my throat is soar from crying. these words cascade empty & useless as all these tears, and i am the shriveled, castaway shell of abandoned hope. i cover my face in melting plastic smiles and make-up to hide the ugliness, hide. i keep screaming for redemption, but there is no one to hear me but the frozen sky of impending december. the moon says i have not been through half the suffering as has she. the stars admonish that i have disappointed them yet again, tonight, and they are no longer there for me to confide in. alone, i flee darkened rooms of memory down narrow halls of fear, searching for the future i thought someone promised me. there is nothing here but illusions. and here i am, two seasons later, crumbled on the chalk-dust sidewalk to weep for a life that does not belong. here i am, clawing at the plaster as the walls close in. there's a vision of the apocalypse i hold in my mind, but i don't even believe that love can save me. i'm too angry to breathe. i have no voice for the things i need to say. my head is hollowed of its sky-blue dreams, as the pen is swallowed by a rush of raw emotion, bleeding with an honesty that strips me of innocence. i am not someone who could ever be something. i am not one of the faithless, but born into brokenness. i can never find a way to scream as loud as i feel. i am tired of saying goodbye before i ever say hello. the horizon fractures cleanly as i clutch the hourglass, shattering beneath my chaffed cold fingertips, like if we only had more time -- if i only had more strength. so buckle on fragile knees of struggle, because this is just one more beating i can't stand up to take. there is no ending and there never was a beginning, so this can go on for as long as you like. but i suspect you're already not listening.