she asked for a face to face to face the face i face when i close my eyes and the faceless faces of past pain stares into my eyes

through tears and barely restrained restraint i strained to face disdain and stain

evaluating the reevaluation of revelation and evangelical restitution

she, a different she than the she that haunts my past lives of burning stares and surreptitious pain, the she that is the she of daydreams not nightmares, the she that has an understanding of the pain another she can inflict in callous disregard for innocence and shallow yet gaping wounds that never heal

in an endless void of shes and shears and shared sublime moments of sheer sadness

what will it take to fill this emptiness

drain me of all that i am and the pale white blood that once glimmered like liquid ruby but now runs stagnant through brittle tubes

i am corrupt, vile and misery given shapeless form and formless shape

unworthy and unrepentant

yet these dreams of daylight dalliances and an end to hollow fits of sober sorrow that course coarsely uncharted courses through the feeble broken residue of so much scrap and refuse that refuses to refrain from aspirations of expectations that never come to fruition

the fetid remains of remaining fruitful trickles down into a crystal chalice of childhood clambering for cohesive existence far from feelings of never good enough

and the words

the vainglorious vessels of past vestibules

they sing to me your name

make them hush

take this battered face that cannot face facing your face for fear of yet another reticulated rejection

this scarred mass of callouses and wreckless endangerment

whisper gently the hymnal of acceptance into your heavenly embrace

or cast me back into the flames of fiery fierce devotion and unreclaimed reticence

these empty echoes of egregious arrogance and unexceptional exceptions and excretions of excruciating errors

i can’t take it any longer

won’t accept it anymore

stitch my mouth and eyes shut so this ever dwindling fire chokes and sputters until all that remains are the remains of love’s last refrains

a greasy black smear across the eggshell colored tile and another trash bag of desire taken to the the curb

the discarded and disregarded equal halves of the foolish illiterate speaking in half truths and softly mumbled lies

searching for meaning in meaningless meanderings meant for meaningful missed connections and milling about mirthlessly

i tried

thus

i failed