by Justin Wetch
At once.
Burnt Matches
Every time we try
To rekindle
This same old match
It only burns deeper
Into the fabric
Of who I am
Until there’s nothing left
Of me
But ash.
It’s so tempting
To feel the spark
One last time.
But each time
Hurts more,
And each time
Less and less of me
Remains.
Limitless
Young and in love,
We walked the street
As the cool autumn air
Gently touched our faces.
Optimistic, unacquainted with failure,
We saw only possibility
Instead of limitations.
If only we
Could have stayed
That way.
Selfish
It’s not selfish
To do what makes you happy.
You don’t owe anyone
Anything.
Let no one lay claim to your life
To use for their own happiness.
You are your own person;
You must put yourself first.
Wind
You shattered my heart
Into a thousand tiny fragments
And tossed them to the wind
Without a care.
Explanations
I have always felt
That I owe everyone
An explanation
For everything.
You see, this is why
I have the right
To be the way
That I am
Or do
What I am doing.
But I am done giving
Explanations.
I don’t owe you
Anything.
Not a damn thing.
Unending War
There is an unending war
Between my intuition and my heart.
They want opposite things:
To love you or leave you forever.
I am afraid there will never be peace
Until it is already too late,
Until this conflict has destroyed
Any chances of moving on.
Relief
When those words left my mouth
Like bullets from a gun,
I thought the recoil would hurt me
As much as it hurt you.
I thought the world would crumble around me
And I would be awash with remorse,
Having to fight to keep strong,
Surviving in some great struggle
But the words slipped out by accident
And I didn’t feel destroyed;
All I felt
Was relief.
Embrace Your Madness
Do not let go of the chaos
That wraps itself around your soul.
Do not let the world tame you
When your spirit yearns to be free.
Embrace the madness within you
That defies the decrees of monotony.
Do not let the world cloud your light;
Do not let the world chip away
At the infinity within you.
Endless Ink
You are a bottomless well
Of pain to me.
No matter how many times
I dip my pen
Into the ink
Of us
It never runs dry.
I don’t know how it’s possible
To love
—and yet hate—
Someone
So much.
Sandcastles
I am prone to thinking
That the relationships we build
Will be permanent by default,
Standing strong against time,
Only building upward.
But relationships aren’t stone manors;
They’re sandcastles on the beach,
Modeled after the real thing,
But which only wash away
With the next tide,
Weak and immaterial,
As ephemeral as a smell
Or an idea.
Looking at You
I look at you
And instantly
Every scenario
That could have been
Springs to mind.
My soul is crushed
As I look at the space
Between us;
We could be standing closer,
Happy and in love
But not in this life.
No, in this life
I will forever be haunted
By everything
We could have been.
I would give up anything
In life
To have you.
Love Does Not Subtract
The most important thing
I have learned
From relationships
Is that you should never settle
For someone
Who makes you feel
Like you need to be
Less of yourself
To please them.
Be with someone
Who pushes you
To become
More and more
Of who
You are meant to be.
High-Rise View
I have spent so much time
Being heartbroken
Over people
Who were never really mine
To begin with.
I get attached too quickly
To grandiose ideas
Of everything we could be.
I never seem to learn
That foundations take time,
And I am far too anxious
To jump to the high-rise view
Without actually building that tall.
The Second Loss
I don’t know
Which hurt worse,
When I first lost you
Or when the memories
Began to lose their color
And the feelings
Began to lose their passion.
The pain of heartbreak
Is always twofold:
First, you lose them
And then you lose
The parts of yourself
That loved them.
Alternate Endings
I never told you how I felt about you.
I never told you I loved you.
I never told you what you meant to me.
I never told you the truth.
You carry pieces of my soul
No one else has ever seen.
Tell me, do you treasure them?
Or have you already let them go?
These alternate endings
Dangle in my hands
Like loose strings.
These are the remnants
Of all the stories
Never finished.
Growing a Rose
I have been guilty
Of falling too fast
And too hard.
I have expected rosebuds
Before the stem
Was strong enough
To support them.
I never learned to take it slowly
To build with ca
re and caution
But so it is with youthful love.
Our Bridge
I find myself regretting the way
I burned down our bridge
With such reckless anger.
I find myself sitting
At the edge of the cliff,
The sea that separates us
Stretching out before me.
I imagine that you are sitting too
At the place where our bridge
Once connected
The lands of our souls.
Do you mourn for us like I do?
Are you as obsessed as I am
With all the different ways
Our story could’ve ended?
But there’s no use sitting here
Much longer.
Hope alone could not restore
What we once had.
It’s time I moved on.
Mature Endings
I want the type of relationship
Where we wouldn’t feel the need
To delete the pictures
If it ended.
I want to catch up
Every once in a while
Over coffee
And accept that it stopped working
But be grateful for when it did.
I want to know
That if it ends,
It was despite our best efforts
And best intentions.
Know that if it ends
I will never speak badly of you
Or what we built together.
