Where do I begin?
This paper is too clean, too white for me
I’m coming out of utter hopelessness
It died
Faint
I’m weak from trying to struggle against it
Against anything
As if I ever have
Resisted
I don’t
Such a soul is mine
All of these things come out to stain the paper
It’s so deep even I can’t see the bottom of it
So I float on top
But lately
I sink
I didn’t know I had it in me to feel
Anymore
I thought foolish things like that were gone
I’ve never been so low
And at my lowest I cry
Not wracking, shuddering sobs
But slow, silent tears that fall without a sound
There is nothing so painful
So harsh
As the knowledge of failure
The losing
A better man won, maybe
You’ve become a better person
You’ve learned
Next time you can win
But the failing
The word that scars a soul
And tightens like a vise around a weakening heart
Squeezing slowly
You have failed
And when you have failed yourself
There is no escaping the torture
The what ifs
The could haves
The might have beens
Has been is had been once
But no more
My light is dark
And there is no rest
No peace for my soul
Night is a time of day
A kind of darkness that follows me
Stained
It’s not easy to climb up from a pit
Your hands slip
The rocks cut into your palm
And you bleed
I bleed
Tears of blood
Each one started from my soul
They are tears too precious to part with
But I shed them for me
And what I should have done
Gone is always missed
Today is never another chance at yesterday
It’s hard to sleep
Alone
With failures dragging at my feet
Grasping like strong hands pulling me down into darkness
I don’t dream
Dreams are aspirations
Hopes
There are none here
They are all long dead
They died inside of me that day
Such a momentous occasion, don’t you think
To not be remembered at all
Like a star exploding in the dark
That no one sees
No one saw
I never crashed and burned
I faded
And fade away
I’m surprised somehow
That I expected them to see me
But I wear a strange skin
I fade
But never blend
I find no comfort in his words
He turns his face from me
Sadly
If he has a heart for me
The rain is still pouring down
No one is cold but me
His face is turned away
He speaks
His voice is distant
My mother talks to me
Talks at me
Talks through me
Talks over me
Talks around me
But my head is full
Full of things
So much noise
And I lament
I can’t get out
Years have found me trapped here
My mind has become a prison
Do I yet know
Do I yet know
I turned the music off
The silence is better
The silence has no words to speak
The silence is companion
The companion that separates two sides of me
One is shaking, shaking
Cold so cold and frightened
I’ve failed
I wrapped her
In a soft cotton blanket
She is locked away
Safe
Another is the stronger one
She faces the world
But she cannot look at me
Do not look on me for I am dark
And unlovely
I have kept others’ vineyards
But not my own
And my own face
Cannot behold itself
There is too much pain there
Everything that ran
Ran dry
They can’t see me in here
And I can’t touch them
Who can I touch
With my failure
My stained stained hands
My feet are wet
And I shiver
Cold
Nothing flows anymore
I left it behind
I find no comfort
In myself
I twist and turn myself inside out
Looking for a someday
I’ve failed before I’ve begun to try
But nothing helps
I’m being torn apart from the inside
Perhaps
Another one is being born
More callous
The world was never meant for one as beautiful as you
I am too raw
Too tender
Then she comes
Perhaps to save me
Because he has turned his face away
What would be comfort
Sends me broken
Crumpled to the floor
All is not lost
I can yet cry
What do you do when you have failed
And the knowledge of that
Cannot be hidden
So much
So much to bear for any one human being
Alone
And more alone than any one person should be
Each letter
Each letter on this paper is a tear shed for me
No one else cries
I hold all the sadness
Like a thorn in my hand
And all the bitter, lonely people
Are brave for a moment
Because I have taken their cries from them
Into myself
I lament bitterly bitterly
With their tears
Mine could never
Never could
Never know how to cry
With such feeling
With woe that was never felt
From the heart that wills itself no longer to beat
There is no failure
None
As the failure that torments
Because you have failed yourself
Tormented
Sleep does not come easily to me
But the world is through a glass
I’m Alice standing on the other side of the mirror
I’m in a box
Touch them touch me
But his face is turned away
My mind is too heavy
Too heavy to be borne
Others might carry
But I hold it selfishly to myself
No one will grieve as I will
Washed
They would break me into pieces small pieces
To share in the helpless anger
But I am afraid
To lose myself
