the core, where others cultivate
confidence or ego in neat parcel.
I had instead, a drive-through approach
shake-n-bake
leave the oven open
for patients to escape the asylum.
I was born a weed
between dirty post-war concrete
little watered, little attended to
I grew and persevered alongside
dog piss and empty coke cans
my color brighter than the cultivated plants
in your garden for my contrast to
yellowed grass much bleached by
urine and exhaust.
But weeds and thin things of little substance
need more than a little luck
to grow up whole
at some point I stopped leaning toward the sun
chose moonlight as my mistress
where over the oval of my sadness
I mistrusted the rest of the world
for she seemed to me then, full of
unkindness and pinches from cruel people.
In safe-guarding ourselves so long
we can easily forget
the chime of purpose
the rain of love
we think we can subsist on existing alone
that’s what I did,
survived without living.
It was long ago now, but still it seems
only yesterday at times, I met you
with your bright electric eyes and your
shocking lack of restraint, how your
madness compelled you forward with
a lightning rod as your scepter
I felt your hand reach for me
and I was undone by the intensity
of us. A jewel within a cave
that for so long held no light.
When you stopped loving me,
it rained for forty days and stayed
dry at night, I walked empty roads with
bare feet and saw flowers like I had
once been, growing fitfully by the side of
street corners, not knowing yet, what they
reached for or whether fate
or courage, would give them
wings.
If you take someone broken who didn’t know
how to be whole and you give them
love, they will either break it accidentally
in their desperation and fear, or love will
consume them and leave them unable
to live without it.
I felt without you;
incomplete, erased, unwilling
to live on, there seemed no point
for I had not learned to love myself
and perhaps I never will,
it’s in my blood, my DNA to be
shockingly empty of self-worth
I exist without living and it has become
a nasty festering wound refusing
to scab over.
You went on with your life because
for you, living wasn’t dependent upon
anything but hope, you had enough of
that to last several people’s lifetimes
it was, I think, the bequeathing of your
sickness. A magician claiming to
turn things to gold, when all he
possessed was slight of hand.
I however, did not know
how to forge hope or find reason beyond
habit for waking each morning, every
day I did, the burn grew ever deeper, never
really resisting the urge to
consume me whole. I heard voices
they would sing lullabies of
jumping from tall buildings
as others would have dreams
of flying. Mine was bent toward
destruction, a solace in the imagining
of ending this charade.
Tarnished people with little reserves
are good bait for hungry souls
who feast on their need to be wanted
with the savagery of a nation.
Since you, I have lived with dying almost
every day, the punctuated purpose of more
than wiping the slate clean, devoid
of consciousness, tantalisingly distant
I am haunted
by memories of joy like a slow
sword delivering poison
too intense for most of the world
I remain alone in my grief
binding it to me like a silent
child.
You knew this when you met me, you let
the dogs of your heat devour what
little strength was left, for survival
isn’t easy when there’s no water in
the deepest well.
I blame myself of course, as all
good victims are taught,
occasionally I wish for anger
to cleanse the pain away
even if it left just charred parts
and blackened ruin, it might
be easier to bear than
regret and memories
as potent now as the very day
I let my defenses down and you
walked in, radiant and unafraid.
WE are shelters for the needy
but so often, the Narcissist chooses
the same abode and for those of us
who grew without succor, or enrichment
there is nothing easier than our undoing
at the hands of a cold heart.
If I had a daughter I would never
let her flourish trapped between concrete
I would watch her until she grew
strong and had within her, all it takes
to ward off those who seek only to
bleed and consume what is good
and untainted. Perhaps it is too late
or maybe one day, I will learn
a way to keep growing
not just existing, and it is possible
in time, the scars of you could be
replaced by someone else. If such a
person existed, I cannot fathom, for this
world is often frozen in its
eternal demand for the cruel and
the unkind to conquer
and dance on the
fallen necks of
flowers unable
to keep facing
toward sunlight.
Still. We. Exist.
Perhaps in time
we will do more
than simply survive.
TheFeatheredSleep 