DESPAIR

Snap those lips down tight for me.
Paint them virmilion splashed with disregard.
Skipping in disgrace and fear,
Arm in arm across the way.
Sprinting towards the edge.
Falling into fire; dive into my empty place.
Doused in blackness and gasoline.
Torment and tension tethered to my sick sick brain.
Razor wire, dried bone, ruddy muscles, and hot sticky blood.
Something terrible is rising up and I can’t stop it.
Frantically I write on the walls trying to keep it at bay.

I don’t want to again. I don’t want to…please.
I can feel it clawing at me; biting my insides.
Little fangs. Gleaming chompers.
Dumping lava into my arteries.

I squeeze tight, curling into a ball trying to crush the snake in my belly.
It starts small…little sparks;

then the bigger logs begin to catch light and I’m up and away.
Blazing like an inferno I’m gone; outta sight.
Running to the brink hell bent for glory.
I can feel sizzling under my feet and bitter winter wind on my face.
I wish I could wink out of existence…

I need silence then this also will pass .

Something, anything to clear away the slate of my heart and make me blank inside again.
I close my eyes but I can hear the imps giggle as they scurry in the darkness.
There is no quiet. No credits roll.
Please earth under foot.. open and swallow me entire.
The jar holding my joy is broken and every ounce is gushing out.
The sand drinks it up greedily begging for more and I wish I had none left to give.
But jet after jet still spurts out...a valve is broken somewhere it seems.
Like a finger in an open sore.
Like that infected tooth that you can’t keep from touching with your tongue.

The scab you can’t help but pick.

It's agonizing... but I could force myself to do what must be done.
I want to smear blood across my forehead and rub my face with ash.
Then sit under a moon black as sack cloth and lament loss ,

despair against finality , and rage indiscriminately against anyone and everything till my fingers are worn down to ragged nubs and I cough blood in vivid gaudy streams.

To hear the sound of anyone screaming except me would be a welcome change
Instead of crouching inside this icey tomb to loss rehashing everything…

going over the words and the days and the years again and again.

Running my fingers over it studying the crevices and crannies looking for an imperfection… any imperfection.

Some indication...God…something to tell me I could have seen this all coming.

I’m at ground zero…a pillar of ash...stark and alone, oblivious that the world around me has drastically changed and the road ahead is dark, lonely and uncertain.
I feel spent and all that’s left is this quiet aching. Standing at the edge of that abyss; one good shove is all it would take.

Then I could escape into the black...and fall forever…I would finally have quiet…instead of looking at scattered pictures and shattered glass…Instead of praying for it to return…instead of waiting for the joy in my eyes to come home…I miss it