Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
dusk Apr 2018
it's staring your reflection in the eye,
dripping wet and naked after a shower,
realizing with a sort of cruel stiff detachment that
your eyes are so dark you can see another version of yourself reflected in them

it's crying till you hyperventilate because of the sharp
hurt in your
chest on some days
and not being able to shed a single tear despite the ache on others

it's being terrified of yourself because you
can't
decide which is worse - being dead or dying.

it's watching your hands shake as you try to explain
how you feel without simultaneously dissolving into the very
shards of glass you're trying to put back together

it's slamming the doors of your heart shut
to every single good-intentioned well-meaning soul
who's ever had the misfortune of attempting to make you open up
because kindness be ******, you know deep within yourself
that you are beyond saving

it isn't always plain to see but
you can feel it every single waking moment
and you can't even remember what it was like to not have it
creeping in your life, ******* the air out of your lungs,
draining away your joy

it's the despair you feel on dark days when
the realization that it will be with you for your whole
life
hits you and god, you just wish you could end it right there.

but you don't.

you crawl into bed with eyes blurry from tears and a nose so blocked you can't even breathe and you
wake up the next morning and you do it all over again
but somehow you hang on to the hope that one day,
one day things could be different and even though you know
it's more likely that you'll be in despair your whole life
you let that small shred of hope tide you through because
without it you would be dead
and you accept that this is your life now,

and it will be for a long time to come.
dusk Feb 2018
life is a film.
a moving picture, a series
of moments whipping by in a blur
of color and sound and energy and emotions, and we-

we're the characters;
and sometimes i lament how different
i am from the dancer girl, the boy who plays
volleyball, the man who runs fast as the wind, the
woman who can stretch her legs over her shoulders.

but life has to be complete in one take;
no do-overs or turn arounds, no second guessing or third chances.

and so-
so what does it matter if i have two left feet,
if i can't catch a ball,
if i'm as unfit as a bear awakening from a six-month long slumber?

what does it matter if i don't know
the reasons for the leaves changing color in the fall,
if i can't do a perfect split,
if sometimes i trip over my own feet and struggle to keep up
when someone speaks about economies of scale or supply and demand?

why does what i can't do matter
if for what it counts i can
weave words together like pearls on a string,
thread a song together from a single chord,
let my voice glide over notes like a stream caresses the stones it passes?

why do i have to force my feet to dance
if my mind can do it for me?
why can't i express myself through black and white keys
or six metal strings instead of leaping through the air
like a phoenix rising from ashes that weren't there in the beginning?

and maybe-
maybe there are things i cannot do,
maybe i'm different from you, maybe
in your world it's better to dance than to sing

but in mine, where i bleed words and stars and music and galaxies and diamonds,

i am enough.
dusk Feb 2018
it hits you mid-shower,
as you're half trying to keep soap-suds
out of your eye and half attempting to figure out
if you've got split ends yet -

one minute you're thinking of nothing at all
and the next you suddenly realize,
you love him.
you like him? you love him? the word ceases to matter.

oh god, you love him.

you love him for how the corners of his eyes
crinkle up when he laughs,
for how he cares if you're home safe,
for how the first thing on his bucket list
is for his grandmother to hold his first child.

for how you could sit with him for hours with
nothing but your shoulders touching,
and be complete in the warmth he exudes
in comfortable silence.

for how he talks and how he walks,
for how he looks at you,
for how his eyes seem to have endless depth.

and the funny thing is that you know you've lost the game
but you don't care that you've lost, you don't care
if he loves you back or if he doesn't because
in that moment you have remembered
what it is to love a person not for what they look like
or for what they sound like but for who they are

and the knowledge that after two whole years of bitterness
and hiding away in your shell
you have discovered what it is to love again
and nothing else matters in that moment because
for what it counts you have found yourself again
in loving someone and you realize that

your heart has so much left to give; who you
choose to give it to does not matter as much
as the knowledge that you are capable of loving,
the kind of love that does not fear hurt or pain
but embraces it as part of the essence of love.
r.
dusk Feb 2018
o
round and around
and around we go

we've lost track of where we begun,
no clue when this will end

round and around and around we go

she hurt you and you hurt me
and i'll turn around and hurt him too

but round and around
and around we go.

looking back on this path we trod
all i can see is trampled grass,
shards of broken glass;

round and around and around we go

somewhere somehow i know
we'd stop this if we could
too much pain for one too young

but round and around
and around we'll go -
dusk Dec 2017
this isn't really something i know how to express.

how do you put into words something you can't touch?
how do you put into words
the thousand-pound weight on your chest
like a truck slamming into you in the middle of the day
knocking the air from your lungs
leaving you sitting dazed on the sidewalk?
how do you explain
that even when the pain lessens it's still a ten-pound weight
heavy enough to let the ache be felt?

how can i tell you straight up
that this ache sharpens itself into a needle on bad days
and strikes me right through the heart
so that even breathing hurts too much?
how can i make you see, make you understand
that my biggest fear is myself?

they say you will only know a man if you walk a mile in his moccasins but
how can i pull you into the darkness
to stand by my side, to scream when i scream, to feel what i feel?
how can you ever hope to understand
a life you yourself do not live?

you still can't understand.

can't you see, neither can i?
s. benaim
dusk Oct 2017
do you ever feel the way i feel?

do you ever stand six feet deep
in the messes you've created
wondering how the hell you're going to get out?

i sift through my past once a week,
flip the pages back ten at a time,
trying to pinpoint where exactly
i went wrong.

but that one page i seek
is strangely elusive. all i can tell,
magnifying glass gripped tightly in one hand
and a bottle of jack clasped in the other
is that i've ridden this downward spiral for too long now.

reaching out, i switch on the radio;
and that one song, it goes on and on.
dusk Sep 2017
who i used to be
and who i'll be tomorrow.*

i'm not sure who i am anymore.
chasing the ideals of someone i'm not
reaching for the goals of someone
i don't really know myself to be
i got lost, tangled up in dreams
that disappear as soon as they touch my fingertips.

the person in the mirror doesn't even
look like me anymore. those
dark circles under her eyes from many
sleepless nights, the chapped lips
and the dry knotted hair. that isn't me,
that can't be me.

yet within myself i know that she and i,
we're one and the same.

who am i?
Next page