A Carthusian Death

 I took scissors and cut my tongue out because I want you to be the last person I say "I love you" to.

I took the knife and stabbed my eyes, so your soul is the last soul I stared into.

I sharpened a pencil and stabbed my eardrums because I only wanted to remember your voice.

Mute, blind and deaf, waiting for a love I had once and will never again, but yet, I wait.

I turn my body into a prison so my dreams of you can't escape, while I wait.

I spend all day screaming your name but no one can understand the murmurs, they never did anyway.

Bloodied eyes stare at the horizon, hoping to see your silhouette break it, one day, but how will I know.

I burn to hear your voice whisper my name, but my past is my present and my future.

The only thing I can wish for is your hand on my face one day, miraculously healing me.

Restoring my eyes so I can gaze at you.

Restoring my ears to hear your voice claiming me.

Restoring my tongue so I can tell you how long I've waited....oh how long I have waited.

This dream sometimes makes me smile and laugh.

This dream sometimes seizes me in hope.

This dream sometimes chases me like a nightmare.

I rejected a world...for you.

I froze my life to give it to you, it's in my hand, take it, for it is useless to anyone else.

Crazy they call me as I reach up my hands to an empty space.  

But I see, you in my mind, reaching down, to break my vow.

Stolen...Robbed

 I spent my whole life preparing.

Preparing to be a man, a husband, a father, a provider, protector, a bringer of security and prosperity.

I take this suit of armor, dressed ceremoniously by my queen mother,  and I swear my oath to my path of life.  My father anoints my shoulders with his sword and grants it to me as mine, a splendid farewell of hope to conquer the world.

I come into this new world armed with all I was taught, armor shiny and bright, sword sharp and at the ready, Philosophy swirling in my head, covered in dreams, so fresh I could taste their birth.

Yet, I told I'm not good enough, because my love left me.

My daughters are taken away from me because I cant have success, and them too.

I'm told I cant enjoy in my worth at work, because I'm black.

And no one cares about the man in the armor, because they just want what the armor provides.

They...still don't know my name.

My philosophies are now just the ramblings of a fool. My armor, heavy and useless. My sword, given to conquer the world, now just a toy, it cuts me more than it paves a way.  Who will I protect, who will I teach, who will I raise, who will I love.  This is all I know and none of it is wanted. 

Do I walk back to the gates of my home kingdom, no horse, no parade of wealth, head hung low? No feast, no gifts, un-poured wine, just disappointed faces burnt into my soul as I go to sleep on a quiet first night back.

Wandering a world which no longer wants me. Chasing fleeting dreams.  Where do I go now, what do I do? Shed my armor, hide my sword, become...like them...hide my tears under their expectations?  Betray my soul and all I know? Hands that were willing to work, now just hanging by my side as my abandoned heart can't hold them up any more.  Stolen...robbed.

Comet

 I stood and watched you. 

An orange ball of fire trailed with flames breaking the horizon.  So high up but I could still feel the heat on my cheeks.  The rumble still reverberating through the ground, up through my feet and into my soul like a direct intended path.  For a moment you were directly over me and a tear from you dropped on my face.  I swore you penetrated my soul, but you didn't stop.  If you were screaming trying to find yourself, no one knows.  If you were in pain, no one knew.  You were on fire, chasing something or something, chasing you. I couldn't tell and you couldn't say.  Nothing looked like you in the sky that day, nothing felt like you, then or after.  

Silence now

All I see now is the tail of flames as you race to the other side and out of view.  The rumbles now a whisper and my chest now hollow...vacant. Your trail disappeared over the other horizon but you left a blaze in me, in my soul, in my mind...marked, forever. I stand in my present, alone, now a ghost as my life moves on, without you.  A coldness only your fire can warm up. Seeking, searching for a scent of your tinder.  My feet, imprisoned in a slow search to find what left me that day in someone else, since I couldn't fly to chase you. Could something so powerful be repeated?  So I went on a search.  A fool's errand.

