VANITAS ― Poetry

v.

you always say everything softly,

as if you're afraid your ears will bleed out

if you speak a little too loud

and you always do everything roughly,

as if scared your hands will fall out

if you're a little too gentle

and I'm lost amidst that contrast.

because I hate how roughly you twist my heart in your hands

until it becomes a form that no longer fits in my chest,

until it gets shaped into something I

no longer recognize or can live with,

until it gets to a state where there's no coming back from

but I love how softly you whisper to me while you do it.

my death certificate gets rewritten

every time you look at me

and every mother starts the sign of the cross

every time I come closer to you

except yours, 

because she didn't love you, did she, tom?

she didn't care if you lived or died

well, when it comes to me, rest assured

close to death is when I feel most alive

and then I look at you and that's the way the wind talks

it murmurs to me in lullabies of tragedy while your fingers

rustle through my soul

and I want to know why.

I want to know why do you

raise your obsidian eyes to the sky every time someone speaks

and why do you bury them seven feet under every time

they try to reach for my cheeks

like that one time Abraxas came up to me to say hello

now we're all saying goodbye to him gathered around a tomb.

I lost count of the times, tom.

I lost count of the times you tried to meet God

in hopes you'd become better, greater than him

instead

you met the devil and became worst than him

worst than hell itself

and when you dragged me down with you

and we stopped at the gates of the underworld

I saw that even Hades was afraid of you

so tell me tom, what are you

when even the worst, most monstrous part of you

is afraid of you?

and what does that make of me, when not even the best,

most angelical part of me

is afraid of you?