When They Look You in the Eye

holding onto the dead and buried, fragile dreams he has
      shattered promises love your old looks
loving hard, feeling even harder to be loved
      battered child of empathy purged by the mind
remember when you knew you weren’t the same?

      spending his days in a tomb of shattered mind
when you came home tonight, i knew it all too well
      lending your body to the delusory, the withered
then you ask what made you, if you ever were made
      notice how the skin on your back burns?

learning the ways of those who’ve come undone before
      mended and repenting injuries you struck
yearning to be held the way you hold one of another
      descended heartbeat fading from your ears
when you lay, will you let your soul sleep this once?


                              just this once?