You ask what can you do Nothing You can do nothing How can you offer what you do not have How can you heal what you cannot perceive How can you give comfort I speak with ghosts as you lay next to me So I can remember what it feels like to be seen To be understood in a way you are incapable of I don't know if you will ever be capable of learning to love me In all of the deeply intricate ways that I need Not If you can't learn to see me for who and what I actually am -gws
I don't get to run from pain It finds me It circles like a wolf pack around wounded prey I drop to my knees Paralyzed and desperate for breath Silent screams dying on my swollen lips Tear tracks on my cheeks like tattoos There's not enough rage to power a comeback I've always gotten back up But when is enough fight enough When do I get to catch a break Death by a thousand cuts is agony Maybe I just need to lay face down in the mud And let it drown me I'm too tired to take another hit -gws
That moment when you’re in freefall, just before you hit the ground to shatter apart into bitter shards of disappointment.
-gws
How do I turn down the pain?
How do I stop the loop that repeatedly plays your violent words that pierced my soul?
How do we recover from the bomb you threw at our feet so you could feel…
Better?
Superior?
Right?
I bled out from the wounds you gave me.
I died in front of you, and you didn’t even notice.
Worse, you didn’t care.
I have returned as a ghost, broken and haunted by unfinished business.
You try to act as if you genuinely care, but your concern is just damage control for your guilt.
Your guilt will eventually fade, and your resentments will return.
But I am already gone.
-gws
I used to write for you Now I only write about you You do not have the patience Or maybe the capacity for poetry -gws
"In the end, you cannot save what does not want to be saved."
"When the pain is greater than the fear, you will know what to do."
Every time your resentments flow like tidal waves
I drown in a truth that is brighter than the sun
You didn’t want this life
You didn’t want me
You thought by choosing me you were…
...making right on the injuries you inflicted
...picking the girl who would be steady and sure
...thumbing your nose at your conservative parents
...proving something to your sisters
...doing what was expected of you by your family and society
...doing what you expected of yourself
You might have loved me once
But you don’t know how to love yourself
And unless you can love yourself
You cannot love anyone else
And we all suffer
You
Me
The kids
In trying to manifest some imagined expectation you believe the world burdened you with
You have doomed us to a hollow, lonely existence
In the darkest moments, I sometimes wish you had never come back
After you walked away all those years ago
I sometimes think the man I fell in love with never returned
You went out for bread and just never came back
Only your demons returned wearing your face
Time has not been kind to us
Nor has it bred kindness in us
Though I think I really tried
But the steel in your eye and the edge in your voice
As you lay down my assigned crimes in a quiet growl
Eviscerates me over and over for
The crimes of a world that doesn't adhere to your desires
It hurts to love you
And I don’t know if I have it in me to continue to try
I am drinking sand in the desert for lack of water
And I am withering inside
So just admit that I am not what you wanted
I am what you thought you should have
A requirement on the test of Life
That allowed you to check the box of successful adulthood
"Hurt people, hurt people," I've heard it said
You are a drowning man who is blindly flailing
Endangering or scaring off those who might help
I accept your life's injury and pain
But I do not accept responsibility for it
And I cannot continue to endure your wrath to heal you
"In the end, you cannot save what does not want to be saved."
"When the pain is greater than the fear, you will know what to do."
-gws
Where did you go? Are you warm? Are you cold? Is there weather there? Where did you go? Was it hard to get there? Do you miss what you left behind? Where did you go? Were you scared to go? Can you come back to visit? Have you tried? Do you miss me? Where did you go when you left me here to wonder? Where did you go when you escaped your failing prison on a single fragile breath? Where did you go? Because I want you to come back. -gws
Words Wishes and Wisdom 