The sunset's light bathes me like the christening I never received as a baby,
when my flesh was still new and still soft and still;
when the first pulses of pain had not yet rang through my tender heart;
when the first rays of sun had not yet wrinkled my mother's skin;
when the thrumming, buzzing world around me had not yet made my small hands shaky.

I feel the light wash over me but I am blinded by the glare,
my impromptu baptism ending as the sun Himself realizes I am far too gone for any semblance of redemption.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty, I know; perhaps if my parents then saw me ******,
saw me now, every dispicable thing about me now,
they would've pushed me under the water as a child, said a prayer and held me there.

I turn the shower setting to the highest it can be,
presenting myself skin bared to the Devil or God, whoever listens best;
hoping that my flesh will fall off and with it all that I've done and do,
leaving me red and hurt but reborn, a fresh heart pumping in my chest.

Prayers unaswered, I crawl from the shower nothing but aching.
The weight of life a still a noose looped and drawn tight around my neck,
skin on fire but sapped of all my fight;
red and hurt but never anew, still nothing but the same, ever-repeating shell of a wreck.

My resolve gave way under the burden of her touch.
The walls meant to protect me from heartbreak twice over
must've come from Jericho, the way they cracked and crumbled
around me, sending me tumbling unprepared into feeling once more.

Rubble remains however;
the fear innate within me makes itself known,
doubts following my heart wherever it dare go.
I can't help but think: when the walls of Jericho fell,
how many died from suffocation alone?

My asphyxiated heart beats with this anxiety, telling me
I am to suffer the common human millstone.
I am doomed to love too much yet never enough.
The tragic truth of my heart, burdened to be so easily let go.

i have to drown
a necessary reprieve, a last chance to truly breathe--
escaping that living crown
so fitfully placed upon my head

i've always preferred the dull gray
the drab of concrete always more appealing than gold
i sole my shoes with it, wrap it around my neck
looking at my sadness reflected by this watery mirror

history repeats itself
the mirrored melancholy of her and i
two corpses having a tea party
at the bottom of river ouse

fate's meddling red noose has found me again
wrapped, warped me into your life
and i am far too light for my neck to snap
by my oh my do i choke and writhe

and i laugh with a mouth full of blood and bile
as i gasp for comic relief that will never come
i believed it might be different
lured in by the crimson rope's beating drum

the joke's on me
gallows humor of a certain sort
the punchline hits me in the gut
and i ***** on fate's high court

to be loved more than one can comprehend
to be loved but feel so empty
to be loved but feel so lonely
to be loved
to be loved

the joke's on me

my head feels funny so i thought i'd write
a sonnet in an attempt to get sleep
tired eyes meet heavy thoughts meet long nights
lonely hours breed thoughts of hearts sworn to keep

why do these thoughts always come back to you?
oh, all the things i would give to forget
me swearing to you my love and time too
when do promises become cursed debt?

maybe i am not the best with my words
i have a disposition to sadness
does that mean you can cut my heart in thirds?
tearing me apart in your cruel madness?

though still confused, i'm glad you ****** off
though i'm without sleep, i am moving on
we were volatile, a **** molotov
now i can move peacefully into dawn

though lacking you, it is still a new day
i would not have it any other way

i followed you through hell
but you would not acknowledge me
you would not speak to me
you would not look at me

i followed you through flame
through devils and demons
all in the name of being saved
but you would not look at me

we were at the doors
and i, the fool
i, the fool, had thought we'd make it
and you had not looked at me

for the first time, you turned your head
foolish eyes met foolish eyes
i vanished at the doors of hopeful sun;
you had looked at me

just to check