Thank you, for showing me what empty feels like.
Thank you, for showing me the depths of how much love can hurt.
Thank you, for destroying that which took a lifetime to build.
Thank you, for showing me how having hopes and dreams was worthless when standing face to face.

Thank you, for disrobing me of my well tested armor.
Thank you, for helping me count the battles by the scars as they cut so deep.
Thank you, for replacing fearless with fear.
Thank you, for telling me how wrong I always am.

Thank you, for these shackles, paralysis, and shoes that feel like cement.
Thank you, for supposedly putting me in my place.
Thank you, for keeping me from falling on my face.
Thank you, giving me a tune for my inner demon’s newest harmony.

Thank you, for making me stand alone.
Thank you, for hacking my phone.
Thank you, for being everywhere I roam.
Thank you, for not being my home.

When this anchored body is finally released,
It might just rise or just float.

So, this is what being reborn feels like,
vocally defending each step,
being squeezed through narrow passages,
hollow.

Me, we, them, you, us.
I am sure there’s enough blame to go around the merry-go-round.
I cannot make you feel the hurt, nor can I make you feel any regret.
I wish I knew how to go completely numb.
I wish I didn’t continuously feel this dumb.

Surveying the damage,
left in this wake,
is one of the key reasons,
by day I cannot concentrate,
by night, it’s me who I forsake.

So many vacant signs,
left in the windows of my heart,
A place that was once extremely exclusive to get in.

As each person moved out and walked down the hall,
Of all the numbers in my phone that do not call,
For those tricks the gullible me does still fall.

What I feel most,
is your ghost,
as it brushes past the host,
burned like toast.

It’s just awfully cold.