Melancholy & Missing Lighters

It  is easy, for the people that deny us a ride to civilization, a dollar to buy gear, or a bite to escape hunger, to forget. To forget and move on in blissful ignorance. Ignorance towards the starvation and illness just beyond their plastered walls. Walls which provide nothing more than the illusion of safety. Walls reinforced by the paper-thin illusion of laws. Both which will burn the moment the wind changes course. It is easy for them to forget that they are a tragedy away from being as stranded on death's doorstep as the trash on the street they scorn. But we do not forget, though we try. Each muscle ache, and every pound lost from our body's weight, bitterly recalls how worthless we are in every apathetic state. In a world that prides itself on the privilege of blissful ignorance. Though, can I truly blame them for their success in escaping an ugly reality and those still trapped?

My broken light, I scrounge up what I can -- The dark, So heavy -- Noise, So warped -- It hurts Inside my head, My broken sound. I search for sleep, I nod -- Another train Has gone. 

 

 If I jump from this train, will I die? Or will I be rendered paralysed? What a painful death that would be! Or would it be over quite quickly? I play with these  thoughts which tempt my fate, Gazing the steel wheels which carry my weight.

Do you count your nights awake? Hide from your life in the arms of the night, Does it take away your heart's ache? In the daylight you bleed for another's sake, Avoid the sun and bask in the moon's light, Do you count your nights awake? Number the hours, the seconds til you break, Dreading this endless war you fight, Does it take away your heart's ache? Your cries leave you to tremble and quake, The scars you carry, a heavy sight, Do you count your nights awake? You shiver, as your resolve does shake, Wearily grasping for a shred of might, Does it take away your heart's ache? Be gentle with the final breaths you take, When you elope with the reaper to be alright. Do you count your nights awake? Does it take away your heart's ache?

The pain of her death isn't gone. It never will be. But it's gotten easier to fade the pain into the background noise of a life that goes on without her. "Does that make me a bad mother?" I ask aloud as I glance into the parked SUV's rear view mirror.  I see the top corner of one of the five plastic storage bins that I keep stacked in the trunk. They're filled with Eva's heart: her book collection.  Eva had read each book in those containers at least twice. There was hardly a moment that she didn't have her nose buried in a novel. I finally peel myself out of my car. I've been sitting in there for the past hour; dreading my walk through the local park, but dreading returning to an empty house even more.  My therapist said I should "get more fresh air". Is that even an actual thing? Or is it just something people say instead of admitting that they don't know how to help you? The first thing I notice when I reach the park's foot pat...

  Dodging the sun in a Spanish moss covered wood, waiting for a ride,  I missed my stop and my skin misses the rush of the tide,   Sand stuck in my sleeping bag and clinging to my skin,  Squinting through a swollen face, burning from new rashes in this place I've too long been,   Trying to remember how to breathe in a tropical depression, a muggy melancholy that's unforgiving,  I sought refuge by a water spout yesterday, only to wake up and miss my train,   Can't sleep suspended in heat, and can't scratch this itch I've had the past week,  Losing hope in a tropical depression, waiting for and dreading rain but I guess I'll keep walking,  Let's wait for the night and just keep on walking.