Blood As My Ink

If I Could Scream and Leave

There are days when I wish

It was acceptable to scream. 

To just let the thoughts and emotions 

I swallow like coals loose, 

Like they're my own little

Apocalypse.

The faces passing by,

Lives full of fine lines and shades,

Make my own seem obtuse,

Like someone spilled the last of the salt

And I got pepper.

It's time like these

When I feel most painfully alive. 

As if I had already lived happily

But died right after, and this

Is limbo. Hell would be living it all again, 

Only to realize perhaps I was

Never alive.

There are days when I wish

Whatever's over the horizon

Would dig its way under me instead.

That it'd reach through

Pull me in,

Embrace me.

I told myself once that I'd

Leave here the moment I could.

That I would wash away my past

As if ink were my blood

And paint myself a mysterious past

And become my own perfect stranger.

I'd become the storybook

Renegade post-traumatic

Mess of a disorder who'd catch girls

Like roses in my teeth, spin tires for fun, 

And chase death 

Like a sugar-high child.

I'd be lying, however, if I didn't have one

Hesitation. I would stay for the sun.

If she peeked over that horizon, I'd grab

Her rays and never let go, even if I went blind.