Henry

wingedpiglets:

I will never hear you say
why you did it;
but I like to think it was not out of fear
of the future or
cowardice, sadness, or unbearable weight on your slim shoulders,
but rather because you saw
what others felt
and you felt it, too;
and as you sat at the ledge looking down,
it was not out of weakness that you flew,
but out of bravery to know that your message
may not be heard,
out of hope that as you fell into eternal slumber
somebody would wake up
and feel the suffering,
too.

i see you, limp

on the ground
in every room of this house
and sometimes on sidewalks
and in darkly lit places.

i’ve been sleeping with the lights
on lately, but
they don’t protect me
from the darkness
that’s entered my mind

they leave,
constantly illuminated,
the inescapable end
i discovered in your eyes
as they rolled back
into your head
on the hardwood floors
where we used to build
empires.

your civil war // a.s.m

i found you
three days after you died.
i walked into your office and
found you hunched over your desk,
your face deteriorating
into your coffee mug.

i picked you up and threw you
over my shoulder.
your knuckles dragged on the sidewalk
the entire walk home.

we wrapped you
in all your favorite scarves and
put you in a coffin
filled with salt-water taffy.
while they sang ‘der voghormia,’ i growled,
and the sky echoed me.

i growled
at your scarves and your
salt-water taffy and your
face. for the first time
in years, you looked peaceful.
i growled and growled until they
started shoveling the dirt in.

the sky boomed on the drive home.
i saw your face in the windshield,
contorted into a sneer, your eyes
glazed over, your nostrils flared.

your face in the ground,
so pale, so silent, so peaceful.
so peaceful.

der voghormia // a.s.m

i am running
in circles from
one dead end to another
with nothing to pour myself
into but the corners of these walls
that silently scream with
termites from within.

and i’m suffocating myself
with warm whispers
in ziploc bags. little
presents; promises
that were made to be broken

by gentle arms and
gentler lips.

i am inhaling stale air.

what was once
fresh is now foul,
no longer breathable, no longer able
to sustain life.

dead (end) // a.s.m

Henry

I will never hear you say
why you did it;
but I like to think it was not out of fear
of the future or
cowardice, sadness, or unbearable weight on your slim shoulders,
but rather because you saw
what others felt
and you felt it, too;
and as you sat at the ledge looking down,
it was not out of weakness that you flew,
but out of bravery to know that your message
may not be heard,
out of hope that as you fell into eternal slumber
somebody would wake up
and feel the suffering,
too.

For those who jumped, and for those who didn’t jump but wish they had

When you jumped, I cried because
I wished I’d been holding your hand as you fell.
When you were gone, I screamed at the sky to
take me, too.
When I was alone, I was wedged
in a corner of darkness, and I had locked myself in.
I’d wished you’d carried me with you, because
I was just as trapped, just as lost; the books weighed me down, too, you know.
I was filled with just as much hate and hopelessness and
cynicism, just as thirsty for nothingness.

Now, when I laugh with my whole
heart, I wish you were here laughing, too.
When I sit in the sun and feel the Earth kiss my nose,
I wish you were beside me because
I am learning sometimes
it takes a while sitting in the sun to feel its warmth,
and sometimes when we finally
stumble out
of the darkness, it takes a while for our eyes to
adjust to the light.
But when we can finally get a glimpse of it, it is spectacular.
I wish you were here to see it.