I've been afraid
Not of the truth
But of what it would do to you
I've wanted to slough the burden
Of which it weighs me down
Words have not been given
Me
That would shine a brighter light
Sufficient to reveal and yet
Dim enough so as not to blind
For it is not to you that I would send them
Neither do I expect you to listen to them
I would rather you didn't
But what comes around goes around
And I have lived vicariously through
You
For many, many years
Surely the truth will find it's way
It's own special way
I should embrace it, let it set me free
But I fear it
I fear death, too
There is something pushing against my back
Something heavy and forceful
The momentum of it's thrust
Finds a center in my chest
Where I can only imagine a heart rests
My secret room, my prayer closet
Storehouse for everything I've ever known
Wasteland of every forgotten thought and memory
Embryo of my spirit
Womb of my soul
The weight of all that follows me
Threatens to raze it all
All I ever was, pushed into nothing
I feel it strong, it doesn't stop
A vacant numbness envelopes my mind
Some kind of mental Novocaine
I see the beauty of the world
I hear the music of your voice
They crawl into open holes
And pass straight through, down the spiral
Until the spiral implodes
In upon itself
Disappearing, vanishing, out of this world
Unregistered by the attention span of a zombie
Still, there are moments of cognizance
That I would cherish fondly
If only memory would cooperate
I do not want to die
I want to disappear
I want to close my eyes and never have to open them again
I want to dissolve into nothing
I want to ride that spiral myself and find out
To where the visions travel
I want to float in an ocean of light
Millions of miles from land in any direction
I want to be able to give up everything
That makes me want to stay here
A list, by the way, which gets shorter by the year
I want to walk into the light
That condemns me on this side
I would give up heaven
To go back to the womb
To call this life a draw
Before I could get the chance to ruin so many lives
Then slice open that womb
And let the placenta drenched shell drop into a bucket
You'll never see me
The scalpel will never press cool surgical steel
Against anything I could be, would be
Into anything I am
And let my mother shed no tears
And grieve me not
I am where I always hoped to be
I am where I am
The light shows this heart of mine
That's where I want to be, too
And this may sound like something
But it's not
I will hold on to hope
Even as it dies to an ember
Invisible to the naked eye
I am a strong man
My soul has been beaten down
Many times
But I always pick it back up
Stuff it back in
Move on
Move on
Move on
And I know what love is
I just can't feel it
Which doesn't make it any less love
But it lives in a hollow place
Where it stings like a hornet
When touched
Like the poison of a catfish gill
That once slipped into the skin
Makes you never want to go fishing again
Love that can't be felt, is it worth living for?
Precious Lord, is it worth dying for?
These pills won't cure you
Hopefully they will keep the illness at bay
Bravo, pharmaceutical science
