Look me in the eyes,
And see the real me,
See me beneath what you're told to see,
Look don't just see what you believe,
In these holes in my defense,
I will let you find my soul,
Open with naked honesty if only,
You would choose to see it.

Five hundred days, I've written,
About whatever came to mind,
Or eye, or hand,
And some days I struggled,
To find new words, new truths,
New sights, new sounds,
New concepts or new ideas.

And sometimes I put it off,
(Like these words I write right now)
And said "I can do it tomorrow."
But I never want to give in,
For I refuse to admit I have run out of inspiration.

I never will.

Everyday I see new things,
From different angles,
Through different filters.

I will not run out of words,
For at least another half-millennium,
And by then, why stop there?

Up too late,
Yes, I suppose,
But I'm writing thoughts,
Working out my mind,
Before I close to the dark.

Up too late,
Yes, if you like,
But I'd rather lose an hour,
Sleeping uselessly than,
These words that I write.

Up too late,
Yes, I'm tired,
But I'm enjoying being free,
To talk and say what I want,
Without the pressures of life.

Up too late,
I can't deny it,
But it is worth it.

My head burns with the fires of the past,
With the scramble of words round skull,
Faster and faster, truth ricocheted off lies,
And smashed against the ever-crumbling screams,
That won't stop looping
And looping
And blurring
And looping
And with each stale copy another shade lost,
Another angle forced into the frame
Of a single photograph I saw maybe once
Of a child with hope in her eyes
And a teenager with no light left imposed upon her
Until it all blends into one.

One soul, one past, one future,
Not enough.

I can feel it still,
Where the blow should have hit,
Where the marks on my wrist from the rope should have been.

I can taste it still,
Where the fire should have been,
Where the blood in my veins should have choked and died.

I can hear it still,
Where the screams should have called,
Where the ring of metal should have ended it all.

But I can breathe it still,
When the air fills my lungs,
And heart can beat and race and fall just as it always did

Singing along to songs I know too well,
Finding new ways to hear,
New meanings in old words,
New words in old meanings,
In the hope that I will forget the days,
When these songs were our theme songs,
When these words were our poetry,
Not mine.