Dunca9n

Time,

If I die I’m dying.
Time, I know I have to kill
But I’m terrified of dying, too many sins
Too many deeds for which to be judged
I lie and tell myself I’m good enough
But time keeps counting, indifferent to the man it leaves behind.

Death,

I’m afraid,
Afraid of the day my secrets learn to speak
Afraid of the man I truly am and cannot change
Afraid of a time when I stand before myself without the mercy of a lie.
So if I die I’m dying, but I’m terrified.

Me,

Only I see myself for what I am.
The only witness to truths that can never see the light of day
So if my conscience is a witness, then my executioner lives right beside it.

What am I then if I am my own undoing, and the judge that condemns me?

I feel it too, the burn and the urge
I know how it feels because I have been there before
The loneliness that comes with the fear of being known
and the knowledge that in the end you will always be alone.

It was never about the loneliness
For some have come close enough to touch your soul
But still left you wondering if they ever really knew you.
You ache for understanding, so you offer parts of yourself you swore never to.
I know that too.

Every lie, every truth,
You bury them both deep under your ribs
Aching to tell yet hesitant to even want to be heard.
You long to be touched but do not want to be handled
I know it all.

So I sit and wonder, do you see me as I see you
Or do you feel unseen and so cannot see?
My heart yearns and reaches, starved of a touch it fears to seek
and mistakes the longing for something it must bear alone.

I know you. I know you know me too
But we stand as strangers to the things we so long for.
Fear me not, for I carry the same darkness.
So if we are both destined to be ruined by this, let us be ruined knowing we were truly never alone.

The Gravedigger

Back to their maker he sends them,
Shovel at his right shoulder, and his dirty boots
Another day, another hole, so he bends to dig
The earth resists, but he persists, his labor a ritual

His hands, a map of wrinkles, his back, a canvas of pain
He unearths the secrets, hidden beneath the plain
The dirt, a witness to his toil, the shovel, his faithful friend
Together they craft, a story that will never end

He grunts, he digs, he throws it behind him
He shapes it, he stands in it. His six feet posture almost disappears underneath

As he becomes one with the earth’s dark breath
The scent of decay, the taste of old bone
Echoes of lives lived, now forever overgrown

He grunts, he digs, in rhythm with the land
A symphony of sorrow, etched on his hand
Each shovelful a story, each hole a name
The gravedigger’s litany, an endless refrain

In this somber waltz, he’s the sole participant
Dancing with shadows, where darkness is the accompanist
Yet, in his labor, a strange solace he finds
A connection to the earth, a peace that’s left behind

Hollow
A quiet trade between absence and intensity
The things I can’t feel and those that come;
With double the vividness
This I told you, and this you accepted
And for a time I thought even numbness could recognize beauty.

You,
An echo of promises that broke before they were spoken
Yet I listened, as if silence was a word already kept.
The potential I saw turned out to be
Just an illusion
A trick of hope in low light.

I searched for the parts of me I lack in you
And for some time I thought I’d found them
A reflection dressed as meaning.
So I forgive myself, for the mistake was mine all along
For trying to fill a void, with something just as hollow.

I have faced my fears and battled my demons
I understand now,
That not every reach is an intent to hold
So I will go, guietly before the walls remember my name.

The Loveletter
A debt unpaid, a weight without end,
Shadows lingering, where love once clung.
Each memory, a reminder of a fracture;
Each breath, a burden
Each moment, a relic carved in dust.

A grave without a name, tears unceasing.
Knowledge, the curse I bear;
Yet this feeling, foreign, and I know it not.
Is it the end, or a new beginning?

“I’m unbreakable,” the lie I told myself.
I search, I claw, I beg,
Again and again, I drown in my own sorrow
But solace will not come.

Under reason and pride;
My soul rots unseen, no light, no hope.
My heart, a sword
Its bearer is dead, but still it cuts;
deeper than the ocean.

The scars I bear, a reminder
That my demons wear my own face.
Me,
a vessel of pain wrapped in dreams
And the silence became my tomb.

Now I breathe, and I live
Forgetting to remember.
And what was written dissolves into dust;
unread, unwanted, unlived.

The Trip to Ohio
I’ve been taking trips that never leave my head,
But every day I wish I were miles away from here
To skip to the moments where our hands are touching
No place I know better than the skin that covers your body
And being here, in this place by myself, it kills me.

I know all the scars on and in your body
Memorized all the places where the skin is breaking
I know your insecurities and your fears
So, I try to tell myself, another trip around the sun
And I am not losing it.

Back to Ohio
A trip I take alone,
And I know you exist, but I can’t take it with you
Promise me, you will never leave my head

I sit and talk to myself,
With morning breath in my mouth
I turn in bed and feel the emptiness
And I don’t know what to do with myself
Because my full life is there with you

Things you make me FeelLate last night, I took a double shotOne to the things I need yet never getAnd another to the things I see yet never touch.And…

MAMA