Years pass.

A familiar rumble in the distance catches my ear.  I turn back to the horizon you first entered.  I see you. I see you lower, lower in the sky.  So low I don't have to raise my head.  Your blazing right towards me...at eye level.  My breathing speeds up, your orange ball of fire I could fit in between my fingers in the sky years ago is now a huge white circle twice my height.  Your not slowing down, you're coming right at me.  My chest recognizes your heat and immediately heats up to match yours.  I clench my fists and brace myself for impact.  Why don't I move out the way or run? Am I afraid or relieved, I cant tell.  Louder, closer, faster, the ground below my feet starts to break apart.  I close my eyes as my skin starts to burn.  Behind my clenched eyes, your light is so bright I still start to see white as you get closer.  I don't know when you hit me, I didn't feel it, as if it wasn't an external event.  I know my feet are no longer on the ground. Silence now.  I'm floating, everything white, everything, slow.  My eyes still closed but my hands are no longer in a fist.  I don't know what's happening but I'm not scared.  The heat that started to burn my skin is now just a warmth cloaking me.  If I open my eyes will I see your face in front of mine?  Will I see it's your arms carrying me and your chest against mine, warming me up?  My shell has been so empty without you. Is this you coming back to stay, with me, for good? Is this a dream? I keep my eyes closed...for now.

Still Here, But Not.

 I'm still finding your hair when I clean.  A strand here and there, not as much as in the beginning.  It's like you're still here.  I feel  it drift across my hand and land so softly.  I see how strong it is yet curved in my hand seeking shelter.  I squeeze it like I don't want to let you go, but you're gone.  I close my grip somehow wishing wherever you are, you would feel my touch on your shoulder or your face.  A wish I play over and over, each time I find your hair, here.

The rip is still exposed, so many questions, so many needs, so many wants, abandoned. Why did you have to be broken, you were perfect. Or at least perfect in my mind, a mind which wanted so desperately to wish away the damage.  I climbed high because your love is so deep, I wanted to be so high I couldn't see what I didn't want to see.  

Time heals all they say, but how can time heal something that has no end.  You're not here to touch, but I remember how you smell.  I remember the pain, but in order to remember the pain I remember the love.  While I train myself to remember why I can't, I'm bombarded with why I want to.  The opposites can't exist without each other, so either I love you and be in pain or being in pain without you while my love for you exists. Both are hell.

This fight of oil and water are stuck. I am the jar imprisoning them, shaking them, trying to stir away the pain and chasing a dream they will mix so I can feel your face in my hand again. I want something I can't make happen.  A prison in and of itself, tortured by these strands of hairs, here.  The torment of having a few good days then finding one and becoming frozen, staring at it, wishing I could pull on it and pull you from where you are to right in front of me and knowing all the while it will never happen. Whichever devil created this cell, did well.

All I can do is remain silent. Do you know what it feels like to squeeze a crying heart and tell it not to cry anymore?  The pressure against your hand, the heat, the stifled beats and whimpering vibrating up your arm forcing all the thoughts of all the good times, stinging you with heated moments of passion trying to get you let go and scream out your name and run...to her.   

I feel like our love, beyond the dark, was my whole life summed up in her first name. So I don't clean my place perfectly each time so I can keep finding your hair, here.  It makes me feel like you're still here, but not.

Let it burn

 Our quarrels sparked the sharp bitter words flying out our mouths and they fell on the carpet.

We walked over them as if they were never there, ignoring the orange specs.

We wanted the pretty living room to make it go away, but the smoke started to lift.

We ignored the smell of smoke and just kept spraying air freshener and lighting incense.

When the smoke make it hard to see, just blamed each other for making us cry so much we can't see.

We moved to the bedroom and climbed into bed, hoping a new day will reset what we want to see in our heads.

When the fire backed us in separate corners, we finally ran out the front and back doors.

"What about our memories?!"

"Let it burn, we waited too long, let them release into the heavens"

"What about this house we took years to build?!"

