i cry everytime I watch my daughter perform, everytime the darkness comes at me from all sides, everytime i think of you, everytime these walls start pushing on me and breathing becomes a chore, when the loneliness is the only flavor in my mouth, when i wake in the middle of the night from a dream where you were here in my arms

Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver

i have been betrayed for far less

i have been left beaten and nailed to a cross of my own desire for no pieces of silver, for no payment, for no reason other than the one with the hammer, the one with the nail, the one with spear to pierce my side was bored, angry over perceived wrongdoings, or because they felt they could do better

i have hung with this briar crown pressed down upon my temples, my body, my temple, desecrated for no more than whimsy

i have sat alone in the dark cave, lifeless and wrapped in a shroud for three days and when the resurrection was upon me casually said fuck you to the light and crawled farther back into the void

i am not the betrayer, i am not the betrayed, i am just another body left to decompose love ballads to an eerily quiet universe

while you sit and count your thirty pieces of silver and sharpen your spear, i sit and with open arms welcome your thrusting words of hate

your passionate lack of emotion, your silent tidings, your ignorant ignoring, your ingracious, nearly infectious, fevered unspoken distaste for the person you so callously tossed to the side

when did you decide to be my personal judas, do you remember, was it honeyed words, promises of your own thirty pieces of peace, of riches, of being swept away to a better land where all your dreams will cone true, where the things you believe you deserve will be served on dishes of the finest gold

when did you realize it was all lies

to me, from him, from yourself, to yourself

and when you came back, bloodied knees and hands, forked tongue dripping the poison from your supple mouth, and saw the body hanging from the lower case t where you placed it

was it worth it

was i worth it

when you saw the light die and my dying act was to turn away from you one last time, did you see the error of your ways

the errant anger you so willfully lashed out with, the words like swords in the hands of a drunken master, the pound of flesh you felt entitled to carved and fallen to the mud, home to the flies, the lies, the sequence of events that could have been avoided

the truth never set any one free, it never lit the path to redemption, it was a toy, a thing to be danced around but never used

thirty pieces of silver at the cost of one soul

now i only cry when i see the kids, out of pride at the only thing that matters, no more tears for you, the darkness that consumes, the cold that blankets me, none of it matters but them

take your silver and realize it is not worth the cost

silence is golden but love is priceless, a lesson you will never learn until all you have is a full coin purse and empty life, a life i hope you never find