Lungs

I gasp

My mouth reaching air

For a moment

Only a moment

Before water rushes in

Filling my cheeks

Gushing down my throat

Bubbling through my lips

Like blood

Like blood

Like blood

Only less...gelatinous

Less taste

More salt

More burn as it infiltrates

And pours into my lungs

Replacing oxygen

With salt

Grief resides

In the lungs

Implosion

When I was around 14

My knees began to crack

Crunch, creak, & groan

Every time I used the stairs

Or bent my leg at all

Crunch

It’s never hurt much

And it began so slowly

That I never stopped to worry

When I was around 14

My world completely shattered

An implosion

With catastrophic results

It hurt so severely 

That there are no words

To describe the pain

Like a million knives

Slicing me from the inside out

Sometimes I can’t help

But wonder

If the two

Are conversely

Related

Dive

Instead of bulldozing

Right through the middle

Sometimes

We need to turn around

And look back 

Within

To dive below the surface

And find the truth

The long path

Even when our minds

Are made of tsunami-sized waves

We must 

Dive deeper 

Casing

I am a shell casing

The one you dropped

Into the dirt

After firing

Forgotten

Still hot to the touch

And I will burn your fingers

If you ever remember me 

Screams

You cannot hear the screams

But that does not mean

That they are not still made of razors

And just because you see no blood

Does not mean that there is no internal bleeding

It means

That inside

We are absolutely 

Shredded. 

Ignite

I built white walls

To prevent

A misfire

But you hammered

The ignition

And my gunpowder

Shot me out

Like the bullet I am

And now

My white walls

Are red

Tsunami

The wind molests my face,

My legs, my hands, my eyes

Just when I thought 

That I stopped allowing the weather

To dictate my mental state

It rapes me

And it feels like a flashback 

Trauma

I want to cry

I want to scream

And rage

And watch everything I know

Blow away 

Into oblivion 

But then I recall

How just a few months ago,

Maybe only two,

That I wished for this exact moment

I wished for a time

When the wind would blow

And not burn my face

Not freeze my sinuses

Not crack my lips

And I wished for the time

When my hands would stop bleeding

And my skin could be exposed,

Even only an inch of it.

And I remember 

How even though I wished

For warmer days,

I did not equate warmer

With better. 

I did not allow Winter

To penetrate my bones

And turn my heart

Into a block of ice. 

Inside of me

Is far stronger

Than any gale force winds.

It takes much more than a

Tsunami

To rip me apart. 

And I will not

Will. Not. 

Allow this molestation

To break me.

I am so much more

Than the weather.

Corpus Callosum

I close my eyes and

Watch the 

Blip,

Blip,

Blip,

Of the clock’s inverted image

Underneath my eyelids.

Time’s imprint so heavy

That it refuses to go away

Even when I slam

My mind shut to it.

I watch the disconfigured clock

Slowly dissipate and then wait

For the conglomorate mess

Of mashed colors,

That I know are hiding somewhere,

If I only wait long enough. 

As they begin to appear,

I wait again

For the black line to fade 

Up, 

Up,

Up,

To separate the colors.

And I know 

I absolutely know

If I only keep trying

To push my thoughts into 

The thin black nothingness

I will eventually reach my

Corpus Callosum

And I will 

Finally

Find

Balance.