Misplaced

Two in the morning
Why isn’t there anyone to talk to?
When I feel alone
And burdened

I sleep to dream
Until the dreams come
Untethered
And I am misplaced

Midnight has gone past
I have lost
My witching hour
All I have is this script

Alone with the words

They are my comfort
They are my confidant
They anchor me

Because I am still
Misplaced

Making mistakes
Commiting to them
As if we were taking vows
Exchanging rings
And sealing it
With a chaste kiss

I am tired now
But so awake
Why isn’t there anyone to talk to at two a,m,?

Panic on Demand

It begins
Everything out of focus

Like a water color painting
Of things I never
Wanted to see

The lights are too bright

It’s a wave
I think
Ride out the high tide

But the noises are too loud

I want to hide
But where to go?

I am in a room
A blank white room of futility

Feeling for doorways with my fingertips

I breathe
Reminding myself

That this is now
The past can’t accost me
And the future is some
Unknowable thing
Not for me to toy with

But still my eyes are clouded
I am not ready for this

My body demanding
My brain in melee

I grasp at rationality and
Only find catastrophe

Is this what dying feels like?
Dramatic but accurate
For I only know the small deaths

Eventually I will steady my hands
My eyes will clear
And I will depart
From there terrible room

But my God
It feels like an eternity

This is Being

There’s a certain way
She slides her eyes to the side
A peripheral glimpse
Of perspective

Like this is all just
A comedic tragedy
Heavy handed
With deus ex machina
Waiting in the wings

The way that there is
Luster about her
And sometimes that glimmer
Has teeth
But what a pretty
Dangerous
Smile

Addictive she’s bewitching
But one hit
Will leave you spun
Around and around
Until all you see are blurry images
Of her

And yet she searches
So deeply inside
Troubled by her own
Sense of self
A loving disaster

So lost in the labyrinth
So stoic in the pain

She is growing

A slide to the side of her eye
Like she knows some secret
Than you never will
And a challenge
To chase it’s meaning

This is being
And she doesn’t seem to belong

Battle Lines

This didn’t begin with me
And with blood in my eyes
From fighting the past
It was hard to see the wounded
All around me
It’s hard to realize that everything
My crushing defeat
The breaking of my psyche
Was merely a side effect
Of damage that fed damage
That has gone on since genesis
And I can no longer
Look at photo albums
And hear the stories
Knowing that no one
Knew how to break free
And without so much
As a passing apology
We all suffered at the hands
Of this cruel generational
Battle
A killing field
Where bullets flew
And struck us down
But I don’t look for apologies anymore
Because I have realized
That bruised and battered
We were soldiers in the same war
Guilt swells
As I couldn’t save you
Does it do the same for you?
It doesn’t matter
Resentments have been drained from me
Like being bled on a sick bed
Now I mourn for us both
Soldiers in the same war
Meeting across the razor wire
Never knowing which side
We were on

Inheritance

A millstone around your neck
The lashes on your back
An especially macabre inheritance
Generational curses
As if disease and grief
Ease
If we leave.
The next generation
To be crucified
A cross to bear
Never deserved
Only pressed upon then
Until
Someone says
No
This sickness is not my blood
This calculating
Unscrupulous
Agony
Is not my burden
It stops with me
The wounds become scars
And I paint them
Like the morning light
A new beginning
I deny this millstone
I am free from these generational curses
Curses that were spoken in languages I never knew
But understood too well
No more
Now there is breathtaking
Liberty
Because I refused to accept
That pain begets pain
It stops here
Don’t ever let them tell you
You don’t have the power to change.
Origination
The next step is yours
Take your own path