Companion

Seeing yourself through the eyes of the people you love
Has got to be the cruelest form of heartbreak
It’s where all of your imperfections live
And the many parts of you go to die 
Second-guessing even the most basic forms of existence 
Your natural thoughts and behaviors 
Become mirrored by the eyes of others
I could have
I should have
Why didn’t I?
The burden begins to feel like a sickness
It envelopes your being with every step you take
Every thought you think
Every word you speak
Until the quiet corners become your only escape
The only places where you can hide for a little while
And you no longer have to worry about who can see you
Or what they think of you
And your only company is that black dog who’s waiting
And he doesn’t see you any differently
He doesn’t think you’re too much 
Of something you’d eventually learn he hates
Instead, he waits patiently at your feet
Accepting you for exactly who you are

Penance

I realize there is no going back,
Even if I tried 
What I replay most in my mind
Will always be stained with regret
All of the times when I should have stayed
The television blaring with repetition 
Mumbles beneath your breath, filling me with aggravation
My own anxieties hostage in another space,
Trapped in the hands of a stranger 
I am endlessly filled with sorrow for not being wiser
For not turning off my phone
For willfully ignoring my surroundings 
For the way my chest tightens
When I think about all I’ve lost
That it was all for nothing, and I can’t go back 

Woe

The walls
Scream with the violence
From the cutting room floor
And I would be remiss
If I ignored the voice it deserves
But it taunts me from the corridors
Hiding behind weathered, cracked glass
Displaced eyes looking in
But never taking enough notice
My own eyes fully aware,
Still always blind to the truth