Putting Pain to Paper

The black rotting gaping cavity
That yawned open in my heart
Spewed its venom through my veins
Filled my blood with dark pain

Aching in my fingertips
Blurring my brain's attempt to make peace
Leaving me a shell of what I was
Racking me with anger, tears, fear, clutching, grasping, gasping, sobbing

Swirling like a witches brew
Poisoning my breath
Withering my spirit

It took me
It broke me
I lost me

I feel it flowing out of me
Through the tip of my pen
My soul starts to tingle back to life
I hear you laughing
I put you everywhere you belong
Healing the raw open sores
That blighted the places where I loved you

It escapes through my tears
Trickles from my eyes, black and sour
It flows from my every footfall as I determinedly crunch through
the February snow

Your words, your faith in me
Your smile
Replaces the pain

The memories wash over me
Rinsing, cleansing, mending
I use them to plug the holes
Recirculate them to reinforce my strength

Pushing out the black
Inviting in the light

The world is so much worse
Without you here
But I know you can't come back
So I'll keep sending the pain out
And letting the good in

For you.

Swallowed

All is white
Muffling blanketing coating of white snow
Monochrome unchanging steely white sky
Imperceptible yet deafening silence
White noise
White house, white door, windows draped
In curtains of solid
White

My muted footsteps crunch across the white
My white breath puffs in front of me
White crystals form on my eyebrows
The chill of the air nips at my white cheeks

I feel it before I see it
A magnetic sucking, drawing all towards it
A glimmer of dark on the ivory landscape
Sound breaks through the static
A growl - a starved stomach, a wounded animal

My face turns away, determined, looking homeward
Traitor feet, though, step toward
The black mirage
Its energy crackles with angry darkness
Which bubbles in my chest

I move forward through the snow, closer now to it
An angry gaping mouth
A dark slash, a knife wound on alabaster skin
It's swallowing the white world

Huge chunks of white snow, like floes from icebergs
Topple inside
The white house's foundation crumbles at the edge
White cinder blocks crash into the deep

The black hole groans
Evilly satisfied
Devouring the clean, silent day
Growing larger and more powerful the more it absorbs

Examining its edge, I see two white boots
Toes perched on the precipice
Attach to legs, a torso
My heart
My eyes, alive with terror

Arms flailing
The white ground beneath me vanishing
And I am swallowed, too

January 16 2018

The world is too bright today
Sunshine blinds me
Glittering snow burns my cheeks
Laughter pierces; my eardrums vibrate painfully
Smiles warp into sharp-toothed advances

Soft fur under my hand is steel wool
The pillow under my head the jaws of life
Every bite of food
Leaves the metallic iron aftertaste
Of blood

The things that once meant something
Are fools errands, just filling time

Jokes rise into the air and freeze
Falling to the ground and shattering
Like breath on an arctic winter morning

My heart once beat with joy
Now every thump a dull ache
Squeezing, throbbing, breaking

You left, and you took the good with you
All I'm left with is artificial fluorescent light:
Harsh
Blinding
Abrasive

The world is too bright today