Halcyon

chronic bruise

they tell me i'm a negative soul,
and i think i know i am that too.
i thought that the pain would blur,
but now i think i know it won't.
i remember looking at these triggers
and feeling light and hopeful,
now i have a stubborn scar
that behaves like a chronic bruise.

how does an old wound
ache with a new pain?
i carry it with me like a relic,
a memory that never learned
the distance, or the concept of
a past that bleeds in
present tense.
you all might have just felt
the exterior squall.

I don't never get past it,
don't even pretend i do.
It stays
like it got teeth,
like it knows my hours,
like it waits till I'm quiet
and then comes back loud.

does history ever occur with
a dead pulse?
why does this song pause
and yet never end?
it is the old pain
but it hasn't aged well.
what broke then still
breaks cleanly now.

it didn't heal, it learned my routines.
time moved but it stayed behind.
i learned to live around,
never without it.
some hurts don't ever fade,
and lesson: they settle in.
pain exposes the biggest lie,
time never heals things,
you just get accustomed to it.

i survived by strangling the
noose inside my throat,
how could you all ever not see it?

it is quiet now.
silent. clean. tidied.
and now? i still live.