Blood pumping through shallow veins,

    each cell pushing, causing vibrations throughout the body.
Short breaths and blurry vision,

    floating spots of black block out any connection to my surroundings.
Dizziness and pressure impair the ears,
    stumbling with no reassuring ground beneath.

I can feel no one here.

    Silence, emptiness.

They say you should close your eyes.
     “You should breathe deep.”

They say you should stop crying.
    “Stop crying already.”

They say you should gather your wits.
    “Calm down, mind over matter.”

They say you should get a hold of yourself.

    “Stop shaking.”
Above all they say you shouldn’t panic.
        I panic.

Senseless fear grips me.
    It spreads like a poison.
My limbs weighed down, as if of lead,

    move, shakily and unsure.

I want to shut my eyes but fear

    they will not reopen.

I fight the choking heaviness

    constricting my chest

    But I lose.

“Why, why, why” in whispers.

    “Because you’re weak.”
“Aaaaium.”

    “Powerless in the pain, aren’t you?”

Tears fill my eyes to the brim.

    “Again?”

I am on my knees now.

    “Raaaah, come on. Get up!”
And I do, fixing my face on the way.
    Sigh.
 Whispering “why, why, why.”



I pick up a shovel and stab deep into the hard earth.

Muscles rippling, grip tightening

I make a pile of dirt off to the side.
My tears have mixed with sweat, my feelings subside slowly.

Again I stab, the ground softening under my violent motion.

Again my muscles work, shaking, and I keep my grasp on the handle,
    my knuckles white, my palms blistered and red.

I want to stop. I forgot why I was digging.

The hole becomes deeper, the dirt pile grows larger.

A rush of adrenaline surges through me now. 

I’m finished.

I begin to undo the process, kicking at the pile

    stabbing it, knocking it into the emptiness.

It swallows itself down, covered up
With barely a scar indicating the change.

My mouth is dry.
I gulp down nothingness.
    It reassures me.

With my dirt covered arms I lift the shovel and carefully store it away

    for another time.

 Clearing my mind, I stand.

    There is a stream off to the side.

I wash myself off as best I can.

I have no appetite so I quench my thirst.

    And I grab the keys on my way out.

Untitled

The hatred residing within you
Is testing my obligation to love you.
What heart?
That stone?
That stone that cuts through the water,
    plunging to the bottom.
It is caught in your toes.
You walk on ice honey.
Frostbite eats away at your feet,
    where your toes, holding the stone,
        feels the cold spreading from the inside.

I block you out,
Your siren song soothes to deceive me.
I fail to escape it time and time again,
But the rocks I crash against reawaken me.


Sunlight Caught on Your Eyelashes

The curtains softly sway with the wind
Peacefully embracing a new day
Everything comes to focus, glazed in a golden incandescence
Sunlight caught on your eyelashes

A bright coming to consciousness
The desire to remain sleeping
Dissipates at the sun’s call to rise
Sunlight caught on your eyelashes

It pains me, this morning
It pains me, your beauty
I curse
The sunlight on your eyelashes
    because the first thing you see
                    is not me.