If you must be a candle
And if I must light your wick
I will enjoy your flame
I will lose my thought in it
And know only feeling
My heart will beat in tune
With your flame’s dance.

And when you have finished burning
When your wick goes out
I will plead with Draconis to fashion a mold
I will plead with Tiamat for a wick with life
I will take your old wax
I will ask those you know
For pieces of their wax
I will take from myself
As much wax as I can give

And we will melt it all together
We will hang the wick in the mold
We will pour the wax
We will let the new candle cool
And we will light it again.

And we will expect the same of you.

I should shut my mouth
My compliments are open-handed slaps

I should close my eyes
My gaze is as a lecherous priest

I should cover my ears
Everything I hear hits me like a mack truck

I should cut my hands at the wrist
My touch is a pestilence to those I love

I am disgusting.

Why do you look at me
with that expectation in your eyes?
Why do you stare at me
like you’re waiting for me to do something brilliant?
Why do you insist that I love myself?

Go away!
Leave me the fuck alone!
I don’t want your damn compliments.
I don’t want your pseudo-compassion.

Now look what you’ve made me do.
I’ve written this trash
this absolute crap
that will mar this web page
electronic media
and will be read
by all of those close to me

It is disgusting.

I don’t write this for you
whoever you are that is reading this
This isn’t about you.

My world is a mirror
shattered through with cracks
pressed together just right
there are no lines
the reflection is perfect

They have begun to grind
these shards
press against each other
and gap apart
the noise sounds like
my teeth pressed too hard together

I no longer can tell
which is important
which is trivial
everything seems to loom
with importance
and fall to the floor
with triviality

I can brush it away with the back of my hand
at the same time I am crushed with its magnitude
Every decision weighs on my shoulders,
yet doesn’t matter for shit

The duality tears me apart
laughable, I could lay back and read a book
so urgent that it must be dealt with this instant
The decision to decide or not has me pulling out my hair

I need to let go soon
I need to let go of what I grip so tightly
I need to let go or I will go mad
I need to let go or I will go sane
I need to let go.

Whenever I tried to look
my eyes slowly rolled
the image caught up
and the focus slowly came.

My rage boiled to the surface
and was gone again
blink of an eye, they’d say
my eyes were too slow for that

Had to make sure
I was stable
before I told my body
to walk

I was too slow.

I used to lay back in that
feeling
when it washed over me.
It made me smile
I was almost someone else.

I felt myself lay back again
it felt filthy
drowning in sludge
but I could not get back up.

Trying to capture the waves
of intensity that
careened
into and through me
when she wasn’t here

The question of the
why
won’t leave me alone.
It pesters me,
gnawing on a bit of me
until I bat it away.

The alcohol has quenched
the TV static
but that is no way
to solve this puzzle.