Disappearing

I feel like I'm drowning on sand.

I'm weighted down, can't breathe it seems.

I don't quite understand how I spring leaks,

When I feel as if I'm mummifying,

            Muscles calcifying.

Brain seems to obtain more holes,

            Caverns and tunnels I hardly know where they go--

Except further down into the dark,

Down through the tree trump I spiral out,

My how the lights all seem to go out,

            All over dear broken Wonderland.

I wake in the night to my cats' paws

            Stabbing my ribs and breasts

                        As if my familiar is stabbing

            Deep holes,

                        Jabbing quick and hard,

            As if wooden stakes are missing

Their marks.

I dark not drink, as if my subconscious

Is trying to hold off the inevitable fact that I'll become cement;

I already crack with each thwack my life brings.

Mind and body.

Body, mind.

Soul?

I fear she may have flown.

            Wake me, this stasis has me gagging, gasping.

Can we just halt the clock a minute,

The second-hand stutter in my palm

            As I search for the answers?

Back through to the other side of the mirror where a hint of me awaits?

I know she's sitting there,

A smirk waiting hidden in the corner

            Of her lips.

Sui-combustio

I'm blocking, hiding

Burying feelings deep inside chests with locks and keys

But my mind screams, you must confront!

Take and unlock--

Be undone.

You need to breathe, even if it's through tears.

It's keeping you from sleep

And you, you're killing part of your soul to move forward.

Can't you confront that there is no more forward,

Just what is, allow it to grow.

I can't though I want to scream,

My subconscious rattling the bars and ribs,

I cannot, for I will drown!

Why must you haunt me?

I'm trying to live,

I'm attempting to appear free,

You know I fear a cage, even though I must conceal part of myself,

Wrapped in chains around my invisible ankles,

To keep me from running to the one that holds me--

Alas, how I wish I were held,

But when I am, I toss and turn.

I don't wish to speak

Because if I do, if I let out all that I've suffocated in my heart,

Then I open myself up, to being hurt one last time--

One last time, because once that jar of dreams is open again,

I don't see myself rising from the ashes once more.