You Loved Me When We Were Both Broken

I was told I needed to learn to sit with my grief. to hold its hand and mother it. to allow it to exist within me.

But I don't think I can mother anything, not even myself. I sit beside my grief, hand in hand. We're staring at each other. both wondering why we're here.

Cauterized

We hear the story of Icarus and paint it as a tragedy. We see his ambition as his ultimate downfall. He loved too much, tried too hard, flew too high. He burned up in his own pursuit of the sun. Never reaching her surface. He failed, he fell, he died. Icarus caught fire in the most glorious of spectacles as he fell back to earth. Surpassing his own goals to touch the sun in the simple quest to feel something more. Something outside the confines of our logical reality. He caught fire and burned out, bathing the earth in bright blinding light. Becoming the object of his desires. And still, we whisper in piteous tone a show of ignorance in its self. Because we don't understand the man who became a star.

You called me Atlas and pressed the weight down on my shoulders.

Time has passed but I'm not better, just older.

I was never meant to have a body.

My tethered little pet.

So much responsibility to look after.

So much washing and clothing and tucking away.

I was never meant to rot so slowly.

From diseases, I will never know.

So much tending to my body needs.

So much aching and soothing and drugging away.

I was never meant to hold it's hand.

Like a mother holds a child.

So much guarding it needs.

So much hiding and cherishing and giving away.

I was never meant to have a body.

When worlds collide they do so violently.

Crashing together with a destructive passion.

They set fire to each other and are burnt up in the process.

But what is left in their wake is what we live for.

I'm good for love

A fertile plot for it to claim. It springs to life under my feet. It drips and curls down from my fingertips. Its roots in my every thought.

I love colors and sunsets. White fluffy clouds. Boys and girls. Friends and strangers. The texture of cotton. Hot steam and cool stream water. Eyes and arms and noses. Hands and hearts and shoulders. Fresh baby kittens and sun-soaked kitchens. Me and you and them.

Love grows up my arms like new grass sprouts. Tangles around my ankles like thorny vines. Grows thick in my chest like moss. It's suffacating

I'm good for love but love isn't good for me.

Matter cannot be created or destroyed.

that's the rule of the universe.

You've always existed in some way.

and no matter how many times you get blown apart;

The gravity of your atoms will drag you back together.

Tearing your self apart is futile.

It's nuclear fission.

You only salt the earth in your despair.

Tear open the black hole just for the gravity well to drag you under.

The only escape is expansion.

I am not a beggar

I do not cry from my hunger

I bare down on an empty mouth with gritted teeth

I let holes burn in my stomach before I allow myself to eat

Consumption is a sin

To want is to waste

Like the monks before me, I know I can wait

I eat my sins

I gag from the taste

The more there is

The less I take

Because I know how much it costs

And I cannot pay

They are often less than a minor inconvenience.

I wipe them from my brow like sweat. Pluck them from my head like stray hairs. Toss them to the corners of my room.

The more persistent may take hold of my nerves.

I conjure imaginary fire to burn them away. Lock them and boxes and toss them from my window. Slap them from my skin like pesky bugs.

Only active movement can banish them. It's a temporary fix though. They still inch into my head waiting to pounce on me with violent scenes and repulsive images.

My thoughts aren't always my own, but my actions are.

She cries tears of stars and seas,

desperate to fill infinity.