AN ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES TRIBUTE : POETRY COLLECTION

AWAKE AGAIN

On the sixth day, my eyes are torn open
and I hold my fate like a question mark
of an unfinished sentence,
again.

There's nothing new about falling backwards in a dream
only I can ever truly comprehend.
No crushed bones here, not yet.
No red rivulets to paint the pavement
and eventually, the whole town
that's been anticipating this grand departure
since the blue monster inside me
first learned how to breathe.
There's just an endless, weightless descent
into a vortex my tongue doesn't even have
the strength to name,
an everlasting falling.
I want to stay long enough to see the ending
but sunbeams have given me nothing but impatience this morning.

These waking hours are merely means
to tick the pain away by living through it
every harrowing minute
that bears infinity.
It strains itself into a boundless horizon
of violence packed in glares and whispers
of "Look at that freak - Theodore,"
a blue only I can envision,
and a ringing only the tunnels of my ears
can echo.
The problem is not that nobody ever listens
but because no one could decipher this language
I have been accustomed to, not yet.
It would probably be so much safer
to stay under the covers but I'm convinced
even the fabric resents my flesh.

On the sixth day, my eyes are torn open
and I take my fate into my palms
like a period to a sentence
too long to hold a coherent meaning.
This time, there's a finality.
I haven't left anyone a kiss or a promise
but what is that for, anyway?
Not all goodbyes need saying.

So I climb and climb and climb
in the name of the crash.
I'd die for that surge of adrenaline in the midst of the free-fall.
I'd die for that particular second I actually want to live.
I mean, I really want to live,
but that kind of thing is for the living
and I'm just another soul
who has not yet been buried.

Where does that leave me?

Oh, here.