Dark Poetry Prose Poetry December 16, 2004 Dark Poetic Prose

10:16pm 12-16-04 thursday

one more time. so they say. bouquet hearts left on fresh dug graves.

just once. that's all i want. a firework with just one moment to shine.

and afterwards submit to the dark.

just one burst is all i ask. all i need.

then let the embers fall down. let the sky put them out.

nothing to know. knowledge cascading like a waterfall. you can't go back now. you must go over the edge. there's no other direction.

nothing to ask. sadness cinches tight its cord around my lips. not that i wanted to speak anyway. what words. what words could ever justify.

not that i wanted. empty bucket waiting on the rain to fill it up again.

not that i expected. looking up at those clouds. wondering if they might change.

just dreams too awake. and hearts too alive. this blood in my veins urges me to live, but i cannot comply.

i loved them. for everything i had. but love is for the weak.

to need. to fall into and be surrounded by as the warm folds of a pleasant dream.

i loved them as much, maybe more than my heart wanted to allow. but love is for the strong.

to be needed. to provide that pleasant dream that dances in their eyes.

unfortunately, i am neither strong nor weak.

10:26pm 12-16-04 thursday

lost and found. on the outskirts of your life. the world looks different. more alive somehow.

smoking. your dreams like a cigarette. watching them burn away in a cloud of cancer. lost in an addiction bigger than your biggest.

digging. your future found. like a mummy in a tomb woken up. all wrapped in heavy bandages and booby-trapped.

treasures hidden. found. but cursed to touch.

there's no way to make this right.

it's all wrong. all wrong again.

behiind. that's where it is. look back. remember. see. not myself. shedding that skin they wear on me.

slithering out. like a snake in the jungle. all the snakes they put into me. releasing.

i'm losing that skin. hollow silhouette of who i used to be. empty crust of who i was

shed those scales. growing new skin. because i have to.

when there's finallly a choice i'll choose. until then, i'll keep moving.