4/29/2025

5/2/2025 3:54 PM

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Sage

I held it in until 1:45pm. I made it 13 hours and 34 minutes before the dams that were my eyes could no longer hold back the oceans of tears that flooded the hills of my cheeks of all the love I had for you. Have for you. Have, not had, because it's still there; it hasn't gone away. The butterflies still dance circles around my stomach and the threads that stitched together all the holes in my heart still stayed tied, and I wept. I wept for you, angrily. Not softly, like in books or movies, but violently, like when waves take over ships and like when fires burn through towns. I wept. For all the love I had, have, and will have for you.

Not always, but thanks!

I'd love to hear your perspective of the last third of it! There is a semicolon in Line 5 because the sentence could have ended there, but it continues on.

Thank you for your insight, and your kind words. Poetry has always been my compass so to speak. It's comforting, yet saddening, to know that others can relate to my "work." I am still healing, but I am actively ensuring that the future generation does not bear the scars amongst themselves as I did and do. They will never have to question, or feel like they failed me.

A deeper understanding is necessary for me. I am always searching for the "why?" See, I spent my entire life in the dark, an obsessive nyctophile, made this way by the confusion of others. My father's manipulation. My mother's devotion to madness. Shaping my future of rational, making there none. My compass was broken before I ever had the chance to breathe a life on the open waters of humanity. I was laid in the boat of survival, and forced to float among the sirens without any net of safety. You were suppose to be my safety. See, no one teaches you how to swim when all they know is drowning. They just drag you down with them underneath the waves like an anchor weighed down by their own poor life choices, and you become the collateral damage of their own inner destruction. A parent failing cannot have a child succeed. It would be an outward admittance of their own guilt and shortcomings. Something that no one is ready to see. You are taught to listen to their words, but trust their actions. Manipulation is modeled and ingrained into your bones till only confusion runs through your veins and your heartbeat mimics the sound of failed attempts at perfection. But they still demand perfection. You trust their actions, so you listen. But it doesn't match their words and they told you, they told you what to do, but you didn't listen so you failed. So the next time they tell you with their words, you listen. You do exactly as they say, like an obedient soldier in the war. The blind leading the blind. You do exactly what they say. But their words don't match their actions, so you don't trust their actions, so you don't listen and you failed. And all you're left wondering after all the dust settles is, "What do I do?" "What do you mean?"

Which time? haha

Thank you for your response! My poems are usually more of a spoken word type of style/rhythm, so the struggle with the longer lines was definitely there as to either shorten them, or to keep them as I would personally speak them aloud.

Love is handing someone a loaded gun, aiming it at your heart, and praying like hell that they never pull the trigger. I guess that's why when people tell me, "You dodged a bullet;" I want to instinctually say, "no." Because no, I didn't. I felt every single one rip through my flesh and echo throughout the chambers of my chest, As you emptied that clip Over and over and over again. I didn't dodge a bullet. I didn't dodge anything. You shot me once, and I let you play target practice with my body as if I were the dummy and you were the instructor. Every shot carefully placed to cause the most damage. A kill shot every time. Love shouldn't have to come with a bullet proof vest. Love shouldn't come with back up clips and target practices. Love shouldn't even come with a gun. I hope the next man that I give my heart to, has never even seen one before.