When it really comes to it, I look away in the hallway.

My eyes guide away from your floral prints and your best friend’s glare.

The glory of destruction will not be given as your victory.

Your knife churned deep into my lung cavity and ripped out any ability to care.

The river broke against rocks and there in blood stains the tide.

How many exes must one share with the present to gloat the pain of the past?

Toss away those late night misery trips full of guilt and detachment…..people leave and it will always heal.

Nobody’s gonna apologize for the lost “I love you” or the invisibility from being ignored; I learned this through long nights of crying further into winter and the darkest aura provided by stars.

High school hit me with the dated bricks installed in 1960. All the old paint and distinct architecture that we leaned against and sat upon now crushes underneath my shoes. I’m restricted from the library under the category of drama. None of the teachers regard my value.

Chewing my food like I refused to before, I’m walking with my hand clasped into a warm companion’s grasp. Leaning and creaking down that urban paved sidewalk, embraced by the stitching of love.

All the missing days of school and anxiety filled tension clouding the air could not compare to the summer after where it dropped and swam into oblivious laughter and uncontrollable contemplation racing through each game and walk to the park we took. I do love snow cones dipped in cherry flavoring, even when it drips on my legs and sticks to my shorts.

Flares of depression explode when I return to where I grew up, deflated of fun and love, and back to the jail cell of mold and cigarette smoke. Do I have to mime my way out of the chains binding my legs from longer strides as I run? Always at night, I look far off into the lake’s direction to watch for strangers my father could send out to end my dreams. Every micro-sound and movement revamps paranoia inside my imagination and the script for the midnight horror writes itself and performs a preview for a cancelled show.

And I think it’s okay to live in a sideshow, working as the carny cleaning up the fairground. 

The roulette wheel bounced the ball, and into my lap it read:

"Hesitation follows damaged storms, in fear of a residual nightmare."

No wonder why my breath stops as I weep from the voice in my fears, telling my nightmares to hurt and maim all of those whose care I protect through the means of the man who shot actions and killed.