"Let it burn, we only filled it with bitterness, pride and pain."

"We have nothing left?!"

"We never did".

Moving...on.

 I can go days without thinking about you now.
You were like a lamp, in a painting of a living room,
an expected thought, a fixture.
You were every second. Now you're a surprise.

After a few days when you pop in, it's not the
actual thought surprising me, but the fact that it's
been days since the last one.
Are you finally becoming a faded memory? Will I
one day have to puzzle at what your name was?
Should I fight to keep you alive or should I fight to
live the life in front of me.  And even that is a question, 

was the future meant without you?

So when your face, your voice, your touch visits
my wondering mind, I can't tell why anymore.
Confused whether to feel glad that you are no longer
the backsplash of my days, or wonder if the growing
distance is a warning, like fading ping when you're
going in the wrong direction. I don't know but I do
know these thoughts are not steps my actual feet
are making. Every sure footing without you is
proof of something, something that no longer
needs you, whether it be good or bad. 

I can't rewrite the past and I don't have a crystal ball
showing me what's next. But what I can do is look
at my standing feet and dare to take another
step, and another , and see that I am still here, 

breathing and still me. Will I ever forget you, I don't know. 

Your memory exists like a passing wind, it didn't change me, 

and I know another will pass again and again. 

Some I won't even notice, some I will. 

But I look at my feet and I look at my
present, here, without you...proof I can move on.
Proof I can rebuild, proof I can be alive again.
Only the heavens know what's next 

and you know what, that's quite ok. 

I stand, I dare.

10 Paces

 Our backs turned, pressed against each other, maybe for the last time. We feel the warmth of our bodies pressed in. The pressure, the heat, almost like we're holding each other for the last time.  Our troubled embrace flooding memories of ravenous nights, tangled sleep, hiding from the mornings and promises of forever.  On the other side of our backs are angry faces, tired, torn...in pain.

First Step.

The journey of the end begins, but first, we gasp, at the cold air sweeping down our backs through our clothes as we rip apart our bond. The chill of being alone sets in. We thought the world couldn't separate us, but here we are, striking the first blow.

Second Step.

We thought we'd fall and die, but the second step is our will to survive.  But all we can think about is the shock that we're actually doing this. After everything we've been through.

Third Step

Anger pushes this step.  All our failures and disappointments reminded us why we need to be here and their tears become smothered under the crunch of our heels.

Fourth Step

For the pain we caused each other, then...and now, yes, even now. Tears we showed the world then, tears we hold back now.  This must be done.

Fifth Step 

The confirmation step. Slow and almost hesitant. Columbus' ocean might as well be the distance between us now. 

Sixth Step

Memories make its last ditch effort to save us.  Visions of love making and interlocked fingers now clutching our ankles.  Our strong forward faces now pointed down, lost in sadness.

Seventh Step

Could we try again?  After all the agains and agains and agains? What we've wanted we've never been able to give each other.  Failed, time and time again.  Our love was too strong to follow this world's rules.

Eighth Step

Fear of losing each other steps in, almost overtaking the pain. 

Ninth Step

We did it. The love we thought could never be defied, now facing it's own mortality. Authored by us.

Tenth Step

Silence. Thoughts run and hide... then one final breath.

Turn....

Owed To My Dad

On my 15th birthday, you came and said, "Andre, you're a man now...it's time to go out there and learn the world". That phrase has been burnt into my hands, my feet, my eyes.  I watched you as you would drive your sleeping family on Sunday nights back from the country.  I listened, as you made me sit in the passenger seat and tell me I need to learn to be awake for the whole drive, as it will be my turn to drive my sleeping family and I will need to be vigilant. I'm not sure if you thought my young ears would not listen but I did. I listened to all your quotes and sayings over the years.  I never said thank you because, at the time, I was too young to understand or live most of them, but as I went out into the world, they would become my sword and shield.  

