Happiness is usually a lot of work for me.
The moments when it comes easily are worth everything.
Such an intoxicating state of mind.
A drug I will chase for the rest of my life.

So how do I
Again feel beautiful
After hurting others
And neglecting myself
And how do I
Again feel youthful
Adding each scar
Like missed opportunities
Ive never really
Felt beautiful
Or youthful
And yet I notice their loss

I only see what I've had
But never what I've got

Way too often I find the child within this overgrown shell. He hides in the crack in the slab.

                      Longingly he stares back at me with those deep blue eyes and smiles at me  -  as if he knows who I am inside.

                                     Who I really am.
                                             Who we really are.


                                                       I

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                                   r
                                        a
                               i
                                    n

                                                                                 s
                                                                                     o
                                                                                         a
                                                                                   k
                                          

             m
                    y

                                                      c
                                                   l
                                                      o
                                                          t
                                                       h
                                                    e
                                                       s


              It burns in my eyes.

He just stands there, looking at me. Then he reaches out his hand toward me.

                                         I awake alone.

- Shepherd, 1-12-20

when i left my mark
i didn't think
it would be a scar

i dreamed of it being a handprint
on your heart
but i see now, that i've only cut it open

and sorry is not the bandage that i once believed it could be
time no longer the cure i had labeled it

i see now why the doctor prescribed those
shifting glances
and one word responses

because i am just a relapse waiting to happen

Heart seems forlorn,
In a tangled mess,
made it worn,
Nor a guilt less,

Seems, all it takes,
A wish for acceptance,
Motive to take a break,
And let loose all menace.

Phew,
All i have is peace,
Nil lingering remorse,
But occasional tremors,

These dark days of emptiness frighten me
Your absence, this distance, stretches my once iron-clad sanity
     into the the thinnest metallic thread, causing it to burn and
     slice through my reality.
It is at times like these reminiscences of you are welcome wraiths,
     haunting me from shadows cast by your light.
They are conjured during moments of my deepest desperation.
All that is left to me is to embrace the bittersweet torture they bring.
I beg you, My Love!
Turn your glowing gaze directly on me and banish these shades
     before they are my ruin.

I didn’t think of you today.
That’s a lie that I often tell myself, naively thinking that I can fool myself.

I only thought of you a little today.
A pill of non-truth that is only slightly easier to swallow because it’s grounded in deception and not outright lies.

I can’t stop thinking about you today.
The absolute truth.  Whoever said the truth shall set you free was obviously not talking about the lies we tell ourselves, because this truth captures me and torments me to no end.

You destroyed every part of me, and still I light up at your text.  Still I wonder, and wonder, and wonder.  Creating scenarios inside my head that can never be reality.  Creating scenarios where I’m not broken, and you’re happy, and the world didn’t burn.

I didn’t think of you today.  

Not yet.

I just wanted to feel something, to be alive for a moment
The mistakes that I have made, how they eat me inside out
Like tapeworms consuming every broken down piece of food.
I just wanted to experience real, but my hole was too deep
I consumed and swallowed entire memories whole,
Nothing was ever quite enough it seemed, the hunger progressed
I continuously tried and tried to ***** out the fire, to forget it existed
But the flames burned high and bright, choking out any air I had left.
I pleaded and begged to be forgiven, but the thrones in my mind sat high
A mistake was all it took to lose myself entirely
I forgot who I was and what I stood for, I just wanted the hole filled.
It seemed that no matter the dirt, no matter the filler
The eternal quicksand ate every cubic inch and spit dust out
I ran in circles for years avoiding my mistakes
Until the day I ran smack into them and fell down the hole.
The fillers, the dirt, it consumed me, drowning out my cries for help
No one heard a single peep and I thought for sure I had died
How long will I hold guilt’s hand and kiss shames forehead,
I wasn’t right in the mind at the time and didn’t understand.
You see, I just wanted to feel something again
When your whole world is stripped away and tossed into the trash
You begin to feel the itch of filling “the hole.”
But I advise you to turn away, forgive yourself and not look back
For years I hated myself for making the same mistake
It took years to forgive myself, I'm still learning how.
Are there some mistakes you receive no redemption from?
I must be receiving some to know that it was wrong
Of all the mistakes I have made, that one just won’t let me go.