#we broken things

[ponderingcomplications]

oh, silly girl lost in the wreckage of this big old world wide eyed and trembling and adrift, you were missed, you were missed, i have missed you for years you wretched, fragile thing lost in the suffering, the hurting, the forgetting that comes with the endless torment of time i forgot your face, your name the color of your hair your eyes, or if you were ever there in the first place but you must have been because deep within there was an echo that grew in your absence and i have been drowning in the silence ever since you silly girl lost from me at thirteen when i let life sink her teeth into me and take a bite from us both but you bled into me and i bled into you and disappeared into the mess we became i forgot your name because we are one and the same, aren't we? silly me, silly me, i have been lost all this time and the fault was mine, the fault was mine.

[ponderingcomplications]

may is quickly approaching she comes undauntingly and without apology i envy the changing of the seasons the quiet rebellion against time as he dares to change the world she fights back with an array of color and a cacophony of noise all the decay begins anew again and life blooms i mark the days to honor her and how she has grown me, this unruly wretched thing that i became, the burden that sleeps within my name the breaths i still take the endings i forsake despite them coming for me she approaches quickly and i have survived long enough to greet her, to welcome her in and allow the days to bloom the way she deigns them to, the wildflowers, the weeds, the roses, the peonies the tall grasses and the willow trees she smiles at me in secret and presses a kiss against my forehead and i remember, all at once, that i am not dead and the heart is loud in my head and in the belly of my chest and i feel it rioting in the pulse in my wrist i exist, i exist

[ponderingcomplications]

and i hope, if i am to be remembered, that they remember me softly, gently, a whisper, not a riot - an ember, not its flame - a quiet, steady thing that persisted despite the suffering, the sweetness to the bitter bite of grief

(to be gentle, i only ever meant to be gentle)

[ponderingcomplications]

i admit i am a bit broken i dont fit quite right and i am doing my best to write but i do not belong to the poems i pen my punctuation is wrong and when i correct it, it is wronger, still. do you see?

not even that is a word but yet, i pen it as if i have permission to give letters their purpose but i'll be damned if i do not try. i love you a lot like my writing i give you everything and nothing i leave you with hollows and scream at your emptiness and drown you with an abundance of my suffering as if agony was something i had any right to share. i share it anyways, i write anyways i make messes, i make mistakes i break and i take without any consequence and when death comes to tuck me in he asks me to repent and i bare my teeth i loved you with everything i had in me unapologetically i gave to you my poetry and won't even write myself home again so to hell with my penance condemn me, condemn me, condemn me

[ponderingcomplications]

i forgot to be honest when you asked me how i was i lied because i thought myself too heavy a burden for you to bear i did not dare to ask how you felt about it all because i couldn't carry the weight of your honesty and the heaviness in your eyes i am a coward but i am also a thief because happiness ran away with my grief and left me empty so i hunger and feast on any emotion you'll pour into me as if that could make a love everlasting but you try, you try and the sadness in your eyes is all consuming and the abyss in me is calling you home but you cannot go, you cannot go, so i lie to you and hide behind a smile, a clever guile just to keep you safe from these wretched hands and this hungry heart that want nothing more than to tear yours apart.

[ponderingcomplications]

please set me free from this agony relieve me of my grief ease the hurting in my heart, the aching in my soul, save me from the sorrow that swallows me whole bring me up for air bring me back the light show me the world still has color tell me it will be alright lie if you have to convince me i am wrong please hold onto my hands and tell me i am strong promise me i'll make it promise that i'll be okay anchor me to the moment and demand that i stay because today her heart went quiet and mine is beating still i know the world continues turning beyond my windowsill but the grief is all consuming and the pain is more than i can bear and i cannot go home when she is no longer there

[ponderingcomplications]

when they ask you, what will we tell them? will we speak of your achievements and accolades, or will we talk about the ruins you built yourself from? Will we talk about the battles you survived or will we talk about the fact that you fought them? When we bury you, will we rebel for the dirt we are placing over your face or will we revel in the fact that you have people to grace your grave? Ask me the peace in this war? I know you less than I did before and somehow I know you so much more as I read your eulogy the angels sing back to me and beg me to bury, to bury, to bury everything and at last, at last, know peace. But what the fuck is left of me, what is left of me?

[ponderingcomplications]

mama you didn't warn me about the way we lose ourselves to those we love - we give a lot of little things to everyone and we keep nothing for ourselves, as if our love is not enough unless it costs us everything how is that fair to be our own undoing - to rip ourselves apart with our own hands just to make more room for everyone else even the poems on my shelves can't hold this hurt that questions my worth as if i did not bleed enough for my own poetry - but haven't i already? haven't i already? what more can they ask of me when i have given everything, everything?