We butted heads because you wanted me to be a doctor but when my life was upside down, I joined the health industry becoming a fitness mentor helping people with their health and I was successful at it, as a matter of fact, that's how I met the woman of my dreams.  And look at where I am now, soaring in leadership in the largest Hospital network in the Northeast USA.  I may not hold a scalpel but I've been affecting lives on a daily basis...you win.  

We butted heads again when you wanted me to be a pilot, but I have become a pilot, a pilot of my life. I went out there and took charge, took chances, I figured things out, I did what I had to do, and now I've climbed to heights with even more to soar in this endless horizon I am no longer afraid of.  I'm high on life dad, thanks to you...you win, again.

Whenever a challenge presents itself in my life, regardless of my actions, you're words and mom's words always come to mind first. They're tattooed in my mind guiding me and keeping me safe.  I thought I would never be as great as you, so I never acknowledged my own accomplishments.  But the people I now love and cherish have shown me I have much to celebrate and though not in the exact footsteps, they have shown me my greatness, a greatness worthy of acknowledgment.  They say "Like father, like son", I used to shy away from that saying, now I wear it proud.  As I move further into my own journey of life, I want you to know you have armed me well. You have raised an intelligent, strong, capable and proud son.  I conquer anything I put my mind to, in my name and yours and I want you to know I remain graced to be your son, proud to use my sword and shield, confident that what you have taught me can be taken to the Bank of Life any day, any time.  Being lucky to be your son has not only charged me with having a fruitful life, but determined to carry your vision as my own and pass down this sword and shield, making you live...forever. Thanks Daddy.

The Receipt

 You walk around with my heart in your back pocket like an old receipt you forgot about.

You smile, hang out with friends, laugh, drink, while I'm there, stifled,  hidden...forgotten.

No clue I'm there, no clue how much I loved you, no clue how much I'll always be in love with you.

You go home and throw your jeans on the floor, almost like trash..the way you threw me.

I end up in a washing machine and my heart gets drowned, ripped apart then burned in the dryer but you only take out the jeans. 

Your eye catches pieces of white paper, I think you finally see me and I look up with the gaze of a soul being rescued from hell.

But all you did was gather me up, crumple me, again, after all the hurt and in a final act of rejection, you throw me in the trash, now literally just as figuratively.  

I guess my circle of use and relevance is now complete.

You put those jeans on again and go out.

Pulse

Pulse

I never knew I had a pulse,

until I met you.

I never heard it's beat

Until you kissed me.

I never felt its light

Until you pulled it from the hole it was in.

I never felt alive

until you loved me.

I never thirsted for life

until you told me of your dreams.

I couldn't feel anything

until you put your hand in mine.

If my heart couldn't take it

You would give me yours.

I may lose my way sometimes

But your love will beat for us.

I woke up to a new world

Because your blood watered my soul.

Every pulse of my being now only beats for you.

Your face, your voice, your love courses through my veins.

My very existence is crafted by your smile.

With this pulse, I live.

With this pulse, I love.

Hibernate

I look up to the darkening clouds one last time to see the last sunset kiss my skin before going in.

Winds that kissed my cheek speed up and start to get angry, and rumble.  Sun rays which cascaded the mountain-side recluse and lightening descends. Only, this was not the weather turning the season, the cave I'm entering is not my home.  My paradise was you, your eyes, and arms my home. The storm coming is my guilt from my betrayal, this cave is my castaway.  Expelled from your heart, this cave is now my prison, a world without you. Nothing to do but compress my love and feel my soul crack from the inside. It wales and lashes in my chest, in my head, in my hands.  No sword to kill it, no shield to stop its sting.  I can't make it go away and it will not leave.  I will make it sleep...a silent fight, a silent struggle, a silent torment.  Curled up clutching my chest, holding it with all my might while my love for you slumbers restlessly knowing I can't give it to anyone else but you. 

Outside is pitch black now, just rain and thunder in all their fury. Rain dops so angry, when the lightning strikes they look like bars caging me in. My life rolls on like a sealed can on a conveyer belt, no one knows I'm empty.  I look like everyone else, I have to, or I would fall to my knees in agony, crippled in mourning. You look at me and you see a functioning shell, passing all the tests.  But just below my skin is a scream so soul-shattering waiting to escape.   

When will I have your face 6 inches from mine, when will our fingers be clasped while we sleep, when will your eyes show me forever.  This will never happen again. But this guilt is mine to carry until Anubis calls out to me.  I will never give it to anyone else,  While my love for you slumbers on, I will stroke its hair as I would if you were asleep beside me.  I will kiss its forehead as it is the most precious thing to me. I will lock my arms around it as I will hold no one else this tight, ever again.  I will keep my eyes closed and hold on to your image in my mind for as long as I take breath. I've had your love and with it, I need not love again, for your embrace is perfection and your kiss is an intergalactic exploration.  Our memories will soothe my years. To die alone and join the slumber of my love for you, reunited and I won't have to fight anymore. I won't have to hang my head in shame anymore.  I won't have to look at those bars or hear the thunder anymore.  I can live in the eternal Spring holding your hand and watching you smile at me.  

Until then, hibernate.

Dear Monster

Dear monster, please wake up!
This world is too cold without you, dear monster
I sent you to sleep and cast away the spell to wake you up
Dear monster, please come back.

I tried to love this world with the real me
I gave of me, to help, to love, to protect
But all this world gave back to me was pain
Dear monster please wake up.

When you protected me, we hurt them before they could hurt us.
I was able to save my heart from their scorn
I was able to walk away laughing
Not feeling a thing, because I had you
Dear monster please come back to me.

My world has been stripped like a rose in a tornado
They are cruel to me, dear monster, please wake up
They've used and ridiculed me, dear monster
I told you to go away because I wanted to feel real love
But I was wrong, I'm sorry, dear monster.

Show me your waking red eyes, old friend
Coddle me in your wings
Let me feel your firey breath
Let me hear you growl at them
Dear monster, protect me.

Let me soar though this world and feel no pain.
Burn those who come to use me
Crush those who rejected my love
Drag me away from those I thought I loved
Wrap me in your bosom.

My love will not be returned in this world
Take me away again to where I don't feel, don't care, like them.
Fly my feelings high to where they can't be reached, ever, again.
Come back to me, old friend
Let us fly and rule this world.

Invaded

Surrender your campaign

Lower your flags

Stop the drums

Stop the flutes

Call back the scouts

Tell the centuries to stand down

She approaches.

Archers down

Swords sheathed

Muskets present

Infantry at ease

Let her in.

Prepare the feast

Raise the tent

Ready the gifts

Get the dancers

She is giving her love.

Wake up the blacksmith

Fetch the goldsmith

Gather all the seamstresses

Bring the finest horses

Adorn her with my love.

Get the carpenters

Buy the finest leathers 

Hire the jewelers

Build the finest throne 

She takes her place by my side.

Open the gates

Call the Truce

Let the demons take back the blackness

Reveal the light

Her eyes now light the way.

I burned valleys

I invaded and conquered

I gave nothing back

I answered to no one

Now...I love her.

Three Kings

The Maroon in my blood is injured but still fighting
Swinging his sword, angry and charging with his last few breaths.

The Irish in my blood is hardworking and dreaming of a better tomorrow.

The Indian in my blood respects the gods that made us and understands the spirits of the universe will do what they need to do when they need to do it and not one second sooner.

Black is my blood, white is my blood, brown is my blood.
The fighter, the worker, the dreamer.

They all use my hands, they all walk with me in my journey
They all listen with me but whisper what is true.
They all use my eyes to help me see the world as it is.

Born torn, they work together to create me
A unique me, a me no one else can see
For I am three kings.

When I die, they will go their separate ways
But will forever remember the years they all walked together,
Fighting, working, dreaming.

Black

My back is strained
Forced for centuries to carry your wealth

My feet hurt
Walking endless miles barefoot on jagged rocks and hot sand.

