The Boneyard

 
We lay mangled
By some unseen hand
Well, I saw it
I don’t know if you did
Did you see your lion?
I turn my head
I can’t make eye contact
You walk away
Always stronger than I
No one can see what we carry
No one can see what we hold
It is as dark as the darkest night
I know, cliché right?
But really…
Some dark nights offer respite
When the lions don’t come
But some dark nights just let them come
Who’s really in charge?
I can’t raise my arms
I can’t move my legs
So, I surely cannot walk away
Or carry myself to another place
As you have
We lay splintered
By some crazed lunatic
Who called it love
Filthy encrusted bone sucking vampires
Who didn’t know the difference
Between soft love and harsh love
Or maybe didn’t even know
Love at all?
My architecture burns
Pelvis to shoulder
I need to run away from you
Maybe become another,
But I cannot
Do you even know why I cannot?
You drive me deeper into the woods
The woods where lions dwell
You draw them to us
With the cold stone that is your heart
Do you even have a heart?
I am thirsty
We lay dismembered
Well not you, but me
You already walked away
You were so much younger
The rocks from the road hadn’t yet
Filled your soul
Heavy
Drug you down
All the way down
At the bottom where I struggle
And cringe at the sound
Of ripping meat
Within lion’s teeth
Red muscles tearing apart
My eyes like headlights
No longer turning on
Do yours turn on?
Probably not
My silhouette isn’t even here with me
Neither is my shadow
They have both left me
Crumpled like trash
We lay camouflaged
Me and all my others
Hidden
Labeled as dead
My skull in the rubble of your
So called love
My skin peeling away like a snake
Teeth falling out, falling around
Is this what you meant to do?
Don’t worry, I can’t feel it
When you wade in the gap
That you created
Is this your paradise?
There are no palm trees
No ocean breeze
Only raspy asthmatic breathing
And trails of dried up tears
Leading toward the dry cracked earth
Where your knees bend and settle
Push and release
Where your anger sits and festers
Indistinguishable from your
Other emotions
If you have them at all
My poetry is poison
Telling everyone of your ways
One day the poison will reach you
Fill you
You’ll feel it slowly
Starting in your fingertips
Or maybe esophagus
Where your voice sits
Muted
Finally
Hands still
Actually still
No longer digging into the earth
Bringing forth the warmth and spilling it
Into the chapped cracks
Where I lay mangled.