And even if
The time comes
To stop
Loving you,
I will never stop loving you.
Chapter Three
Weary
Spirits
Burns
It burns
Like acid
On exposed skin.
The world manifests its joy
In displays of grandeur,
Laughing at me
While holding me at a distance.
I built a magnificent castle,
Laying brick by brick by brick
Against miles of meadows
And perfectly-trimmed hedges.
But I am its sole occupant,
And no one else
Has ever bothered
To come see it.
And so it will decay
With my body,
Becoming nothing more than a curiosity
For archaeologists of the future.
Depression, it burns
Like acid on exposed skin.
The Desert
The desert stretches out
As far as I can see
In every direction.
The horizon
Blurs into oblivion—
There is no escape.
I am parched beyond measure;
My skin boils under the heat
Of a relentless sun.
I cannot die,
Though I wish I could
And bring an end to all this.
Though I run in one direction
With cracked bones
Piercing through paper-like skin.
I can never escape it,
Doomed
To keep running,
No respite, no end,
The panic goes on.
True Strength
They say
You will never face
A struggle
More powerful
Than you can take.
They’re wrong.
There will be many times
In your life
When you come up against things
That you cannot overcome.
And that’s okay.
True strength is not
Trying to be stronger
Than anything that may come.
True strength is being willing
To admit
That you
Are not strong enough
On your own.
The Easy Way Out
Some say medication is the easy way out.
They think that if you just
Do enough yoga,
Drink enough tea,
Or smoke enough weed,
Then somehow this mental mess
Will be magically cured
And the tides
Of imbalanced chemicals
Will somehow shift
Into proper form
And there will be peace
At last. . . .
If only that were true.
I’m not ashamed
To say I took the “easy way out,”
Because this is not a battle
I can win on my own
And there is so much serenity
In admitting that.
I took the easy way out
Because I am not strong enough
On my own.
The Uncertain Road
Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual.
Admitting this evokes fear.
Uncertainty. Possibility of failure. Difficulty.
The road is dark and full of obstacles.
Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual.
But this is liberating.
Uncertainty becomes adventure;
Possible failure makes success all the sweeter—
Difficulty makes it more rewarding
Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual.
Although it is fraught with peril, life’s
Uncertainty, once accepted, becomes
Its greatest source of joy and happiness.
The Train of Thought
Suddenly I am ahead of it,
Questioning its direction,
Confused, thinking that these
Ideas don’t quite sound like me.
I think it’s happening again.
I wish I were strong enough
To will this planet
To stop spinning so quickly.
I am glued in place,
Powerless to move,
In denial that this panic
Belongs to me.
I thought I was doing better
But stability does not love me back.
I hate how powerless I am
Over my own mind.
Whirl of Chaos
The day flies past
In a whirl of chaos
Flashing by
All too quickly.
Trying to slow down
And find a moment
Of peace
Feels as impossible
As stopping
The rotation of the earth
With my own two hands.
The Offer of Escape
We dance every night, you and I,
Long past the midnight hour.
Though we never touch
The temptation is always there.
Escape.
Your promises are too good to be true.
You say freedom is just a touch away
And there will be no consequences for me;
The last page will turn, the story complete.
Temptation.
Your hand, outstretched to me,
Begging for my surrender—
But for one more night, at least,
I resist, and the game starts over.
Demons
As a kid I was told
That mental illness
Is just the result
of demons
Inhabiting the body.
I was taught
That if I just prayed hard enough,
I would be set free.
Those demons
Still follow me today—
Years of suffering,
Thinking it was all my fault
For not believing hard enough
—Some scars that may never heal.
Grasping
Peace,
Elusive
As grasping
For the wind.
It moves here and there
No matter how hard you try;
You cannot take it
In your hands.
All you can do
Is sit still,
Give up all delusions
Of control,
And let peace
Find you
Where you are.
Simple Life
I wonder whether that simple life
I see walking down the street
Would make me happy.
That man with his wife
Walking with their young son—
They look so peaceful together.
I feel so lost in what I want
I do not know what life I desire
Or where it would lead me.
Writer’s Block
The pen aches to write
But the mind
Is a barren wasteland.
The soul begs to erupt
With feeling and passion
But only ash coughs out.
The heart is illiterate
Yet desperate to be understood
Scribbling nonsensical symbols.
Could Have Been
The could-have-been
Of our story
Is what really hurts.
At least if we had tried and failed,
There would be closure
And that road would be clearly marked
As a dead end.
But there is no catharsis,
Only mixed feelings—
What-ifs and I-wishes.
And we will die wondering
What we could have built
Together
If we’d tried.
Salt in the Wind
Purpose. Destiny. Calling. Meaning.
I tasted just a hint of them
In the salty air by the sea,
Coming back to this place
I had not visited
In so many years.
It was like I could feel
Who I was
The last time I was here,
And suddenly I was filled
With the most bitter remorse
Over what I had become since then: