Self Strength.

Stand still
and straight
and perhaps even smile.

Because while disappointment
may be just around the corner,
and something unpleasant
might just spring on you
like a cat with claws and teeth and fear in its eyes
and you’ll find yourself a mouse,
you don’t want to give them the satisfaction.

Don’t rush ahead
or hesitate and hold out.
It’s a thin line,
I know.
But you can do it.
Someone believes in you.

a broken and a contrite heart.

Every time I leave
a room you’re in,
a little piece of me
gets left behind.

You’re running me through a net
everyday,
and your net has lots of holes
but it’s still a net.

And I end up wandering
dark streets.
Looking for myself in the reflection of polished glass,
mirrored brown puddles,
oily slicks,
and my own troubled hands.

This is something I don’t say to anyone.
But if you look carefully
you can see it in the black behind my eyes,
in the creased folds when my face breaks
into smile,
on my furrowed brow when I am elsewhere,
in my slightly parted lips and breathless whisperings:

I still love you.

It was a lonely night.

the other night
I cried myself to sleep.

I felt pretty miserable 
real lonely.

not your normal lonely.
the sort when it hurts
because you’re not around.

unexplainable pain and need and want.
ouch ouch ouch.

it’s the sort of pain where
you can’t do anything without them
and you have no idea if they’re thinking of you
but
you don’t think they are.

that’s why i make sure to say to you
‘remember,
someone is thinking of you’

I say that to reassure
so that you know
I’m thinking of you
and that’ll maybe make the night seem ever so slightly less dark,
this cage ever so slightly larger
and my love ever so slightly stronger.

And I am thinking of you
in one way or another
because I feel that if someone’s thinking of you
if even in the tiniest, littlest part
if even if it’s just next to nothing
it makes you feel better

like I matter a little to someone.
like I matter a little to you.

I listened to a river red.

What did she do?
She was honest
She said she was sorry and that she loved me
but not in that way.
That’s all

And I can’t feel bad
because
it’s true.
And I can’t feel bad
because
that makes me feel
bad.

As I’ve said before
the unimportance of it is killing me.

Things mean too much too me.
I feel too much

It is not a bad thing to feel very passionate?
Oh it is.
It is bad for me.
It makes me hurt
and it blinds me to the most obvious loves.

What did I say in return?

I said
okay.
I said
I see.
I said.

I didn’t say
I didn’t mean that smile.

Beaded Desire

My pains are trivial.
I am as the slightest murmur in a whirling, turning cacophony of screams of sound.
Often are the times when I feel insignificant, undeserving, cruel.
More so do I see the fake. The forced.
Why cannot you be genuine?
TELL ME.

Tell me.

Please.
I so badly need to hear and
tear away
at your pains.

My face shall thump hollow at this door
till there is nought left of my head
or nought of the door.

Blackened and caved in.
I am fully drained

Translation.

La nuit de mort, me cachent loin.
Chauffé seulement en cuisant la tasse à la vapeur.

Aucuns yeux.
Aucunes lumières.
Aucuns sentiments.

Je suis rempli au point d’éclatement

Calary.

Our hot breath spirals away
into the air;
free.

My collar is up against this wind,
against this cold,
against this softness of heart.

No one shall see me cry.
It is not yet dark enough.

Enough is never enough.

Now
It is abandoned.

The vain hope.
Pity. I shall be lonely another year
at least.

Elegance ye do not have,
but some small ingenuities
and a most irregular timing.

That I will give you.
Nothing
else.

My blood is calm.
No gashes here.

“I shall be stout, strange, in yellow stockings
even with the swiftness of putting on.”
Or at least ’till, in my weakness, I fall again.

Draw it in.

Don’t give others pain.
Draw it into yourself.
Draw it in.
That’s the way.

Wait and wait and wait.
It’s better than knowing nothing’s coming.

Bleed into your own mouth.
Taste the metal.
Taste your own disease.
It’s all yours, no one elses.

I care for them that cry.
I care for them more than I will admit.
More than I can feel and fold into you.

My sky is lit with torches
that mar and scar the night with their false light.

It’s all my own doing.