How to Numb a Heart

They say it's a gift to be sensitive,

That emotions make us human.

But your words fall into icy hands

And fall lifeless at my bare, frozen feet.

 

Trying so hard to numb the pain,

I'm trying so desperately to freeze.

My emotions are killing me inside out,

Tell me how can I stop my heart?

 

I am a lost ship at sea drowning in salt.

Tell me how I can cut my nerves apart?

I don't care what you say my only goal

Is to find a way to numb my heart.

 

I am dying, I am drowning.  I can't hear you.

I've gone too far this time, I don't trust myself.

Am I doing this all wrong?  I just want to

Stop feeling these emotions that drown me.

 

My heart is so fragile I can feel it breaking,

I become a surgeon and try to mend the tears.

Ice spreads and grows, I keep the chemicals pressed.

To stifle my nerve endings, to save my brokenness. 

 

Tell me please what I want to hear.

I'm killing myself but can't feel the pain.

The more I scream the less I hear,

So tell me how to numb my heart.

 

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My poems are the words of my heart.  Treat them gently, humans.

 

 



unraveling

sunset fades, its colors swirl,

and melt into a purple shroud.

reds are bleeding, are dripping, into

the oncoming, devouring night.

time unravels, a mad dance through

the sky.  colors unraveling, unwinding,

into black.  black is nothing but shades

of blue so even the night is reversing.

the wind, it blows the sky to shreds, it

tears the trees and turns back the time

from running too quickly and jumping

ahead.  it's all an intricate game.

time will tear, and colors burn, as the

world grates and sparks on its heels.

you can only unravel colors so far

before the wind unwinds itself, too.

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   //it's all just a horrid game we play, dancing with our demons and shying from the light.  but if you take my hand, i can show you a better world where you are no longer alone//



Paper Bag Lungs

Breath.

Air that trickles down your

throat and fills the

paper bags in your chest.

Breathe.

Inhale the dry liquid.

Fill the paper bags.

Can you hear them crackle,

crackle

crackle

In the cavity next to your heart?

I have paper bag lungs.

They are noisy as hell.

Like

an accordion they

pump, inflate, outflate,

inhale, exhale, repeat.

Like

an accordion they

accompany every movement

with soft protests of music.

Can you hear the music?

Wheezing

Wheezing

The deathly chords play

in the paper bags I call lungs.

The sound is my orchestra.

Paper

crackles and crumples,

Yet my instruments of life

are fragile and easy to tear.

Paper

fills my chest and drowns out

the beating of my heart with

tearing, ripping, struggling gasps.

I can feel the tears leaking air.

Gasping

Gasping

Gulping to fill the paper bags.

Trying to swallow more air than I can

because my paper bag lungs are torn.

Lungs.

You never realize how much

your cardboard body needs them.

Those invisible paper accordions.

Lungs.

They are supposed to help the heart

play the music of your life in the

symphony of your breathing

Breathing

Stopping

Screaming but your lungs are gone.

Crumpled into wads of tissue.

Oh, how dangerous our paper bags can be.

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~Dedicated to all my fellow asthmatics~