i don't remember how it went, not exactly

i was without rest
or reason or hope
or anchor
and when i reached, my fingertips
couldn't feel
could hardly touch
forget grasping on to anything
i was a raincloud, heavy and aching to spill
but i had sunlight under my skull
and it made my brain burn
and the light poured through the cracks

it felt only right to hammer away
to just let my mind float like it needed to
to be bright
or be like a flood
like something shattered, slammed hard again and again against a wall, something broken over and over and over and over
like a piggy bank
hoping it's worth it
hoping it isn't just
hollow
inside

here is a man, half-mad during the night.

he is a man of the world,
who believes his senses.
adores his senses
and accepts their observations.

his eyes are sharp as he raises them,
cursing at the stars in their burning clusters,
begging for the drop of a curtain or a blindfold or blindness.
how dare the sky stay lit,
how dare the air stay crisp,
while his beloved is cold,
alone,
buried deep,
rotting.

he thinks:
the darkest the world can appear
is not dark enough.
it needs more,
should be deprived of more,
having just been deprived of one
so utterly much.
it should suffer as he does.
it should be despairing, devastated.
it should be crumbling into chaos.
but it acts as if it has not lost,
acts as if there is more to lose, still

and he knows that is not true

this is for you because
you’ve left me with a wound in my chest
it misses your knife–
the one that used to fill it

you’ve left me wide open,
thoughts of you spilling out,
like guts, but i’d prefer guts
because those, i can clean up

why wouldn’t i drink whiskey to water down the ache?
you stung on my tongue
made my stomach warm
made me do the bad thing
left my head feeling bashed in

it’s the next best thing
works almost the same
even better–i can take a pill for the pain
in the morning
when i’m trying to get it out of my system
it lets me

because i am selfish,
i think to myself,
you’re too beautiful to be gone
because you are selfish,
i know
that you’re beautiful wherever the ******* are

i write this
trying to spite you
it’s about you because
everything
is always about you

even without you

god, i ******* love you