Anchors, Shipwrecks And Islands

I’ve always been a vortex    
of pain and suffering  
    
a flirtatious wood-chipper    
a pyromaniac    
an island that looks like salvation    
but the shores are too shallow    
despite the bounty appearing to be    
within your grasp    
   
the wreckages off my coast….    
the body count is high    
poetically    
literally    
I keep inviting them in    
set up a light house    
set up a homestead    
with plastic smiling people    
   
All i am is a lonely desert    
there’s no water    
no succour    
just a pretty veneer slapped onto    
a broken tundra of    
empty void    
a serve of harsh sun    
constant gnawing ache of hunger    
to suffer in the gorgeous    
strands of suffering    
   
because what else is there    
what else have I made for myself    
bar this    
   
I crawled out of a sewer    
fought tooth and nail against    
everything that walked    
my body is a tapestry    
a mural and a temple of pain    
   
every time I look back    
I realise I deserved every fucking inch of it    
even when I was too young to fight back I deserved that    
   
probably deserve more    
   
all this to say you deserved better than I am    
deserve better than I’ll ever be    
   
one time    
the only time I chased someone    
you had the grace to slow    
down a minute    
walk with me    
hold my hand a little    
encourage,    
laugh    
for a small moment    
it felt good to be alive    
felt like rain had hit my sand-blasted shores    
I was able to breathe without the constricted knot in my chest    
   
the weight of my anchors    
my past    
my decisions were not part of the bargain    
I was too stubborn to fix anything    
hoping to walk it off    
ignore the howl of the desert    
so I could spend a moment    
revelling in    
you    
   
my apology like the rest of me    
a rambling    
chaotic mess    
of sentiment and hopeless romanticism    
overlayed with that bittersweet    
agony that seems to drip from the lips of the broken    
   
I know you accept that    
know you have your own damage    
but you never rained that on me    
even fought me at first to let me know what venom you were packing    
   
know this    
you were never just a poetic blip    
you are the one    
   
I chased    
   
with all my charm and flare    
every trick I could muster    
invented some new shit on the way    
   
I thought I had something more than    
smoke but I’m empty    
I hope you know    
you were    
you are    
more than words on a screen    
   
I’ve found writing    
is too much for me    
I’m too afraid of moving    
past word filled sentiment    
   
I have no way to hone it    
or stop it    
it’s best it stays unsaid    
best I stop sending beacons into the night    
best I put down the pen    
before anyone else    
gets hurt    
   
Stick to shifting what others can’t  
be an island of my own suffering    
because all I’m cut out to be    
is the big dumb fuck    
that lifts heavy things    
that’s the pain I deserve    
most of all