Running Up The Stairs

The Goddess

Deep within a wooded grove

A statue of a goddess stands

Her legs are gaunt

Her posture weary

And she hides her most resplendent beauty

Behind tear-stained hands.

This is not how I always knew her

Nor how I know her still

For within that battered figure

Lies her incredible strength of will.

And so it wounds me gravely

To see my goddess cry

She once posed so light and free

And never could she die

but she sculpts herself into a martyr

asking for nothing in return...

and I fear this cannot last forever

lest I return one day to see the shrine burn.

So in lieu of her own self-protection

I clip away the weeds

For I owe so much to her affection

If only she saw herself as she sees me.

Personification

Where do the taken lives go?

Are they kept by the Reaper in a satchel with a stitched in frown?

Are they kept by their Takers next to the sorrows they drown?

Or are they kept by their Corpses until the wreaths of flowers brown?

I wouldn't trust you if you claimed to know.

Do they wander near Hospitals and check each and every gurney?

Do they wander near the Courthouses and haunt the defense attorney?

Or do they wander near the Listless Ones, numb to the journey?

What exactly happens after death?

And how is it that one can take their own life?

And how is it that the world's full of strife?

And just how is it that I can't put down this knife?

Do we even get a choice?

Did we ever?

Performative Grief

You say you're working through things

but I really just can't tell

because every time we talk

it's the same old kind of hell.

Despite the weekly crises

our issues remain the same

and I'm starting to believe

we're both playing some sick game.

Incompatibilities

seem to define our love

instead of gentle comforts

that we used to be made of,

but for our yesterday's sake

I'll dance to this tune's motif

and keep rehearsing our next

hollow performative grief.

Perception

I spy

something you could never see

with my little eye.

Me.

For this world is mine and mine alone;

Surroundings coloured by my own perception.

I'm afraid as you are not my clone

you cannot gaze into my reflection.

All I know has been tainted by that terrible two,

Experience and Expectation.

Because of them you can only guess my view

or give up, give in to resignation.

This futility, however, never dulls our ambition

to satisfy our communicative human condition.

Small Things

I rather enjoy the small things.

The laugh of the crowd, people standing proud,

A rock on the road, the croak of a toad...

I rather enjoy the small things!

But soon enough watching a cloud became disavowed...

Then Father Time showed to take what was owed...

And now I can't enjoy the small things!

What’s more, it seems others too have been caught up, like you!

We work and we toil against the rocks and the soil...

And now none of us stop to think of the small things...

If only we knew, if only there was some sort of clue

To learn the plot’s foil, to be freed from this coil!

If only we could enjoy the small things.

Wishes

I wish I could draw

I wish I could write

I wish I would die

I wish I would think

I wish I was hot

I wish I was fun

I wish I knew me

I wish I knew you

I wish I stopped wishing

And actually did something.

Depression

Idiotic wretch,

You are my most familiar possession,

my very favourite obsession,

and so I think it's funny that you try to get away.

Fucking moron.

No amount of pharmaceutical repression

will sedate my twisted expression,

I'll just be here waiting for that single day.

Selfish prick.

Not a single soulful question

nor any moments of decompression

could ever bring colour to the grey.

Chickenshit.

So when you run out of medication

you might call it regression

but be honest, you know it's just a debt to pay.

Petulent asshole.

So who better than depression

to lead you to your funeral procession

and throw the black bouquet?

Alone I lay here

Quietly wondering if

You're dreaming of me

Vindictive

You wounded my pride so I want you to bleed.

Eye for an eye? Fuck that. I'd go for the throat.

Take more than my fair share.

Make your pain look baroque.

My ego needs to feed.

Doubt

If you cared you could have told them to wait

Instead of leaving me bleeding on hook and bait

Struggling to deal with the shock and the hate

Feeling like meat you labeled second-rate.

We all make mistakes, but was this one?

Or a sign of our future to come?

Could it be that you're changing, or that the change is done?

Maybe it's been this way and my perception was spun.

Self-satisfaction under the guise of necessity

Left me standing alone while you were in ecstasy

I feel used and abused and cast aside selfishly

Grappling with the reality that you'd chosen them over me.

Nobody owes me their body or their mind

There need be no repayment for being kind

but I refuse to ignore and refuse to stay blind

To asymmetry so clearly underlined

You'd feed the mouth that bites you

And I know you'd love it too