Remnants

I made my way through a stained glass cemetery,

Hoping one of these days you’d be by my side.

But every time, you’d drown in the melody,

Feeding your blank slate conscience,

All so you could sleep at night.

Meanwhile, I stayed up for hours

With my patient demons,

And all the reasons

I can’t sing anymore.

When I told you their names,

You said ‘It’s always the same...'

Slowly, in the name of all that is holy,

They took me down.

Silent, a front row seat to the violence,

You let me drown.

I choked on love that was stained with conditions.

So I buried all my blood-stained poetry

In exchange for a heart less fragile,

And a tongue less wild.

My stained glass turned to remnants.

A moth's singed wings,

A leaf's perforated textile,

All but the framework shaken to dust.

I spent every word ten times over,

Each time, sure it made its way through.

But in the end, it had nothing to do

With the phrasing,

The saline,

The internal pacing.

No matter how loudly the vows stamped

Their feet on my ribcage,

Crushing the heart that flew high above

The Crow's Nest,

Time just slipped away,

A stranger with no name,

Falling through my mind.

Was it really that hard to believe in the best of me?

Is their approval your only salvation?

Could the shadows of fear really choke out

The glory of love in a sea of chances,

The reflections of who you choose to be?

Your voice was locked in a room you deemed appropriate.

More appropriate than my mind.

More appropriate than the audacity

Of my will to face the wind

That has never left my back.

I begged for the day you’d finally be by my side.

But still, every time, you were washed out by that melody.

The one that feeds a simple breed.

Better than the pills that make you sleep...

And while you’d dream,

I’d lie awake,

My soul to take,

While patient demons bargain for my name.