Day by Day (written for the Ending Self Destruction competition)

“I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins.” – Hermann Hesse

Time heals most everything
But picking at scabs makes deeper scars
And putting the blade back in
To sever the stitches,
Peel back the skin,
Crack the ribcage open,
And pry the chest apart,
To check on tender wounds
Left across a broken heart
Is simply mutilation.

This invasive procedure
refuses to alieve or
comfort the flood
of sweet memory,
Lungs fill with blood
and aspirate;
exacerbating nightmares
of gasping for air
that’s never there
While grasping what’s left
of the stray strands of hair
that still show up from time to time;
Remnants of the last time
it felt like she was mine….
when we held each other tight
at the edge of a sunrise

But the sun always rises and the sun always falls…
And sometimes days slip away without meaning.

One breath at a time....

Step by step,
Heartbeat by heartbeat,
Day by day,
Rinse and repeat...

Searching for love inside of me,
Love to brand with the destiny
to keep for myself, exclusively,
To grow into a ball of light,
to glow through those endless nights,
Standing on my own two feet,
refusing the pain of defeat,
breathing in a sweet summer breeze.