My hands are bruised and callused
Building your mansions and farming your fields.

My mouth is dry
Save the sweat pouring from my face.

My eyes are puffed
Crying as I step over my murdered brothers.

My neck is stiff
Hung too many times

My legs are bruised
For all the times you forced my sisters' legs open.

A mere cut on my body keloids
Still traumatized from endless lashes of your whips

My eyes are deep black 
The horrors we've seen have stained them forever

But my blood is rich red
Holding the spilled blood of all the Kings you killed

You stole our crowns
So we wear Afros to remind our sons where we came from.

We walk tall 
because you stole our sisters' pride, so we step for two.

We run faster 
Because you chopped our feet and shackled our dreams

We sing louder 
because for centuries we were silenced

We laugh harder 
So our laughter can echo to our forefather's graves who knew nothing but pain and make them smile

You killed us
but we have reborn and we will continue to be reborn until we restore our rightful place.

Your swords, guns ropes and bombs can only take our flesh
You will never take our birthright 

Time will see us restored
Time will see your demise
And our great-grandchildren will laugh for us while we smile in our graves holding the hands of our ancestors.

Faster

Like a horse ridden by a demon in a hot desert until it falls and dies of heat and fatigue
Like an eagle that flew so high and so fast it forgot where it came from
Like a gas tank so empty it hisses when you open it
I've gone so fast, so high and so far, I can't tell if I'm still moving
Too scared to look left, too scared to look right, terrified to look behind.
Fast is all I know to go, doesn't matter where, just not here.

Slowing down makes me feel the pain, slowing down makes me remember.
I can't slow down, I can't feel the pain, it hurts too much.
Stopping would kill me, stopping would mean facing it, facing it all.
I just need to go, I just need to run, I just need to fly.

They all want me to give a part of me they would never give.
They all say I owe them, what about what they did to me?
They used me, they use who I was, now I owe them?
If they can't find me then they can't use me, ever, again.
This one-way flight is to save me, from them.

I feel safe in this nowhere, yes, nowhere is now my home, because nowhere doesn't exist.
They won't find me, they won't use me, ever again
I have taken a flight that has no destination and I'm urgently rushing.
My pain is my fuel and it has no end, so I will race faster and faster, forever.
Faster is how I feel alive, faster is how the pain goes away, faster is how I lock them away.

God of speed hear me, let Anubis find me not, poison his search, spare my fate.
My heart will not be weighed, my life will not be written, by them.
No more, like the dead horse, no more like the gas tank, forget me, like the eagle
I comfort my escape, I beg to evaporate these memories, let me blaze my anger 
Let me run, let me fly for you could not manage my wrath if you grab my wrist.

The Loan

Borrow my lungs.

Wait a second, it's hard to breathe, I know.

I'm still in shock since she left.

Let the singe of our burnt house sting your nose.

Coughing is going to hurt, I was in there when it burned down.

Borrow my hands.

They're dirty from crawling, begging her not to leave

I carried a lot so my arms are tired

Let them rest a while now

Those bruises on my knuckles, let them heal.

I punched more than a few holes.

Borrow my legs.

They won't want to go though

I've had enough of this road

I don't know where to go anymore.

Lost and stuck feel the same at this point.

Borrow my eyes.

No use rubbing them though

All I see is her, leaving.

The nightmares will happen even when you're awake.

Her face will haunt you, forever.

I won't apologize for the tears, they come as a package.

Borrow my heart.

shhh, it beats slow, 

but if you listen carefully, you might hear true agony echoing faintly.

I wanted to die that day so my heart is just waiting for me to commit.

Mind the bandages, it's been through too much this time.

Love robbed, love betrayed, love broken.

A cliche sonnet sang over a millennia

But wear the parts of me that hurt the most,

And maybe this is a song not yet sung.

Defiant.

