breakdown

i’ve been dancing alone a little too long

my resilience corroding with each blink

i haven’t broken down like this since

well i don’t expect myself to remember

the stars were the elation

polaris in my bones

the gates were closed, buried deep

then came disintegration

anger’s a game, alleyways in the city

dodging the red, protruding spikes

why did they wait till i was older

to tell me that roses had thorns?

my fist, pale and chubby, wrapped around

the stem. hey. this isn’t red. 

your hand smacks my lips and won’t let go

won’t stop pulling away

suctioning the air until my insanity

paints the metaverse ultraviolet.

you were watching it all happen.

i used to love you.

i always wanted you to be there.

you said you were sorry you hadn’t been.

now you were.

and i only felt into the cream white chill

of indifference. was i high?

was i high? because the sun sees me angry every day but never like this.

never like whisking hair, head out

the shotgun window kind of joy

never like sprinting laps round the midnight field,

punching the briared ground

never like curling into my emptiness,

succumbing to madness back

in the ocean, realizing

that when my folk song soul is empty

of conscious life matters

it rests not in indifference

but in pain, coarse and humble

like the night of quiet lights

that i didn't know existed

until last night

one i'll always remember