The Past

          There is just so much time here to lose, so much love here that I am left with nothing but sadness and a sting from the bruises. It's five PM, I am lost inside, I stumbled on the cracked floor, an opening that shone from beneath. I have woken belly flopped; how strange it is the coffee shop that dings. No one is here except a man with grey hair, he is fumbling his hands inside of his jingling pockets. He has spilled his cold Styrofoam coffee; his cane jumps his stepping, as he humps with his broken back. "Hurry child there is not a lick of time." He reaches through his pocket watch, "We must carry on; we need to place you back in the foot of the door." His raspy voice speaks. My big eyes bulge out of sockets as he begins to grab me. I want to plead for mercy, but I do not. I am not strong enough to face the traumas that crawl over me, the feeling of nothingness breaks my broken bones, my heavy heart is empty, I have lost my faith. The darkness clouds my head, so that I will never escape. The scrawny man lifts my weak fragile, body to the door that spins. The light is shaking the frame, as it rumbles to crack, and fall through. I must have courage to hold out my hands. I must hold on, just a little while longer. I force myself not to listen as I am choking to breathe. I cannot stand in here alone anymore, I am afraid, so I have traveled through dreams. I can't wake up, please do not place me back inside of this hell. I am panicked as I sink, the only door I continue to see is the closet as it bangs. I beg not to stay, but I also beg to get out. 

 

 

 

 

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Hospital

        I will begin and the beginning happens to start like this, or should I say the middle or the end, I walked through the door; it started with love and that's where it ends. 

      I am banging my head, scratching my tooth, breaking my nails, reading this all over the news. I have loved, but mostly, I have lost. I have lost so much, and time is the least of my worries. I said that once before, until I got wrapped up inside of this mess. This beating heart ticks inside of my chest. My hands are shaking and everything is a blur. The confinement of this place has become the reason for my insanity. The sharp knives that still stab inside of my lonely heart, I just thought I would have more people on my side. But when it comes to love and what is right, I will choose to love every time. Now I am rethinking and retracing my footsteps. I cannot remember which ways to the places I have been. Shaken doorknobs that have been locked shut. Love is the only way out, as it is also how I found my way in. I saw her, I saw him, I saw them come for me, again.  

        The saddest part about everything, the truth that broke my heart, The agonizing pain that crawled up my spine, the blank space emptiness that covers my mind, was the hurt that I have relived. The feet that bounced inside of my shoes as they walked two steps ahead. The aches and sobbing tears that I knew were coming. Tears fall like snow and ice on the road. Tears cave me into the darkness, and I have sunken beneath the lowest of lows. Although I can see my breath fog through spasm air, I really don't care that it's cold. I have relieved it, reenacted everything two years prior to the day. I have seen everything, I have seen how it ends. What's worse than living with a broken heart is living it through twice over again. 

      I lost myself inside of the heartbreak that I must feel twice. There is so much more to love than what the outer world can see. The love that I felt and crawled myself into was pure and it was deep. The love that I watched myself feel and have, was selfless. I feel nothing as I fall to the ground. I hardly remember landing here at all. I have nothing left inside of myself to give except for this broken soul that I have to rebandage again. This taunted teasing has never quite satisfied me. The place I was once in awfully seemed a little better than this. Dark forest of love, and everything here had more feeling. Regardless, the middle never changed. As if this darkness was never enough, now I must relieve the same heartache that was the whole reason that this started in the first place. It was the reason I walked through this door, but I still have not left it. I still cannot leave; I am bound to this place. I let my guard down, how could I forget that I belonged to this mess? Life here has become a tantalizing maze all the while blood on my dress. The only way out is another separate way in. I wanted something so real it was untrue. I wanted to feel it, I wanted to know it, I wanted to have it here as my own within my possession. I just wanted the love scrounged up from my bowl and I wanted it only for myself. I'd hoped at a time it would fill this empty void, I'd hoped I would feel something deeper than the beyond, and parts of myself hates that I did. 

 "I am not crazy, I am not crazy, I am not crazy." I say as I pace back and forth beating my head with my bloody hands. It was never supposed to happen like this, but it has, and it did. Blood has stained and smeared my face. Blood that I would love to scrub and wash until my fingers are crinkled dry. Flashing headbang that sends sharp pains through my body with deathly heat waves and scorches of acid rise through my throat, crawling to come out like the bug bouncing in my home. I am rocking back and forth from the cornered parts of the closets, the cost that it takes to mend and to break. The bandages I must repair to replace. And it burns and it stings but I found the roll through this darkness of this maze. I rip the rough edges off with my teeth and hold in my painful cries as I continue to bleed. This is not the first time to hold my posture, I have to find ways to breathe for I am dizzy and faint, and I do this all the while as my body tips and leans. You haven't seen love till it breaks to bits, forced to gather your broken pieces meanwhile your hands have cuffed into shambles. You haven't known love until it is ripped from your lips. I have had everything ripped apart from myself while I am the only one who carries the kit. I am the only one who mends and sews. I am the only one who has fallen to cry while I am cut like glass, I am the only one who can save myself from these broken pieces, brokenly shamed as I am falling apart, I am broken to bits. I fall back in time and play this repeatedly over inside of my mind. The timing of love remains. I am stuck inside of this darkness, I must fend for myself, I must tend to my own wounds, I must hide the evidence as I intend to break free. 

 

 

 

-Micah Vincent