Ga ahead Time, take your best shot.
I can wait.
You plan to torture me with her face forever?
Go ahead, I will see her face until my soul starves at the bottom of a black hole.
 C'mon Time, whisper her voice in my head till I go mad.
I want to be drunk of her until the sun burns every atom of my existence.

You wanna fight me Time?
You think you can beat me Time?
You think that just cuz you know her body and how her hair smells,
that you can take away the taste of her lips from my mind.
No Time, I will be right there beside you enjoying visions of her.
So bring it Time.

Bring your land of solace, 
Bring your desert of pain.
My lust for her will keep my throat wet
My love for her will turn your land of solace into a paradise.

Stand over me and whip me with years since the last time I saw her..
The blood will only remind me of her lips.
The pain will only make me yearn for her arms.
Everything you do will only burn her memory deeper in my soul.

Do you know why you will never win Time?
You can't burn passion.
For it is made from the same element you depend on to snub her out of me.
In the end I will own you Time and I, will own my memory, of her.

Her loves bathes me
Her loves sleeps me
Her love keeps me
My love is armored in infinity.

She may never be by my side 
I may never feel her warmth
I may never kiss her lips
But you Time, will never take her from me.

The Great Wall

She would stare at me when I drove.
The world didn't exist when I was beside her.
We'd sing songs in homage the night sky on the highway.
The air wasn't allowed between us when we slept.
Her body held a treasure that I'd kiss her so deep to find.
She saw her future in me and planted herself as that seed ready to grow. 
But that seed was planted outside my wall, my great wall. 
My great wall that I was so proud of. 
An inpenetrable gate, tall and strong, never to be opened.
But she waited. By god she waited and she waited some more.
What I was protecting behind that wall was so precious to me, that I didn't see her standing by the gate  waiting to give me all of her.
I thwarted her. I turned her away.
When she pulled her roots out, I realised that under the wall, the earth of my core, my own roots had entangled with hers and it ripped the ground from under me as she walked away.
Now my wall protects nothing. It's hollow ground. I searched for what I was protecting hoping I could lean on it to save me, but it wasn't there. It never was. 
She is to be my new diamond to protect. She is supposed to be the world my great wall surrounds. 
I am to protect her the way she wants to protect my heart.
I am to let her in. 
She needs to grow in me and with me.
My exposed roots bleed and wait for her.

The gate is open.

The Great Campaign

Lay down your shield
She doesn't want your protection, anymore.

Lay down your sword
She doesn't want you to fight for her, anymore.

Lay down your helmet
She doesn't need you valor, anymore.

Release your breast plate,
Let it fall to the dirt.
She doesn't need your strength, anymore.

Take off your sabaton
She doesn't want you to stand guard, anymore

Warrior unwanted.
Knight released.

Relieve your post.
March off into the night.

Love me dammit

Find a way to love me dammit!

I hurt you and you hurt me

But your face torments my mind

So find a way to love me dammit.

Like a time lapsed sunset, 

my world went into darkness when you left

I raced to find greener fields but came upon a dessert

So find a way love me again dammit

I kissed my soul into yours

we filled that jug of bliss and now it's in pieces, 

there's no one else to give it to.

So find a way love me dammit

I swear I hated you for breaking my heart

Living with a hollow in my chest

Now I cant love anyone again

So find a way to love me again dammit

You sit in your pain, well I sit in a void 

plastered with walls of your face and how we touched

Crushed by how intense our pleasure was

So find a way to love me dammit

I can't walk away, because my legs won't move

I cant love again because my heart was branded as yours

I can't feel again because my skin is you

So find a way to love me again dammit

Blaze me with your anger

Go ahead, shout your pain in my face

I can't go anywhere anyway

So find a way to love me again dammit

List out all the things I did

Guilt me with everything I did

But will bare it until you're done

So find a way to love me dammit

Cast away from your heart

but I'm chained to it

A lock that will not come off

So find a way to love me dammit

Give me back your embrace

Give me back your lips

Give me back your eyes.

Turn around and love me again...dammit!