Have you seen them?
The bruised souls,
With dark circles, baggy eyed,
Building castles in the sky.

Have you seen them?
With weighted smiles,
Writing poems in the dark,
Picking flowers from the park.

I’ve known many of their kind,
With the stunted, broken stride,
Sinking deep into their thoughts,
Reaping seeds of tragic loss.

There’s no romance to be told,
Little triumph in the mud,
Yet, as one can mend the bone,
So, can too one heal the soul.

It is safe, down in the hole,
But there´s much still to be known,
So, allow the buds to blossom,
and the darkness to be gone.

I have this list of things,
many ruinous, mundane things.

  -2 cokes,
  -1 bread,
  -existential dread

I write them as they come,
tapped into existence by my fingers,
in a rush.

  -People’s,
  -Places’,
  -Dog names

They bask in the otherness,
that brings them together.

  -Heartache,
  -numbers,
  -reminders

I feel protective of them,
the mishmash, ugly family of things.

  -Mom’s birthday
  -Father’s Day
  -“I want to go away.”

Because I made them, and they know me,
the real me.

It is that time of the year,
they've come back to check on me,
with the certainty of spring,
they'll make their way here.

Their little pilgrimage of woes,
soon to befall me.
I can feel them in my bones, behind my eyelids.
They are near.

"A wound that festers,
Never to heal,
The tender flesh,
that scabs conceal".

It is again that time of the year.
For they've been starved, eager to eat.
No use delaying they're here,
So let them come, be done with it.

Given eyes, so to see,
gifted heart, so to crave;
given bones, so to move,
gifted teeth, so to take.

Perched atop Eden the apple did sway,
a promise to all who'd look its way.
So, a craving took hold, and it stirred in the soul.
It compelled bones to move and the mouth it behooved.

But there's only so far that eyes can see,
there are limits to where the body can be;
yet no boundaries in place for the heart to conceive,
no constraints to be had, only shackles to free.

This is where love goes to die,
in a field of poppies,
with no clouds about.

This is where they had it,
their last stand,
where meanings fell,
over blades of grass.

And the worms,
they fed,
and the soil
gave way,

for the buds to blossom,
for the pain to wane.

They walk past,
day in and day out.

They see through,
out of sight out of mind.

Can't they feel the cold,
and smell the mold?

There, where I lie.
Suspended in time.

Rotting through tiles.
Nurturing flies.

Outside, the world keeps spinning,
the ebb and flow go on,

I can still hear them laughing,
just beyond that threshold.

Not much left of me,
that fixture by the wall,

Locked within that room,
past the door no one goes through.

Death rattled mind,
synapses primed,

Firing like a shooting squad,
To the sound of chuckles from afar.

They won't mourn me,
nor the likeness we shared,

There needn’t be tears,
from those that've been spared.